Discovering America’s first legally sanctioned free Black settlement
More than 300 years ago, in
1687, a crowded dugout canoe carrying 12 exhausted African travelers arrived in St. Augustine. They had journeyed more than
200 miles from South Carolina, where they had been enslaved by English settlers. Their flight from bondage ended in Florida where they were given sanctuary and protection from extradition.
They were the first of many African freedom seekers to reach Spanish Florida, and in 1693, the King of Spain decreed that all such escaped fugitives would be given sanctuary and eventually, freedom in Spanish Florida, as long as they converted to Catholicism and adult males served in the militia. Enslaved Africans in the English colonies moved swiftly to take advantage of this opportunity, and many people made the journey, often with the help of Yamasee Indians. It was a kind of early north to south Underground Railway.
By 1738, more than 100 people had made their way to St. Augustine, and in that year, the town and fort of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (pronounced MOSAY) was formally established about two miles north of the Castillo de San Marcos of St. Augustine. Thirty-eight men formed the Fort Mose militia, and they and their families lived at the fort.
In response to the successful Spanish-aided African resistance to enslavement, English-South Carolinian forces of Gen. James Oglethorpe laid siege to St. Augustine in 1740. The people of Mose were evacuated to the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, and Oglethorpe’s troops captured Fort Mose.
However African, Indian and Spanish forces soon routed the English and recaptured the fort in a bloody battle. The fort itself was so badly damaged during the battle that its residents moved to St. Augustine. They lived in the town as soldiers, shopkeepers, bakers, blacksmiths, scouts, sailors, cattlemen and, in at least one case, a Spanish privateer.
In 1752, Fort Mose was re-established, a second, larger fort was rebuilt close to the location of the first, and the Mose people returned to the site. They remained there until 1763 when, by the Treaty of Paris, Florida became a British colony. The 34 families then at Mose joined the Spanish evacuation and left for Cuba with the rest of the Florida colonists.
Much of what we know about Mose comes from research by Dr. Jane Landers, now at Vanderbilt University, in the archives of Spain. In 1985, a team from the University of Florida — armed with Lander’s information, historical maps and NASA multispectral imagery — was able to locate the second Fort Mose. The remnants of the first fort were nearby, submerged in the marsh mud but still visible to NASA’s sensors.
Over the next two years, our work revealed construction details of the fort itself, including a moat, the mud-plastered earth walls and the post stains from large and small buildings. One small, circular wood and thatch building was similar in form to both Florida Indian and African prototypes, and was probably the home of one of Mose’s families.
The lives of the people who lived at Mose are reflected in pieces of English, Indian and Spanish pottery; lead shot and gunflints; rum bottle fragments, animal bones, pipe stems and nails; and a few beads, buttons and buckles.
These and other artifacts formed the basis for the University of Florida’s museum exhibit on Fort Mose, which traveled America for nine years, and is now housed in a small museum at the site.
The story might well have ended there had it not been for the dedication and grass roots determination of the Fort Mose Historical Society. The Society has brought Black and white residents of St. Augustine together in a common cause — acquiring, protecting, promoting and interpreting this remarkable American site and its story.
It is largely owing to their dedicated action and the leadership of the Florida Black Legislative Caucus, that the Florida Legislature acquired the site of Mose for the people of Florida in 1986. Today, it is not only a Florida State Park but is also a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO World Slave Trade site. And there is widespread community support for reconstructing an onsite fort representation, and in fact some of the proceeds from the inaugural Fort Mose Jazz and Blues Series, which takes place Feb. 18-26 at Fort Mose State Park in St. Augustine, will go for that purpose.
Fort Mose changed the international political landscape of 18th century America, which is one reason Fort Mose is today a National Historic Landmark. But perhaps an even more important reason is symbolic. Fort Mose embodies the fight for freedom and self-determination by African-Americans in the early days of our country, and it highlights a facet of African-American history that is dramatically different from the more familiar story of slavery and oppression.