Editing Muscogee (section)

===State of Muskogee and William Bowles===
{{Further|State of Muskogee}}

[[Image:William Bowles.jpg|thumb|upright|William Augustus Bowles (1763–1805) was also known as Estajoca, his Muscogee name.]]

[[William Augustus Bowles]] was born into a wealthy [[Maryland]] [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Tory]] family, enlisting with the [[Maryland Loyalists Battalion]] at age 14 and becoming an ensign in the [[Royal Navy]] by age 15. Cashiered for dereliction of duty after returning too late to his ship at [[Pensacola, Florida|Pensacola]], Bowles escaped north and found refuge among the Lower Creek towns of the [[Chattahoochee River|Chattahoochee]] basin. He married two wives, one [[Cherokee]] and the other a daughter of the Hitchiti Muscogee chieftain [[William Perryman]], and later used this union as the basis for his claim to exert political influence among the Creeks.<ref name="Landers2010">{{cite book|author=Jane G. Landers|title=Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EdvO5XnDvWUC&pg=PT113|year=2010|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-05416-5|page=113}}</ref> In 1781, a 17-year-old Bowles led Muscogee forces at the [[Battle of Pensacola (1781)|Battle of Pensacola]]. After seeking refuge in the [[Bahamas]], he travelled to London. He was received by King [[George III]] as 'Chief of the Embassy for Creek and Cherokee Nations'; it was with British backing that he returned to train the Muscogee as pirates to attack Spanish ships.

In 1799, Bowles formed the [[State of Muskogee]], with the support of the [[Chattahoochee River|Chattahoochee]] Creeks and the [[Seminoles]]. He established his capital at [[Miccosukee, Florida|Miccosuki]], a village on the shores of [[Lake Miccosukee]] near present-day [[Tallahassee, Florida|Tallahassee]]. It was ruled by ''Mico'' Kanache, his father-in-law and strongest ally. Bowles envisioned the [[State of Muskogee]], with its capital at [[Miccosukee, Florida|Miccosuki]], encompassing large portions of present-day Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and incorporating the [[Cherokee]], Upper and Lower Creeks, [[Chickasaw]] and [[Choctaw]]. Bowles' first act was declaring the 1796 [[Second Treaty of San Ildefonso]], which drew the boundary between the U.S. and [[West Florida]], [[null and void]], because the Indians were not consulted.

He denounced the treaties [[Alexander McGillivray]] had negotiated with Spain and the U.S., threatening to declare war on the United States unless it returned Muscogee lands, and issuing a death sentence against [[George Washington]]'s [[Indian agent]] [[Benjamin Hawkins]], who won the loyalty of the Lower Creeks. He built a tiny navy, and raided Spanish ships in the [[Gulf of Mexico]], and, in 1800, declared war on Spain, briefly capturing the presidio and trading post of [[San Marcos de Apalache]] before being forced to retreat. Although a Spanish force that set out to destroy Mikosuki got lost in the swamps, a second attempt to take San Marcos ended in disaster. After a European armistice led to the loss of British support, Bowles was discredited. The Seminole signed a peace treaty with Spain. The following year, he was betrayed by Lower Creek supporters of Hawkins at a tribal council. They turned Bowles over to the Spanish, and he died in prison in [[Havana, Cuba]] two years later.<ref>[http://www.southernhistory.us/wabowles.htm Chris Kimball, "W.A. Bowles"], Southern History</ref>