“More than 300 years ago, courageous Africans escaped from enslavement in British colonies. They fled southward, on foot to Spanish St. Augustine, crossing swamps and dense tropical forests. Along the way, they sought assistance from Natives, thus creating the first ‘underground railroad.’” The Fort Mose Story https://fortmose.org/about-fort-mose/
Most people think the path to freedom for enslaved Africans in the British colonies and the US ran from the South to the North along the fabled “Underground Railroad,” but that is not the case. Many Blacks escaped via a Southern route to Florida, and a few fled into the Mid- Western territories.
Spain had a different approach to slavery. Slavery existed in Spain but in Spain, slaves who were mostly prisoners of war had rights. They could own property, and they could sue in court. As a strategic move, King Charles of Spain ordered the Florida colony to provide a free haven to enslaved people from the British colonies. “In 1693, King Charles II of Spain ordered his Florida colonists to give runaway slaves from British colonies freedom and protection if they converted to Catholicism and agreed to serve Spain. The fugitive slaves from South Carolina who made it to Spanish Florida could expect to gain more control over their own lives, even as Spanish slaves. 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. This policy of refuge encouraged fugitive slaves to flee to Spanish Florida with the hope of a better life if they made it to a Spanish outpost, and it gave the Spanish a weapon to use against the British. Spain’s policy toward runaways took laborers from the British colony and boosted its own colonial population to oppose the British.” Fort Mose Site Florida https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/American_Latino_Heritage/Fort_Mose.html
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