The tranquillity of the end of Madison's administration was broken by new troubles with the southern Indians. General Jackson by his impulsive manner of dealing with the Indians of Florida nearly forced the United States into a war with Spain and England. The Indians had reason to complain of the injustice that had marked their treatment by the whites. Florida had become a refuge for runaway slaves from Georgia and South Carolina. The treaty of 1814 was repudiated by many of the Creeks, who resented the new settlements of the whites. Those who were most dissatisfied made common cause with the Seminoles. For a year, General Gaines, in command at the frontier, complained to the authorities at Washington of the conduct of the Indians and Spaniards. General Jackson, to whom the matter was referred, wrote to Gaines that the forts standing in Spanish territory "ought to be blown off the face of the earth, regardless of the ground they stand on." In July, a detachment of men and gunboats under Colonel Church advanced upon Fort Negro. A shot from one of the boats blew up the powder magazine. The fort was laid in ruins. Of the 324 inmates 270 were killed. Most of the survivors were wounded.
During this year, the "Washington," the first American line-of-battle ship put to sea with seventy-four guns on her decks. The first American rolling mill and plant for puddling iron-ore were built at Red Stone Bank in Pennsylvania. Bishop Asbury, the founder of Methodism in the United States, preached his last sermon at Richmond, Virginia. During the same year he died at the age of seventy-one. Other noted Americans who died this year were Gouverneur Morris of New York, and Spaulding, the reputed author of the book of Mormon.
Miranda, the South American revolutionist, expired on July 14, in a dungeon at Cadiz. A British officer who saw him shortly before his death, described him as "tied to a wall with a chain about his neck like a dog." Ever since his defeat and detention in Venezuela, his last years had been spent in captivity. He passed from prison to prison--now at San Carlos, now in Porto Rico, and finally in Spain. Miranda's failure to obtain grants of amnesty for Bolivar and his fellow rebels, when he came to terms with the Spanish general Monteverde, left him discredited with the patriots of South America. In the meanwhile, Miranda's friend, San Martin, was fighting in Chile and Peru for South American independence, and was aided in his struggle by Louis Beltran, an unfrocked friar. On July 9, the independence of Argentine was proclaimed. Pueyrredon was made President of the new republic. Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia established independent governments.