Fort Mosé, America's First Free Black Town | Black Lives in European History

Continue learning about the free community of Fort Mosé and Saint Augustine in Spanish Florida. In this fourth episode from our series Black Lives in European History, we look at where the people of Fort Mosé originated geographically and culturally in Africa and how they used Spanish as well as African customs to form a new community. Building on the first episode, we continue to look at how they adapted quickly to a new culture and how they used the conflict between Britain and Spain to their advantage. We apply HAPP analysis skills to a letter to the Spanish king to understand what they may have been thinking. Finally we end with some reflections on why, despite its small and remote location and its relative poverty, Fort Mosé and Saint Augustine are important subjects to study.

[baena]

I don't understand how African Americans don't make a movie. It would be epic

[BernasLL]

You mean first NORTH-american free black town. In Brazil, thousands of quilombolas preceded them, in different levels of societal structurization, like Quilombo dos Palmares.

[blackgoldentertainmentchan]

The first black town in North America was in Mexico founded by Gaspar Yanga. In the early 1500s.