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The Battle of Flint River was a failed attack by Spanish and Apalachee Indian forces against Creek Indians in October 1702 in what is now the state of Georgia. The battle was a major element in ongoing frontier hostilities between English traders from the Province of Carolina and Spanish Florida, and it was a prelude to more organized military actions of Queen Anne's War. The Creeks, assisted by a small number of Englishmen led by trader Anthony Dodsworth, ambushed the invaders on the banks of the Flint River. More than half of the Spanish-Indian force was killed or captured. Both English and Spanish authorities reacted to the battle by accelerating preparations that culminated in the Siege of St. Augustine in November 1702. ==Background== English and Spanish colonization efforts in southeastern North America began coming into conflict as early as the middle of the 17th century. The English founding of the Province of Carolina in 1663 and Charles Town (present-day Charleston, South Carolina) in 1670 significantly raised tensions with the Spanish who had long been established in Florida.〔Arnade (1962), p. 31〕 Traders and slavers from the new province penetrated into Spanish Florida, leading to raiding and reprisal expeditions on both sides.〔Crane (1919), p. 381〕 In 1700, Carolina's governor, Joseph Blake, threatened the Spanish that English claims to Pensacola, established by the Spanish in 1698, would be enforced.〔Crane (1919), p. 384〕 Carolina traders such as Anthony Dodsworth and Thomas Nairne had established alliances with Creek Indians in the upper watersheds of rivers draining into the Gulf of Mexico, who they supplied with arms and from whom they purchased slaves and animal pelts.〔 The Spanish population of Florida at the time was fairly small. Since its founding in the 16th century, the Spanish had set up a network of missions whose primary purpose was to pacify the local Indian population and convert them to Roman Catholicism. In the Apalachee region (roughly present-day western Florida and southwestern Georgia) there were 14 mission communities with a total population in 1680 of about 8,000. Many, but not all, of these communities were populated by the Apalachee; others were from different tribes that had migrated southward to the area.〔Boyd et al, p. 10〕 The Spanish had a policy of not arming these Indians with muskets, and the Apalachee missions suffered from English and Creek raids in 1701.〔 In January 1702 Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, the French founder of Mobile, warned the Spanish commander at Pensacola that he should properly arm the Apalachees and engage in a vigorous defense against English incursions into Spanish territory. D'Iberville even offered equipment and supplies for the purpose.〔Crane (1956), p. 73〕 Following the destruction by raiders of the Timucuan mission of Santa Fé de Toloca in May 1702, Spanish Florida's Governor Joseph de Zúñiga y Zérda authorized an expedition into the Creek territories.〔Crane (1956), p. 74〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Flint River」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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