Battle of Flint River The Battle of Flint River was a failed attack by Spanish and Apalachee Indian forces against Creek Indians in October 1702 in what is now the state of Georgia . The battle was a major element in ongoing frontier hostilities between English traders from the Province of Carolina and Spanish Florida , and it was a prelude to more organized military actions of Queen Anne ' s War . The Creeks , assisted by a small number of Englishmen led by trader Anthony Dodsworth , ambushed the invaders on the banks of the Flint River . More than half of the Spanish - Indian force was killed or captured . Both English and Spanish authorities reacted to the battle by accelerating preparations that culminated in the Siege of St . Augustine in November 1702 . Background . English and Spanish colonization efforts in southeastern North America began coming into conflict as early as the middle of the 17th century . The English founding of the Province of Carolina in 1663 and Charles Town ( present - day Charleston , South Carolina ) in 1670 significantly raised tensions with the Spanish who had long been established in Florida . Traders and slavers from the new province penetrated into Spanish Florida , leading to raiding and reprisal expeditions on both sides . In 1700 , Carolina ' s governor , Joseph Blake , threatened the Spanish that English claims to Pensacola , established by the Spanish in 1698 , would be enforced . Carolina traders such as Anthony Dodsworth and Thomas Nairne had established alliances with Creek Indians in the upper watersheds of rivers draining into the Gulf of Mexico , who they supplied with arms and from whom they purchased slaves and animal pelts . The Spanish population of Florida at the time was fairly small . Since its founding in the 16th century , the Spanish had set up a network of missions whose primary purpose was to pacify the local Indian population and convert them to Roman Catholicism . In the Apalachee region ( roughly present - day western Florida and southwestern Georgia ) there were 14 mission communities with a total population in 1680 of about 8 , 000 . Many , but not all , of these communities were populated by the Apalachee ; others were from different tribes that had migrated southward to the area . The Spanish had a policy of not arming these Indians with musket s , and the Apalachee missions suffered from English and Creek raids in 1701 . In January 1702 Pierre Le Moyne d ' Iberville , the French founder of Mobile , warned the Spanish commander at Pensacola that he should properly arm the Apalachees and engage in a vigorous defense against English incursions into Spanish territory . D ' Iberville even offered equipment and supplies for the purpose . Following the destruction by raiders of the Timucua n mission of Santa Fé de Toloca in May 1702 , Spanish Florida ' s Governor Joseph de Zúñiga y Zérda authorized an expedition into the Creek territories . Battle . Zúñiga ordered Don Francisco Romo de Uriza , a Spanish captain , to San Luis de Apalachee , where he raised a force of about 800 Apalachee and Spanish from the surrounding mission communities . Uriza ' s report has not been found , so a breakdown of his force is not presently known . Word of this reached the Apalachicola community of Achita , where Carolina trader Anthony Dodsworth ( referred to in Spanish documents as " Don Antonio " ) was meeting with the local tribes . According to a report an Indian woman made to Manuel Solano , the deputy governor at San Luis , about 400 warriors , principally Apalachicolas and Chisca s , went with Dodsworth , two other white men , and two blacks , to meet the Uriza ' s force . They left Achita on roughly October 7 , the same day Uriza left Apalachee . The exact date of the battle is unknown ; the woman reporting to Solana saw the battlefield on October 18 , the day Uriza and the remnants of his force returned to the Apalachee town of Bacacua . Dodsworth assembled his force , which numbered about 500 , with the blessing of the Apalachicola chief Emperor Brim . The two forces met near the Flint River when the Apalachee made a predawn attack on the Apalachicola camp . Anticipating the possibility of this sort of attack , Dodsworth and the Apalachicolas had arranged their blankets to appear occupied and concealed themselves near the camp . When the Apalachee attacked the false camp , the Apalachicolas fell upon them . With the superiority of their weapons , the British - supported Indians routed the Spanish force . Uriza was reported to have only 300 men when he returned to Apalachee . Aftermath . The defeat immediately put Zúñiga on the defensive . He ordered the fort at San Luis to be completed and adequate supplies for a siege laid in . The battle further stirred up passions in Charles Town , where Governor James Moore had already secured approval for an expedition against St . Augustine after learning that war had formally been declared in Europe between England and Spain . His expedition departed Charles Town in November and failed in its objective , although Spanish - Indian mission communities in Guale Province were destroyed in the process . Moore , in 1704 , led an expedition against the Apalachee missions that virtually wiped them out . By the end of Queen Anne ' s War in 1713 , the English had practically depopulated present - day Georgia of Spaniards and their allied Indian tribes , leaving the Spanish in control of little more than St . Augustine and Pensacola . Two widely separated highway markers have been erected in Georgia to commemorate the battle . The Georgia Historical Commission erected a highway marker in central Georgia at in Crisp County near Georgia Veterans State Park in 1965 , and the Historic Chattahoochee Commission , in 1985 , placed a marker at in the southern Georgia town of Bainbridge .