Fort Mose

Enslaved people from the Carolina and Georgia vicinity fled servitude and made their way to Spanish Florida. One of the earliest accounts documenting people who escaped enslavement was in 1687, the Spanish governor reported (to the Spanish Crown) the arrival of the first runaway slaves from the English, in Carolina. It was reported that eight men, two women, and a small child had escaped in a boat to Saint Augustine. These people formed the first legally sanctioned "black community" in what would become the southeastern United States (Florida). When the small community grew to more than one hundred residents, the Spanish established the fort and town. The area became known as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose a.k.a "Fort Mose." The Fort was built as part of the defense system for Spanish Florida against incursions by British combatants.

Many of the inhabitants found refuge in various places throughout Spanish Florida while living among the indigenous people of the area by fleeing persecution and enslavement through southern bound pathways and trails to La Florida. This exodus was a precursor to the more notetable "Under Ground Railroad" that was made famous by Harriet Tubman and many other abolitionist of the time period.  Few realize that bondpersons fled south into Florida almost two hundred years before the Civil War.  Acknowledging this route to freedom in 2006, the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission established a corridor that extends from Pender County North Carolina to St John's County Florida.  The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor  has been documented as a main thoroughfare for the "Underground Railroad".

Fort Mose was a multicultural community of people originally from the West and Central Africa, along with some Native Americans. Mose residents had varied cultural and religious backgrounds. Some were muslims, some were already Catholics, and some practiced local African religions. Mose's leader Francisco Menedez, was a literate Mandinga. Many of the Mandingas were Muslims and they were noted for resisting enslavement in Africa and in the Americas.

Fort Mose in St. Augustine is the site of the first legally sanctioned free African American settlement. While the fort itself no longer stands, the site it stood on still feels full of the groundbreaking history that was made there. In 1738, the Spanish governor of Florida chartered the settlement of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mosa, or  Fort Mose . This was the very first of its kind, because it was built specifically for those people fleeing slavery from the English colonies in the Carolinas.

On the shore of Robinson Creek, ¼ mile east of this marker, was the site of a Spanish mission for Indians left homeless during Queen Anne's War.

Since 1688, Negro slaves from the English colonies found refuge in Spanish St. Augustine. On March 15, 1738, Governor Manuel de Montiano freed them in the name of the King, and later formed a village for them named Gracia Real, at Mose. Here the freedmen would cultivate the ground and learn the Catholic religion. For their protection, a moated earthwork was erected, called Fort Mose.

Although the English both requested and demanded the return of the slaves, the Spanish welcomed their arrival.

In 1740, during the British attack against St. Augustine, the freedmen evacuated Mose and Scotch Highlanders occupied it. At daybreak, June 26, in a decisive blow, the Spaniards ejected the enemy from the fort and later demolished it.

The freedmen resettled the village and rebuilt the earthwork in 1752, and later formed a militia company. The British dismantled Fort Mose' during their rule in Florida.

After their return, the Spaniards rebuilt defenses at Mose in 1797. The East Florida Patriots occupied the deserted site in 1812 during their ill-fated attempt to overthrow Spanish rule. The local garrison, aided by the Negro militia and Indians, forced them to withdraw.

The Spanish King, "King Charles I" issued an edict of 1600 that allowed any African who made their way to Spanish Florida would be granted their freedom. In 1693, King Charles II officially ordered that any slave on an English plantation that could escape and make it to Spanish Florida would be granted their freedom if they became Catholic and Joined the militia. Between the late 17th and the mid-18th centuries, an unknown number of slaves from South Carolina successfully escaped to Florida. Spanish records note at least six separate groups of slaves who escaped from South Carolina to St. Augustine between 1688 and 1725. Spain’s policy toward runaways took laborers from the British colony and boosted its own colonial population to oppose the British.

Spanish Governor Manuel Montiano of St. Augustine, Florida refused to hand the escapees back to the English. He granted their freedom once they converted to Spanish Catholicism and pledged loyalty to the Spanish Crown by Serving as St. Augustine militia.

This trend would not only continue, but increase to the degree that the Spanish King enacted the Edict of 1693, “granting liberty to all [runaway slaves] . . . the men as well as the women . . . so that by their example and by my liberality . . . others will do the same” (Twyman 1999; Landers 1999).

By the early 1700s, the town of Gracia Real de St. Teresa de Mose (Fort Mose) was developing as a haven for runaways, for both runaway African Americans and Native Americans.

Born in Africa, Francisco Menéndez was brought to America as a slave in the early 1700s. 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.

 In 1733, the government in Spain outlawed the sale of runaway slaves to private citizens and offered the soldiers freedom after four additional years of service. Menéndez and several others petitioned the government for freedom that year and in 1737 they received unconditional freedom from the new Florida governor, Manuel de Montiano.

An officer from Veracruz on the left and a solder from Havana on the right (1770-1776) (Joseph Hefter 1968). Two free black militia members at Fort Mose.

Although the Antonio, George and John Proctor Historical Marker is not located at Fort Mose, this is an example of the migration some inhabitants of the maroon community. It is believed that Antonio Proctor made his way to Fort Mose in-between the years of 1776 and 1798. As noted on the historical marker,  Antonio was an interpreter for first American civilian Governor of Florida , William P. Duval. Antonio soon followed his entrepreneurial son George to Tallahassee, FL in the mid 1820's. In April 1830 Antonio Proctor purchased land in what would be called "Frenchtown" in Tallahassee Florida. It is believed by some that Antonio may have been the first free person of color documented in the 1825 census of Leon County, Florida.