The Black Presence in Early Florida
When emancipation came to Florida in 1865, there were approximately 63,000 Black people in Florida, all but 1,000 of them were enslaved. However, before the chattel slavery of Africans became a fact of law and custom in Florida, free Africans explored the state with Spanish colonizers. Juan Garrido, an adventurer of African descent, arrived in Florida in 1513 in the company of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon. He is credited with being the first person to plant and grow wheat in the Americas. In 1528, Estevenico the Moor, a man of African descent and a skilled wayfinder, healer, and interpreter, reached Florida with an expedition lead by Spanish conquistador Panfilo de Narvaez. After a disastrous end to their Florida expedition, Estevenico went on to become the first Black man in Texas, later joining the expedition of Alva Nunez Cabeza de Vaca.
This period of sea faring and colonization stretched the authority of both Spanish and British law, creating loopholes of opportunity for people of African descent as they applied agency in their quest to achieve freedom and opportunity for themselves and their families. Spain established St. Augustine as a colonial outpost in 1565 in what we now know as Florida. The colonization of Florida by the Spanish, and the colonization of Virginia and the Carolinas by the British in the late 16th and early 17th centuries set the stage for a new and enduring social, economic, military, and racial contest on the North American continent. In 1738, the Spanish governor established Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, commonly known as Fort Mose, as the first free, legally sanctioned Black community in what became the United States of America. Fort Mose and Spanish East Florida underscore an important truth about enslavement: the people who were ensnared within the system constantly and consistently sought escape from exploitation, brutality, and injustice. It continued to exist until Florida became an English colony in 1763.
The United States acquired the Florida territory from Spain in February 1821, and the following month General Andrew Jackson was installed as its governor. Before the formal acquisition of the territory, Jackson, a slaveowner who earned fame for his military successes in the War of 1812, fought what became known as the First Seminole War beginning in 1816, mainly to subdue the indigenous and Black populations who made their homes in Florida’s wilderness. At the onset of this conflict, U.S. military forces destroyed Fort Gadsden, also known as the Negro Fort, which was occupied by Black fugitives for slavery, during the Battle of Prospect Bluff, killing nearly 300 occupants. Notably during the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), leaders in the U.S. military recognized they were fighting against forces comprised mainly for Blacks who had run away from slavery and lived among the Seminole people. The Third Seminole War (1855-1858) nearly eradicated the last remaining Seminoles and their Black compatriots from the state. After losing the fight to protect the freedom they enjoyed with indigenous people in Florida, some Blacks chose to emigrate to the Bahamas or Mexico rather than risk enslavement. Thus, Florida became a southern route of the Underground Railroad, offered escape into the unsettled wilderness of the state, refugee, and collaboration with the Seminoles, or emigration to the Bahamas, Cuba, or Haiti.