Conecuh County AlArchives History .....History of Conecuh County, Alabama 1881
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com May 23, 2004, 1:03 pm

CHAPTER IV.

Indian Hostilities--Their Depredations-Early Forts, &c.
   Contemporaneous with the events already recorded, were occasional outbreaks 
from the Indians. Relics of the broken tribes were roving in small bands over 
the wide and wild waste of country. These were the remnants of the tribes 
defeated and dispersed by General Jackson in the battle of the Horse Shoe. 
Numerous were the depredations committed by these wild bands. Frequently the 
carcass of a cow would be found flayed of its skin and with the haunches 
removed. And woe betide the poor Indian who was found with traces of blood 
upon his person, or with moccasins of cowskin upon his feet. He was sure to 
become the recipient of a severe castigation at the hands of the outraged 
inhabitants. These depredations kept alive the fire of hostility between the 
white and red races. Stung with the passion of revenge, these bands of hostile 
Indians would sometimes fall unawares upon an unprotected community, and after 
speedily wreaking their vengeance, in the work of death upon the defenceless, 
would again dash off, and stealthily conceal themselves in the jungles of the 
forest. Bloody scenes were enacted upon the Forks of Sepulga and upon the 
Conecuh river. In 1818 these bands, having concentrated, felt sufficiently 
strong to threaten the extermination of the pale faces. The white settlements 
having learned of their belligerent designs, considerable alarm was produced, 
and they felt impelled to take immediate steps toward protection. By concert 
of action in the several settlements, three forts were accordingly erected-one 
near the house of Alexander Autrey, one at the fountain head of Bellville 
branch, near the present house of John H. Farnham, and one in the neighborhood 
of Burnt Corn. The implements of war, like all other works of art, were 
necessarily scant. Whatever could deal the blow of death, was laid under 
tribute and conveyed forthwith to these strongholds of protection. The armory 
of defence consisted of club axes, worn blunt by long usage; knives, old 
bayonets, gathered from the Indian battle grounds; clubs and old guns. With 
these implements of protection, the early fathers, together with their 
families, repaired to these bulwarks of defence. Feeling that "eternal 
vigilance is the price of liberty," they slept nightly upon their rude arms, 
and were ready, at the slightest alarm, to mete out death to their dusky 
assailants. As the Indians gradually retired, however, to the Big Warrior 
Nation, tranquility was restored, and by degrees the people of Conecuh resumed 
the work which High Destiny had entrusted to their hands-that of lifting the 
country from its primeval inactivity upon the plane of a progressive 
prosperity. As the slumbering resources of nature were evoked, energy was 
stimulated, ingenuity was unfolded, difficulties vanished, the boundless 
forests disappeared before the axe of advancement, and fields were everywhere 
abloom with natural increase.



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Chapter IV

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