Fort Mose Historic State Park

Fort Mose Historic State Park
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Site of the old fort
Location:	St. Johns County, Florida, USA
Nearest city:	St. Augustine, Florida
Coordinates:	29°55′40″N 81°19′31″W
Governing body:	Florida Department of Environmental Protection
NRHP Reference#:	94001645
Significant dates
Added to NRHP:	October 12, 1994
Designated NHL:	October 12, 1994

Fort Mose Historic State Park (originally known as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mosé) is a U.S. National Historic Landmark (designated as such on October 12, 1994), located two miles north of St. Augustine, Florida, on the eastern edge of a marsh. The original site of the fort was uncovered in a 1986 archeological dig. The 24-acre site is now a Florida State Park, administered through the Anastasia State Recreation Area. Fort Mose was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994. The fort has also been known as Fort Moosa or Fort Mossa.

Fort Mose (pronounced "Moh-say") was the first free black settlement legally sanctioned in what would become the United States. The community began when Florida was a Spanish territory.

Historical background

As early as 1687, the Spanish government had begun to offer asylum to slaves in British colonies and in 1693 that asylum was made official by the Spanish Crown, that made it known that runaways would find freedom in Florida, in return for Catholic conversion and a term of four years of service to the Crown. In effect, Spain created a maroon colony as a front-line defense against English attacks from the north. Spain also aimed to destabilize the plantation economy of the British colonies to the north by creating a free black community that would serve as a beacon for slaves seeking escape and refuge.

Fort Mose

Incoming freedom seekers were recognized as free, taken into the Spanish militia and placed into service at the Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mosé military fort north of St. Augustine, which was established in 1738 by the Colonial Governor, Manuel de Montiano. The military leader at the fort was a Creole man of African origin, who was baptized as Francisco Menendez by the Spanish Word of the existence of free black settlement reached the Province of South Carolina to the north and helped to set off the Stono Rebellion in September 1739. During the slave revolt, several dozen blacks attempted to reach Spanish Florida unsuccessfully.

In 1740, British forces led by James Oglethorpe attacked and destroyed the fort in the Siege of Fort Mose. During the siege, a force consisting of Spanish troops, Indian auxiliaries and free black militiamen counterattacked Oglethorpe's troops, forcing them back to Savannah. Because the fort was destroyed in the attack, its inhabitants relocated to St. Augustine, where they stayed until Fort Mose was rebuilt in 1752. After East Florida was ceded to the British in the Peace of Paris of 1763 most of the inhabitants, including many black militia troops, migrated to Cuba with the evacuating Spanish.

Because Fort Mose became a haven for escaped slaves from the British colonies to the north, it is considered a precursor site of the Underground Railroad.

See also

• Siege of Fort Mose
• Francisco Menendez

External links

• Fort Mose Historic State Park - official site
• Fort Mose Historical Society
• History of Fort Mose
• St. Johns County listings at National Register of Historic Places
• St. Johns County listings at Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs
• Fort Mose at The National Park Service
• Fort Mose Site at The National Park Service - Links to the Past
• Fort Mose Historic State Park at Wildernet
• Legacy of Fort Mose - Archaeology Magazine
• Fort Mose: America's Black Colonial Fortress of Freedom at Florida Museum Of Natural History
• Fort Mose - ThinkQuest
• Fort Mose: A Legacy That Can Not Be Ignored - Blacksonville.com
• Fort Mose Historic Site