Hidden among clustered palmetto and oak trees and underneath marshland, with swarms of mosquitoes hovering throughout, the land of Fort Mose Historic State Park in St. Augustine contains lessons about the price of freedom.
“(Fort Mose) has to do with every aspect of the founding of the country and this country’s history,” said Lucas Finsel, a double major in public history and anthropology from nearby Flagler College. “I love the people over there. As a young person, Fort Mose feels like a hidden gem that is important for us as Americans in modern day. The story of the fort touches home in so many ways. It shows that people can come together. Its story is not as well-known as it should be. It’s important that more people know about the history.”
During a Founders Day event Saturday morning, reenactors posed the question, “What would you do if your freedom was taken from you?”
With gunpowder flying from muskets and a Spanish cannon, the event honored the 286th anniversary of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, also known as Fort Mose (pronounced “MOH-say”), being founded in 1738 as the first legally sanctioned free Black settlement, nearly 40 years before America declared its independence.
The fort’s history stuck with Finsel, who has worked there for over a year interning and participating in a field anthropology class.
A safe haven for an estimated 100 Africans who had escaped English enslavement in the American colonies, the people who lived at Fort Mose had to declare allegiance to King Charles III of Spain and become Catholics to earn their freedom. The men also joined an all-Black militia, which served as the first line of defense against the British.
People lived together at the fort until the British took control of Florida in 1763 and the residents were forced to escape to Cuba.
War, sea level rise and time all contributed to the destruction of the original fort, but the example its residents set — to fight for freedom and to live in harmony with your neighbor to create a diverse community — live on.
The Florida State Parks Foundation broke ground in 2023 on an effort to re-create the fort, and it is anticipated to be complete in time for the Battle of Bloody Mose reenactment event, depicting the battle between British troops and the fort militia, June 28.
Charles Ellis, president of the Fort Mose Historical Society, said it’s paramount to continue to talk about the legacy left by residents of the fort so that younger generations can understand the value of freedom.
“Getting up and being able to make your own decisions is so important,” Ellis said. “Through live reenactments, we can teach what slavery was all about and why the fight for freedom was so important.”
Sedrick Lee, vice president of the Fort Mose Historical Society, explained that historical reenactment programs hosted by the society, like the Founder’s Day event or the Flight to Freedom, in which park guests get a glimpse of what it was like for those people who escaped slavery on foot and made it to the fort, educate all generations and encourage an experience of empathy and compassion for those who suffered enslavement.
“It’s easy for younger generations to take freedom for granted. At the society we go through great lengths to be effective in getting the message across. It comes across though the voices and expressions as they are reenacting,” Lee said, as he recalled ending his first Flight to Freedom experience in tears.
St. Augustine native Latisha Simmons, wearing her matching pink scarf and pink buttons sown down her petticoat, was introduced as the society’s newest member during the celebration. She said though she had never heard of Fort Mose until a few years ago, she has seen a public appetite for the educational programs hosted by the society.
“We didn’t learn this in school,” Simmons said. “I didn’t find out until a few years ago. If it wasn’t for someone who doesn’t even reside (in St. Augustine), I wouldn’t have known about Fort Mose. People are interested in this history. They are searching for this but they just don’t know it’s out here available to them.”
Though Simmons, 47, didn’t have the opportunity to learn the fort’s history when she was in school, students in Florida today can.
Fourth graders are also learning about Fort Mose in class, as required by the Florida State Academic Standards for Social Studies benchmark.
The benchmark requires students to explore the history of settlements of Florida, including “identifying the significance of Fort Mose as the first free African community in the United States.”
Students are also required to examine the experience and contributions of African Americans in early Florida, focusing on Fort Mose, Black Seminoles, and the historical Black communities of Lincolnville and Eatonville.
Ellis said that the requirement has brought not only busloads of children to the fort, but also their parents.
“We get young kids whose parents haven’t ever been here,” he said. “The kids come out on a field trip, then they go back home and tell the history to their parents who then say, ‘Maybe we need to take a trip.’ We are letting the youth educate their parents, because if the kids get excited about it, the parents will get excited too. The Founders Day story is a powerful one to tell from the beginning.”
The Founder’s Day event was full of commemorations and reenactments, including a speech by royal Govenor of La Florida Don Manuel de Montiano, a showing of Captain Francisco Menendez receiving his freedom with other members of the militia and the monthly Militia Muster program.
Throughout the Founders Day event, echos of “Viva Mose. Viva” were repeated. Meaning ‘Long live Mose,’ the chant aims to keep the Mose legacy going.
Jose Gueits, of St. Augustine, has been volunteering as a reenactor for Fort Mose for 15 years. Portraying Gov. Montiano, Gueits said his character is important because he played a critical role in St. Augustine history from 1738 to 1740, including the creation of Fort Mose and his general government policies.
After years of studying history and portraying Montiano, Gueits feels the diversity we see today among Florida’s population is much like the diversity that existed in the past.
“I’m a history buff. I do a lot of research nowadays,” he said. “The one thing I found out that is interesting, a lot of people seem to think that how society is today is totally apart from how society was in the past. That is not true. South Florida today does mirror what was going on here in St. Augustine. Society in St. Augustine and in Florida at that time was homogeneous to cosmopolitan. We had the influence of The English, the Irish and the Italians, Portuguese, Greeks, etc. all of those people made what that society was. We are still mimicking what it was like in those days. Florida history isn’t static.”
Pointing to the Spanish phrase “la raza,” Gueits said there was no concept of integrating back then because diverse communities were natural and common.
“The original intent of the word ‘la raza’ meant ‘community.’ It didn’t matter what your skin color was, your background, your history. You were part of a community,” Gueits said. “If you want to see a forward moving society, you can learn from those dynamics of diversity because you had so many individuals from different populations. They are getting together and they are making that one society. Isn’t that what people believe the United States is all about? There’s an example of it right here. A showing of how society should be. With everybody steering towards that subject, why reinvent the wheel? Just follow what they were doing or at least learn those ideas so you can perpetuate it more.”
Behind the Fort Mose visitor center stands a nearly 39-foot, full-scale reconstruction of the original fort.
Julia Woodward, CEO of the Florida State Parks Foundation, said the design was chosen because “it is truly the first site of freedom.”
“One thing I always tell people is how sacred this land is,” Woodward said. “What happened here years ago tells the story of freedom. The foundation is proud to play a small role in sharing that story. Having the fort standing and open to the public to feel and see tangibly what life would have been like. It will be setting the scene for life in 1730. We are proud of the effort to make the fort historically accurate.”
Woodward said the fort will elevate the Fort Mose experience. People will be able to go into the bastion walls surrounding the reconstructed fort before entering and seeing the material and important elements of life in 1730.
The foundation was awarded 933,000 grant from the Florida African American Cultural and Historical Grants Program. An additional $450,000 was provided by Florida State Parks Foundation, the Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation, Florida Blue and The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida and St. Johns County.
Chuck Hatcher, director of Florida State Parks, said the reconstruction project will help share the land’s story.
“Fort Mose is one of our state’s most significant cultural resources, and the fort replica will help us tell the story of this historic place,” he said. “This is all coming together as the result of years of determination from many different people, and we are grateful to see everyone’s hard work and dedication paying off in such an amazing way.”
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