Fort Mose to reopen

Fort Mose reenactment actors in St. Augustine, Florida, at the Fort Mose reconstruction site in January 2025. (Florida State Parks Foundation)

Fifteen months ago, I wrote here about the pending $3,000,000 reconstruction of Fort Mose.

The project is now complete and the first Free Black settlement in America, located at St. Augustine, Florida, opens to the public on May 9 during the St. Augustine History Festival (May 7-11).

A brief look at its history:

Spanish conquistadors first reached America’s shores in the early 16th century, including a landing at Florida in 1513. Franciscan missionaries, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, and his crew—including free and enslaved Black people—later founded Mission Nombre de Dios and St. Augustine in 1565.

Fort Mose—originally Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose—emerged in 1738. It was an all-Black outpost north of St. Augustine, founded after enslaved Africans in the British colonies responded to a Spanish decree of King Charles II saying escapees would be granted freedom in La Florida upon conversion to Catholicism and, if applicable, enlistment in the military.

The ancient fort, led by the formerly enslaved Captain Francisco Menéndez, included living space for some 100 newly minted Afro-Spaniards as well as a private chapel for Mass—one of the first Black worship spaces on the continent.¹

For more details visit the Fort Mose Historical Society.

1. Black Catholic Messenger