William Augustus Bowles

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William Augustus Bowles by Thomas Hardy

William Augustus Bowles (1763-1805), also known as Estajoca, was a Maryland-born English adventurer who served with the Maryland Loyalists Battalion as an ensign during the American Revolution having joined the British Army as a foot solider at 13.

He was officer in Royal Navy by age 15, but was cashiered for dereliction of duty for returning to late to his ship. He moved to the southern area of the United States to live with the Creek Indians and having married two wives, one Creek (the chiefs daughter) and the other Cherokee, became heir to Creek chiefdom. Pursuing his idea of an American Indian state after the end of the war he managed to get himself received by George III as 'Chief of the Embassy for Creek and Cherokee Nations' and it was with British backing that he returned to the Bahamas to train Creek Braves as pirates to attack Spanish ships. A furious Spain offered $6,000 and 1,500 kegs of rum for his capture, and when he finally was he was transported to Madrid where he was unmoved by the King of Spain's attempts to make him change sides. He then escaped, commandeering a ship and returning to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1795 along with the Seminoles, he formed a short-lived state in northern Florida known as the "State of Muskogee", with himself as its president, and in 1800 declared war on Spain. In 1803 not long after having declared himself 'Chief of all Indians present' at a trial council, he was betrayed and turned over to the Spanish and died in prison in Havana two years later. -He had been refusing to eat.