In grade school, we learn that St. Augustine, founded in 1565, is the US's oldest permanent city settled by Europeans. Outside of Florida, we learned nothing about what happened after that. Florida remained a Spanish colony for centuries, constantly at odds with the British colonies to the north. In 1738, a Spanish royal decree offered freedom and citizenship to enslaved people who escaped British rule and came to St. Augustine, if they converted to Catholicism and served in the militia. Plenty of people who escaped the plantations made their way through alligator-filled swamps to do just that. The new Spanish citizens built Fort Mose just north of St. Augustine and used it to defend the city from British incursions.
Fort Mose (and Florida) were eventually lost to the British and then the Americans. The destroyed fort was forgotten for more than 200 years, but has been restored and made into a state park. You can now see volunteers staging re-enactments of the history of Fort Mose. Read the story of the formerly-enslaved people who sought freedom in Florida at Smithsonian.
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