Fort Mims was the fortified home and outbuildings of Samuel Mims, with a stockade enclosing about an acre of land, a blockhouse, and sixteen buildings including the Mims family home, barns, kitchen, smokehouse, and spinning and weaving houses. The stockade was expanded to make room for the Mississippi Territorial Volunteer militia, and by August 30, more than 500 people had taken refuge inside. After the first attack through the east gate, the surviving Mississippi Territorial Volunteers moved into the main compound hoping for safety, but while they had been defending the east gate, Red Stick Creek warriors had taken control of gun ports, allowing the Creeks to fire into the fort and kill settlers and militia. In 1813, Alabama was part of the Mississippi Territory, which had been created by the U.S. Congress in 1798 and enlarged in 1804 and 1812 as the United States sought to develop the region through federal roads crossing Creek lands. That twenty-year expansion, together with international rivalries, growing American settlement, the economic decline of southeast Indian groups, and divisions within the Creek nation between those preserving their way of life and those assimilating into non-native cultures, formed the complex roots of the Creek Wars of 1813 to 1814. The attack on Fort Mims came in retaliation for the Battle of Burnt Corn Creek on July 27, 1813.