We have been taught and brainwashed to believe kidnapped, enslaved Africans in the colonies and the United States lived in passive acceptance and acquiescence to the slavocracy without personal or collective resistance. Nothing was further from the truth.
The scramble for new lands, natural resources, and wealth by Europeans led to centuries of piracy and war between the Spanish, English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese. To needle the British and recruit additional manpower for Florida, the Spanish King Charles decreed enslaved people in the British colonies would be given refuge and safe haven in Florida if they converted to Catholicism and were willing to serve in the Spanish militia to defend the colony. His decree in 1693 opened the way for enslaved Africans to get to Florida mostly from the British colonies in the Carolinas and Georgia.
I recently highlighted Fort Mose, a settlement of free Blacks who escaped and resided in Florida near St Augustine. That strategically situated community was destroyed by the British, retaken by the Blacks, and subsequently rebuilt. It lasted from 1738-to 1820. Even after the Spanish ceded Florida to the British, Blacks continued to flee and create communities, often forming settlements with the indigenous tribal groups.
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