South to Freedom

Florida, under Spanish rule, was both a sanctuary for those escaping slavery, and a threat to the Southeast’s slavery-based economy. Many of the escapees became Spanish soldiers and intelligence agents defending Spanish Florida against the neighboring British and American enemy. During this period, Native Americans and the fleeing enslaved formed a tight bond as both were fighting for freedom against British and American colonialism. In the next several decades, hundreds of enslaved from Georgia to the Carolinas found refuge in Florida, enduring the hundreds-mile journey on foot and by canoe. By 1738, the first legally sanctioned free Black community was created in what is now the US, called Fort Mose.