Fortifications and Black History Month
St. Augustine is the oldest permanent settlement in what is now the U.S., established in 1565. But it wasn't a colony in the sense that Jamestown and Plymouth were. Rather, it was a military outpost. Located just where ships bound for Europe exited the Caribbean and hit the Gulf Stream, its first purpose was to defend the Spanish fleet and its cargo of plunder from Mexico and Peru. Staking a claim to territory that might also have cities of gold for them to steal was a secondary enticement.
So there's a lot of military history tangled up with the people stories. Practically the first thing you see when you enter St. A. is the Castillo de San Marco, an impregnable defensive fort.
It defends the city on the Atlantic side, and had lines of defense against English incursions from the north. But there's a southern back door to St. Augustine, the Matanzas River. So the beleaguered Spanish (the British and even the French kept trying to grab la Florida) found that they needed an outpost to the south as well, and built a series of wooden lookout towers, and finally a small fort.
But a far more interesting, poignant, and important story was that of Fort Mose. Two miles north of the Castillo, it was the first line of defense.
It was staffed by ex-slaves who used our nation's first underground railroad, running south rather than north, to find their way 300+ miles from the Carolina plantations. In desperate need of skilled workers and cannon fodder, the Spanish crown offered freedom to runaway slaves for tradeoffs: conversion to Catholicism and service in the militia.
An estimated 1000 people tried the dangerous trek; only few hundred made it, with the help of native tribes, many of whom had had their own issues (and wars) with the Carolina English. These hardy refugees created the first free black settlement in our history and made valuable contributions.
We happened upon a Black History Month re-enactment, and were taken on a miniature version of what the journey from Carolina might have been like for a runaway slave. I was so startled and touched at the first thing that happened--a "slave" woman hiding in the woods begged us not to reveal her location--that I didn't think to take a picture. After that, I made a stab at recording the people we encountered.
* Chief Se'khu of the Yamasee (he really is) and his camp. The Yamasee helped the runaways, who often married into the tribe and adopted their way of life.
* The bounty hunter, who abandoned his blacksmithing trade to make far more money tracking down escapees.
* The friar, who lived at the tiny fort and held services in its equally tiny wooden church.
* The boatman, who ferried the runaways across the river and turned them over to the militia escort.
* The militia, who drilled rigorously to master the intricacies of the clumsy musket and cannon.
We continued north to Kingsley Plantation, ruins of a sea cotton plantation, and another deeply engaging story (about which more later), humbled and deeply touched by what we had learned.
So there's a lot of military history tangled up with the people stories. Practically the first thing you see when you enter St. A. is the Castillo de San Marco, an impregnable defensive fort.
It defends the city on the Atlantic side, and had lines of defense against English incursions from the north. But there's a southern back door to St. Augustine, the Matanzas River. So the beleaguered Spanish (the British and even the French kept trying to grab la Florida) found that they needed an outpost to the south as well, and built a series of wooden lookout towers, and finally a small fort.
But a far more interesting, poignant, and important story was that of Fort Mose. Two miles north of the Castillo, it was the first line of defense.
It was staffed by ex-slaves who used our nation's first underground railroad, running south rather than north, to find their way 300+ miles from the Carolina plantations. In desperate need of skilled workers and cannon fodder, the Spanish crown offered freedom to runaway slaves for tradeoffs: conversion to Catholicism and service in the militia.
An estimated 1000 people tried the dangerous trek; only few hundred made it, with the help of native tribes, many of whom had had their own issues (and wars) with the Carolina English. These hardy refugees created the first free black settlement in our history and made valuable contributions.
We happened upon a Black History Month re-enactment, and were taken on a miniature version of what the journey from Carolina might have been like for a runaway slave. I was so startled and touched at the first thing that happened--a "slave" woman hiding in the woods begged us not to reveal her location--that I didn't think to take a picture. After that, I made a stab at recording the people we encountered.
* Chief Se'khu of the Yamasee (he really is) and his camp. The Yamasee helped the runaways, who often married into the tribe and adopted their way of life.
* The bounty hunter, who abandoned his blacksmithing trade to make far more money tracking down escapees.
* The friar, who lived at the tiny fort and held services in its equally tiny wooden church.
* The boatman, who ferried the runaways across the river and turned them over to the militia escort.
* The militia, who drilled rigorously to master the intricacies of the clumsy musket and cannon.
We continued north to Kingsley Plantation, ruins of a sea cotton plantation, and another deeply engaging story (about which more later), humbled and deeply touched by what we had learned.
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