Fort Mose

Colonial America's Black Fortress of Freedom, Second Edition

Kathleen Deagan, Darcie MacMahon, Jane Landers

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9780813081007
• eBook ISBN: 9780813075044
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: History

The illustrated story of the history and groundbreaking discovery of an important historical site, fully updated on the 30th anniversary of its first publication

More than 300 years ago, enslaved people of African descent risked their lives to escape from slavery on English plantations in South Carolina. Hearing that Spaniards in Florida promised religious sanctuary, they made their way south to St. Augustine, Florida. The Spanish established the fort and town of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first legally sanctioned free Black community in what is now the United States. This book tells the story of Fort Mose and the people who lived there.

Fort Mose traces the roots of this eighteenth-century free Black town from Africa through Iberia and Hispanic America to the colonial southeastern United States. It also tells how archaeologists, historians, local residents, teachers, and politicians worked together in the late twentieth century to bring the rich but neglected history of free Black people in the Spanish colonies to the public. The site of Fort Mose is now a major point on the Florida Black Heritage Trail and has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO Site of Memory. Research continues at the location to the present day.

This second edition is updated with new information uncovered about Fort Mose, its inhabitants, and its historical significance. It reflects recent developments in community involvement and preservation at the site. And as the first edition did, it challenges the idea that the American Black colonial experience was only that of slavery, offering a story of a courageous group of people of African descent who realized their vision of self-determination before the American Revolution.

Funding for this publication was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Spanish Sanctuary
• African Origins
• Origins of Slavery in the Americas: Africa and Iberia
• Slavery in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista
• Coming to America: Africans in the Early Colonies
• Slaves of Disease: Victims of Health
• Black Explorers and Conquistadors
• Palenques and Cimarrones: Black and Indigenous Resistance on the Spanish Frontier
• A New Social Order
• Black Militia in the Spanish Colonies
• African People in the Colonial Southeast
• Neighbors to the North: The Black Community in South Carolina
• “Giving Liberty to All”
• The Establishment of Mose: A Fortress of Freedom
• Urban Interlude, 1740–1752
• Fort Mose Resurrected
• Defending the Fort
• Life at Mose: A Cultural Cross Road
• Home and Family
• Daily Bread
• African Cowboys on the Spanish Frontier
• Catholic Converts
• Decline and Abandonment
• The Search for a Lost Fort
• A Thin Slice of Time: Excavating Fort Mose
• Reconstructing the Food of the Past
• Bits and Pieces of History
• New and Continuing Challenges
• Epilogue
• Figure Credits
• Further Reading
• Index