Fort Mims massacre
part of the Creek War (1813)
The Fort Mims massacre occurred on August 30, 1813, at a fortified homestead site 35–40 miles north of Mobile, Alabama, during the Creek War. A large force of Creek Indians belonging to the Red Sticks faction, under the command of Peter McQueen and William Weatherford, stormed the fort and defeated the militia garrison.
The Red Sticks performed the massacre, killing almost all the remaining mixed Creek, white settlers, and militia at Fort Mims. Afterward, they took nearly 100 enslaved African Americans as captives. The small fort consisted of a blockhouse and stockade surrounding the house and outbuildings of settler Samuel Mims.
Background
At the time of the War of 1812, tensions within the Creek Nation caused it to divide into factions. Creek nativists known as the Red Sticks wanted to maintain tradition and argued against more accommodation of white settlers. But other Creeks, who tended to have had more trading and other relations with whites, favored adopting elements of European-American culture. The Red Stick faction from the Upper Towns opposed both land cessions to settlers and the Lower Towns' assimilation into European-American culture.
These natives were soon called "Red Sticks" because they had used the "red stick of war," a favored weapon and symbolic Creek war declaration.
The public source identifies “Fort Mims massacre” as part of the Creek War (1813). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fort, Mims and massacre.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2888531. The Library of Congress control number is sh99011498. Authority coordinates are 31.180, -87.838. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1813 and 1812.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fort Mims massacre” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.