Florida State Park Will Pay Homage to First Free Black Settlement in US

In the late 1700s, Fort Mose was home to enslaved African people seeking freedom from the English colonies farther north along the Atlantic coast.

1 minute read

May 14, 2024, 6:00 AM PDT

By Diana Ionescu @aworkoffiction


Aerial view of marshy land at Fort Mose State Historic Park in Florida.

The remnants of Fort Mose are largely buried under the marshes of Florida's Atlantic coast. | Seth / Adobe Stock

The first legally sanctioned free Black settlement in the United States — predating the Civil War by a century — will soon offer visitors a life-sized replica of the complex known as Fort Mose, which has been buried under earth and water on the Florida coast.

Sarah Enelow-Snyder describes the history and rediscovery of the fort in The Washington Post, writing, “An early iteration of the Underground Railroad in the 17th and 18th centuries brought enslaved people from English plantations in the Carolinas down to freedom at Fort Mose, which was controlled by Spanish settlers.”

After the first freedom seekers arrived in St. Augustine in 1687, more followed. Once the exodus of enslaved people began threatening the English economy to the north, the English attacked the fort multiple times, and it was eventually abandoned. “Starting in the 1980s, archaeologists uncovered the fort’s moat, clay-covered earth walls, and interior wooden buildings. They found artifacts including gun flints, flattened bullets, metal buckles, ceramics, glass bottles, burned seeds and bones from food sources.” The new replica will reimagine the fort as it would have looked when it was first built based on existing information and other Spanish forts.

Sunday, May 12, 2024 in The Washington Post

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