Battle of Flint River

In October 1702, on ground that now lies within Georgia, a combined force of Spanish troops and Apalachee Indians attempted an assault on the Creek Indians and came away defeated. This clash carries two alternate names, the Spanish-Indian Battle of 1702 and the Battle of the Blankets. It stood as a significant episode within the broader frontier conflict pitting English settlers of the Province of Carolina against Spanish Florida, and it set the stage for the more coordinated military campaigns that would follow during Queen Anne's War.

The Creeks did not face their attackers alone; a handful of English colonists under trader Anthony Dodsworth fought alongside them, and together they sprang an ambush against the invading force along the banks of the Flint River. The toll on the Spanish-Indian expedition was severe, with more than half of its men either killed or taken prisoner. In the aftermath, both English and Spanish colonial officials moved swiftly to speed up preparations that would eventually lead to the siege of St. Augustine in November of that same year.

Battle

Governor Zúñiga instructed a Spanish officer, Captain Don Francisco Romo de Uriza, to travel to San Luis de Apalachee. There he assembled roughly 800 men, drawing on both Apalachee and Spanish inhabitants from the nearby mission settlements. No copy of Uriza's own account has survived, which means the composition of his troops remains uncertain to this day.

News of these preparations traveled to Achita, a settlement within Apalachicola Province, where the Carolina trader Anthony Dodsworth, called "Don Antonio" in Spanish records, happened to be conferring with area tribes. Manuel Solano, serving as deputy governor at San Luis, later received an account from an Indian woman stating that some 400 fighters, mostly Chiscas and Apalachicolas, set out alongside Dodsworth, a pair of additional white men, and two black men, intending to confront Uriza's approaching column. This group departed Achita around October 7, coinciding with the day Uriza himself set out from Apalachee. Nobody knows precisely when the clash itself occurred. What can be said is that the woman who brought word to Solano viewed the site of combat on October 18, the same day Uriza and what remained of his men made their way back to Bacacua, an Apalachee town.

With backing from Emperor Brim, the Apalachicola leader, Dodsworth had gathered a body of fighters totaling around 500. The two opposing groups converged close to the Flint River, where the Apalachee launched a surprise assault before daybreak against the Apalachicola encampment. Dodsworth and his Apalachicola allies, having foreseen such a maneuver, arranged their bedding to give the impression of sleeping bodies while they themselves hid nearby. Once the Apalachee struck this decoy camp, the concealed Apalachicolas turned on them from their hiding places. Better armed, these Indians allied with the English overwhelmed and scattered the Spanish-led force entirely. By the time Uriza made it back to Apalachee, his ranks had reportedly dwindled to a mere 300 men.