Moore's 1704 raid: "more than 4,300 captured as slaves" (Apalachee province, January 1704)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenDisputed: argued, often by a hostile witness
Year: 1704 · Places: Florida, Carolinas, Georgia, Gulf Coast, Africa
SUMMARYMoore's 1704 raid: "more than 4,300 captured as slaves" (Apalachee province, January 1704) [Connections: Tallahassee & Orlando, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDThe Carolina assembly approved the expedition on September 7, 1703. Former governor James Moore led about 50 English colonists and roughly 1,000 Muscogee warriors; they reached Ayubale on January 25, 1704. Moore's own report claims more than 1,100 killed, 300 "removed into exile," and more than 4,300 "captured as slaves," mostly women and children, and says it was done "without one Penny charge to the Publick." Historian Alan Gallay estimates 2,000 to 4,000 Indians were enslaved in 1704 alone. Captives were resettled along the Savannah River or among the Muscogee near the Ocmulgee River; about 600 refugees went to Mobile (Bienville)
DISPUTEDMoore's numbers are a raider's boast; McCrady counts 1,400 Apalachee taken, of whom only 100 were slaves; the page notes many who left with Moore may have gone voluntarily
PATTERNThousands of Tallahassee-area Native people entered the Carolina slave system in one winter; the Library's 1708 Carolina count card (carolinas.md) shows 1,400 Indian slaves there four years later
LENS (WW9)The Apalachee did not vanish; they were carried into the same slave quarters as Africans, and their children were renamed with them
OPENTracing Apalachee captives into later "negro" or "mustee" entries in Carolina records needs deep research (Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade, 2003)
SOURCEApalachee massacre (Wikipedia), citing Moore's report as printed in Boyd et al. (1999) and Gallay (2003).