The Story of Black Forts in Florida: Fort Mose and Fort Negro

Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, or Fort Mose, was the first legally sanctioned community of freed slaves in what is now the United States. The fort is located on the eastern edge of the marsh, two miles north of St. Augustine Florida.

Established in 1738 by Colonial Spanish Florida’s Governor Manuel Montiano, Fort Mose gave sanctuary to Africans challenging enslavement in the English Colony of Carolina. Approximately 100 Africans lived at Fort Mose, forming more than 20 households. Together they created a frontier community which drew on a range of African backgrounds blended with Spanish, Native American and English cultural traditions. Fort Mose was legally sanctioned by the Spanish Government making it the first free African settlement to legally exist in what is now the United States

More than a century before the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves from the British colonies were able to follow the original “Underground Railroad” which headed not to the north, but rather south, to the Spanish colony of Florida. There they were given their freedom, if they declared their allegiance to the King of Spain and joind the Catholic Church.

Underground Railroad - St. Augustine, Florida:

"Fort Mose" Colonial America's Black Fortress of Freedom"

Fort Mose was the northern defense of St.Augustine, the nation’s oldest city, not Jamestown, Virginia. Thus, St. Augustine was founded forty-two years before the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and fifty-five years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts - making it the oldest permanent European settlement on the North American continent.

Ft. Mose Historic State Park, St. Augustine, Florida:

The discovery and verification of the events that took place in Saint Augustine and at Fort Mose have resulted in the revision of not only Florida’s but America’s knowledge of colonial history.

Dr. Larry Rivers, President, Ft. Valley State University, Ft. Valley, GA. - Author: "Rebels and Runaways, Slave Resistance in 19th Century Florida": YouTube Video

Established in 1738 by Colonial Spanish Florida’s Governor Manuel Montiano, Fort Mose gave sanctuary to Africans challenging enslavement in the English Colony of Carolina. Approximately 100 Africans lived at Fort Mose, forming more than 20 households.

Together they created a frontier community which drew on a range of African backgrounds blended with Spanish, Native American and English cultural traditions. A Maroon Fort Mose, a maroon community, was legally sanctioned by the Spanish Government making it the first free African settlement to legally exist in the United States in Spanish Florida.

Diagram of Ft. Mose:

Re-enactment of Seminole/Gullah Wars at Ft. Mose - St. Augustine, Florida:

Africans helped in forming and maintaining the settlement as both slaves and free people. Skills and knowledge gained from Africa including : blacksmithing, farming, seamstress (textiles) marina (fishing) hunting, cotton, carpentry, cattle ranching, and military techniques enabled African people to make important contributions to the St Augustine community. They formed 12% of the population, 1 of every 5 was a free person.

Hidden away in the marshes of St. Augustine, Florida is one of the most important sites in American history: the first free community of ex-slaves, founded in 1738 and called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose or Fort Mose (pronounced Moh-Say)

Grounds of Ft. Mose:

Diagram of Fort Mose:

The site of Fort Mose, where Menendez led the militia, is now designated by the United States as a National Historic Landmark. The original site was rediscovered in an archeological dig in the 1990s, and has been protected as a park. The Fort Mose Historic State Park is owned by the Florida Park Service. It is widely known as the first legally sanctioned free community of freedmen and a destination for African-American refugees from slavery. It served as a precursor to the Underground Railroad that developed during the antebellum years.

Francisco Menendez:

Military leader and former slave Birthplace: Mandingo, Africa

Born in Africa, Francisco Menendez was brought to America as a slave in the early 1700s. He was a Moor. He escaped and fled from the British territories in 1724 to St. Augustine, Florida, which was then controlled by the Spanish. After converting to Catholicism and agreeing to join the St. Augustine militia, he was granted his freedom. He rose to the rank of captain, and in 1738 he was put in charge of the first free black settlement in America, Fort Mose. Established by Florida's governor Manuel Montiano, Fort Mose became a haven for more than a hundred freed or fugitive slaves from the British colonies. Located about two miles from St. Augustine, it was set up as a fortified town to protect the Spanish from attack by the British. The community was self-governing and economically self-sustaining. Menendez also served as the commander of its militia. In 1740, the British attacked Fort Mose, and Menendez's militia successfully thwarted them. Fort Mose was rebuilt after the attack, but the community disbanded in 1763 when Spain ceded Florida to the British after the French and Indian war. Because the British laws regarding escaped slaves or freed black were far less liberal than Spanish laws, Menendez and many black residents of Fort Mose fled to Cuba. He is thought to have died in Havana.

Following the establishment of Charles Town (South Carolina) by the English in 1670, enslaved Africans began making their way down the Atlantic coast to the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, where they were offered liberty and religious sanctuary. In 1681, African and African American runaways established Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first free black town within the present-day borders of the United States. Located two miles north of St. Augustine, "Fort Mose" was a frontier community of homesteaders who incorporated incoming fugitives, slaves from St. Augustine, and Indians from nearby villages into a complex family network.

Fort Mose's militia provided Spain's northern most defense in North America, and the captain of the militia, Francisco Men´ndez, was recognized by Florida's Spanish governor as "chief" of the community.

When Florida was ceded to Britain under the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the free blacks of Mose, along with the rest of the Spanish population of Florida and their Indian allies, all left for Cuba, where they were resettled by the Spanish government. A least 251 British slaves joined the Spanish under the sanctuary policy, and many others fled to the flourishing villages of the Seminoles in North Florida.

It was the intention of the British to replicate the successes of South Carolina, making Florida a plantation province sustained through slave labor. Large numbers of enslaved Africans and African Americans were brought in to work the indigo, rice, sugar, and cotton crops.

North America Colonial Economy

RICE

COTTON

INDIGO

CORN

RUM

TOBACCO

In Khemet (Egypt) the cultivation of indigo, rice, silk, egyptain cotton and alchemy (wine) was not a new practice. The people from various Empires such as: Timbuktu, Mali, Northern Africa (Moors) new very skilled artisans.

During the Revolutionary War, British East Florida became the last loyalist haven in North America. Florida briefly reverted back to Spanish control at the end of the war, before becoming a U.S. territory in 1821.

Menéndez escaped from South Carolina and traveled to St. Augustine, Florida for freedom. Since the 17th century, Spain had been offering freedom in Florida to refugee African slaves from British colonies in exchange for their converting to Catholicism and serving four years in the militia, how the Spanish called the National Guard.[1]

Seminole Indian Houses

In Florida he aided in the defense of St. Augustine in 1727, earning his freedom and establishing his reputation for leadership. He was recognized as a subject to the King of Spain and baptized in the Catholic Church as Francisco Menendez.[2] Despite his conversion and military service, Menendez and many of his fellow militia were still slaves. When Manuel de Montiano became governor in 1737, Menendez petitioned for his freedom.

On March 15, 1738, he was granted unconditional freedom.[3] Years later, he was appointed as head of the black militia based at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (Fort Mose), built in 1738, and the overall leader of its resident community. From this base, Menendez led several raids against the colony of South Carolina,[4] and inspired further rebellion among slaves there.

In 1740, the British army marched into Florida and overran Fort Mose during the War of Jenkins' Ear. Days later Spanish and Fort Mose militia members defeated the British and prevented further invasion. Fort Mose was destroyed during this bloody battle.

Menendez took to the seas on a Spanish ship to raid English vessels. During this time he was captured by the English and sold back into slavery. He was ransomed by the Spanish and returned to Florida. After his return to Florida, he was asked to rebuild Fort Mose in 1752 and free blacks returned to the community.

Evacuation to Cuba:

They continued at Fort Mose until the British took control of East Florida in 1763, following their defeat of France in the Seven Years' War. In that settlement, the British traded territory with Spain, taking over East Florida.

Some Black Seminoles settled in Andros Bahamas, others like Menendez move to Cuba and John Horse migrated to Oklahoma then received an invite to Mexico and became a Scout for Mexican government. Mexico was no longer a slave colony of Spain.

Uploaded on May 27, 2008

Meet Bertram Newton, 83, the great-grandson of Moses Newton, one of the original Black Seminoles who founded Red Bays, Andros in 1821. Bertram Newton has since become a community leader, as a teacher at the local school and pastor of New Salem Baptist Church

Together with most of the Spanish colonists from St. Augustine, Menendez evacuated with the Fort Mose community to Cuba. There he established a similar community called St. Augustine of the New Florida.

THE NEGRO FORT:

Free Black Settlement 1816

Diagram of Fort Negro (Fort Gadseden)

When the British evacuated Florida in the spring of 1815, they left a well-constructed and fully-armed fort on the Apalachicola River in the hands of their allies, about 300 African Americans and 30 Seminole and Choctaw Indians. News of "Negro Fort" (as it came to be called) attracted as many as 800 black fugitives who settled in the surrounding area.

Under the command of a black man named Garson and a Choctaw chief (whose name is unknown), the inhabitants of Negro Fort not only provided protection for the community, but also launched raids across the Georgia border. According to the Savannah Journal, fugitives ran from as far away as Tennessee and the Mississippi Territory to seek refuge at the fort.

2016 brings the bicentennial of the destruction of the Negro Fort on the Apalachicola River in 1816. Join us to discuss the significance of that community and its people, known as maroons, Black Seminoles, African Seminoles, and freedom-seeking people. This event will highlight archaeological insights and will unveil new virtual reconstructions that help us better understand all of the early 19th-century maroon communities on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

In March of 1816, under mounting pressure from Georgia slaveholders, General Andrew Jackson petitioned the Spanish Governor of Florida to destroy the settlement. At the same time, he instructed Major General Edmund P. Gaines, commander of U.S. military forces "in the Creek nation," to destroy the Fort and "restore the stolen negroes and property to their rightful owners."

After a garrison of the Negro Fort killed a group of American sailors, General Jackson decided to destroy it.

Acknowledging that it was in Spanish territory, in April 1816, he informed Governor José Masot of West Florida that if the Spanish did not eliminate the fort, he would. The governor replied that he did not have the forces to take the fort. Jackson assigned Brigadier General Edmund Pendleton Gaines to take control of the fort. Gaines directed Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch to build Fort Scott on the Flint River just north of the Florida border. Gaines said he intended to supply Fort Scott from New Orleans via the Apalachicola River. As this would mean passing through Spanish territory and past the Negro Fort, it would allow the U.S. Army to keep an eye on the Seminole and the Negro Fort. If the fort fired on the supply boats, the Americans would have an excuse to destroy it.[21]In July 1816, a supply fleet for Fort Scott reached the Apalachicola River. Clinch took a force of more than 100 American soldiers and about 150 Lower Creek warriors, including the chief Tustunnugee Hutkee (White Warrior), to protect their passage. The supply fleet met Clinch at the Negro Fort, and its two gunboats took positions across the river from the fort. The blacks in the fort fired their cannon at the U.S. soldiers and the Creek, but had no training in aiming the weapon. The Americans fired back. The gunboats' ninth shot, a "hot shot" (a cannonball heated to a red glow), landed in the fort's powder magazine. The explosion leveled the fort and was heard more than 100 miles (160 km) away in Pensacola. Of the 320 people known to be in the fort, including women and children, more than 250 died instantly, and many more died from their injuries soon after. Once the US Army destroyed the fort, it withdrew from Spanish Florida.American squatters and outlaws raided the Seminole, killing villagers and stealing their cattle. Seminole resentment grew and they retaliated by stealing back the cattle. On February 24, 1817, a raiding party killed Mrs. Garrett, a woman living in Camden County, Georgia, and her two young children.[22][23]Fowltown and the Scott Massacre[edit On July 27, following a series of skirmishes in which they were routed by Negro Fort warriors, the American forces and their 500 Lower Creek allies launched an all-out attack under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Clinch, with support from a naval convoy commanded by Sailing Master Jairus Loomis. Garson and the Choctaw chief, among the few who survived the carnage, were handed over to the Creek, who shot Garson and scalped the chief. Other survivors were returned to slavery.

Cypress Swamps of Florida:

During the War of 1812, the British hoped to recruit the Seminole as allies in their war against the United States. In August 1814, a force of over 100 officers and men led by a lieutenant colonel of the Royal Marines, Edward Nicolls, was sent into the Apalachicola River region in Spanish Florida, where they began to aid and train local Native Americans.[5] Although Nicolls claimed he rallied large numbers of Native Americans, his efforts bore little fruit in terms of fighting, and the completion of the war ended his mission a few months after his arrival.[6]

In late November 1814, United States Major Uriah Blue, commanding a 1000-man force of Mississippi militia, Chickasaw[7] and Choctaw warriors, left Fort Montgomery (east of Mobile and west of Pensacola),[8] to seek out and to destroy the Red Stick Creeks. Present among the force was Creek War veteran Davy Crockett.[9] Being unfamiliar with the territory, and being short of provisions, Major Blue's force did not find the fort, and returned to Fort Montgomery on January 9, 1815.[10][11]

When the British evacuated Florida in the spring of 1815, they left the well-constructed and fully armed fort on (the east bank of) the Apalachicola River in the hands of their allies, about 400 fugitive slaves,[14] including members of the disbanded Corps of Colonial Marines, and a sizable number of native Indians.[15][16] News of the "Negro Fort" (as it came to be called) attracted as many as 800 black fugitives who settled in the surrounding area.

In September 1815, US Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins sent a group of 200 men to attack the fort at Prospect Bluff. The attack failed, thereby lulling the inhabitants of into a false sense of security.[17] Under the command of a black man named Garson and a Choctaw chief (whose name is unknown), the inhabitants of Negro Fort launched raids across the Georgia border. The fort, located as it was near the U.S. border, was seen as a threat to Southern slavery. The U.S. considered it "a center of hostility and above all a threat to the security of their slaves."[18]

"The Savannah Journal" wrote of it:

"It was not to be expected, that an establishment so pernicious to the Southern States, holding out to a part of their population temptations to insubordination, would have been suffered to exist after the close of the war. In the course of last winter, several slaves from this neighborhood fled to that fort; others have lately gone from Tennessee and the Mississippi Territory. How long shall this evil, requiring immediate remedy, be permitted to exist?"[19

In early 1816 the U.S. built Fort Scott on the west bank of the Flint River in the southern part of Georgia to guard the United States border between the state and Spanish Florida. Supplying the fort, however, was a problem; to take materials overland required traveling through unsettled wilderness. Major General Andrew Jackson, the military commander of the southern district, preferred supplying Fort Scott by boat using the Apalachicola River in Spanish territory. This was both easier and provided a likely casus belli for destroying the Negro Fort.

As expected, when a US naval force attempted the passage on July 17, 1816, it was fired on by the garrison at the Negro Fort, and four U. S. soldiers were killed.[20]

Ten days later, Andrew Jackson ordered Brigadier General Edmund P. Gaines at Fort Scott to destroy the Negro Fort. The American expedition included Creek Indians from Coweta, who were induced to join by the promise that they would get what they could salvage from the fort if they helped in its capture.

On July 27, 1816, following a series of skirmishes, the American forces and their Creek allies launched an all-out attack under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Clinch, with support from a naval convoy commanded by Sailing Master Jarius Loomis.

The Creek Indians and Andrew Jackson:

According to Historian William Cooper Nell, the Freedmen refused to surrender and submit themselves back into slavery, and cries of "Give me liberty, or give me death!" were repeated several times throughout the day.[3]

The two sides exchanged cannon fire, but the shots of the inexperienced black gunners failed to hit their targets. A "hot shot" (a cannonball heated to a red glow) from the American forces entered the opening to the fort's powder magazine, igniting an explosion that was heard more than 100 miles (160 km) away in Pensacola, and destroyed the fort, killing all but 30 of 300 occupants.[21] Garson, the Freedman commander, and the Choctaw chief, among the few who survived, were handed over to the Creeks, who shot Garson and scalped the chief. African-American survivors were returned to slavery.

Guerilla Warfar Seminole Against British and Andrew Jackson:

The Creek salvaged 2,500 muskets, 50 carbines, 400 pistols, and 500 swords from the ruins of the fort, increasing their power in the region. The Seminole, who had fought alongside the blacks, were conversely weakened by the loss of their allies. The Creek participation in the attack increased tension between the two tribes.[22] Seminole anger at the Americans for the fort's destruction contributed to the breakout of the First Seminole War a year later.(23)

First Seminole Wars: Seminole or Gullah Wars lasted for

Spain protested the violation of its soil, but according to historian John K. Mahon, it "lacked the power to do more."[24]

In 1818 General Jackson directed Lieutenant James Gadsden to rebuild the fort, which he did on a nearby site. Jackson was so pleased with the result that he named the location Fort Gadsden:

During the American Civil War, Confederate troops occupied the fort until July 1863, when an outbreak of malaria forced its abandonment.

In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British Royal Marines established what was known as the Negro Fort on Prospect Bluff along the Spanish side of the Apalachicola River.[2] The garrison initially included around 1,000 Britons[citation needed] and several hundred African-Americans[citation needed] who were recruited as a detached unit of the Corps of Colonial Marines, with a strength of four infantry companies. Shortly after the end of the war in 1815, the British paid off the Colonial Marines, withdrew from the post, and left the black population in occupation. Over the next few years the fort became a colony for escaped slaves from Pensacola and Georgia.[1][3]

By 1816 over 800 freedmen and women had settled around the fort; there were also friendly natives in the area. Following the construction of Fort Scott on the Flint River by Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch of the United States Army, Andrew Jackson decided that to resupply the post, they would have to use the navy to transport goods via the Apalachicola through the sovereign territory of Spain without their permission. During one of these resupply missions, a party of sailors from gunboats 149 and 154 stopped along the river near Negro Fort to fill their canteens with water. While doing so, they were attacked by the garrison of the fort and all but one of the Americans were killed.[1][3]

In response, Jackson requested permission to attack the fort, they then dispatched gunboats to reduce Negro Fort. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams justified the attack and subsequent seizure of Spanish Florida by Andrew Jackson as national "self-defense," a response to alleged Spanish and British complicity in fomenting the "Indian and Negro War." Adams even produced a letter from a Georgia planter complaining about "brigand Negroes" who made "this neighborhood extremely dangerous to a population like ours." Southern leaders worried that even a small, impoverished island of rebel slaves in the Caribbean or a parcel of Florida land occupied by a few hundred blacks could threaten the institution of slavery.

According to Historian William Cooper Nell, the Freedmen who occupied the fort "caught the spirit of liberty,--at that time so prevalent throughout our land" and "they were slain for adhering to the doctrine that 'all men are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable right to enjoy life and liberty.'"[4]

A plaque at the site of Negro Fort marking the location of the powder magazine:

As the American expedition drew near the Fort on July 27, 1816, black militiamen had already been deployed and began skirmishing with the column before regrouping back at their base. At the same time, gunboats under Master Loomis moved upriver to a position for a siege bombardment. Negro Fort was occupied by about 330 people during the time of battle. At least 200 were freedmen, armed with ten cannons and dozens of muskets. They were accompanied by thirty or so Seminole and Choctaw warriors under a chief. The remaining were women and children, the families of the black militia.

Garson was executed by firing squad because of his responsibility for the Watering Hole Massacre and the Choctaw Chief was handed over to the Creeks who killed and scalped him. The survivors were taken prisoner and placed into slavery under the claim that Georgia slave owners had owned the ancestors of the prisoners.[5] Neamathla, a leader of the Seminole at Fowlton, was angered by the death of some of his people at Negro Fort so he issued a warning to General Gaines that if any of his forces crossed the Flint River, they would be attacked and defeated. The threat provoked the general to send 250 men to arrest the chief in November 1817 but a battle arose and it became the official opening engagement of the First Seminole War.[3]

Gullah Wars: YouTube Video:

Black History - The Gullah Wars

Guapo Gwap

John Horse Seminole Indian

John Horse, also known as Juan Caballo, John Cowaya and Gopher John, was born in 1812 in Florida.seminolenation-indianterritory.orgA little skewed perspective,John Horse should have been noted or Osceoloa,Andrew Jackson was defeated by the Seminoles. The word Seminole means runaway, Gullah means Black African but their culture is closer to Sierra Leones than Angolans it was the Angolans and Kongo that revolted in the Carolina's and focused the US on Freed Blacks called Seminoles in Florida. The Muscogees came later after US had purchased Florida in order to get rid of the Seminoles as they posed a threat to slavery as shown by the Stono rebellion! Th e exodus and battles of John Horse a Black Seminole who defeated America's greatest generals took his people across the country and was given a land grant in Mexico where they allied and beat backTexas slavers where his freed people still live was never told!

The Seminole (Gullah) Wars started in Florida in 1816 and ended in 1858. Battle was fought for forty-two (42) years. The Seminoles/Gullahs never surrendered, they became known as the: Unconquered.

#fortmose #negrofort #staugustine #Menendez #Florida #seminole #JohnHorse #slave #undergroundrailroad #AndrosBahamas #colony #gullahwars #Cuba #rice #indigo #southcarolina #georgia