St. Augustine

Freed Slaves in St. Augustine

Slavery was not very important to the Spanish colonies in Florida, and the Spanish permitted enslaved people who escaped from British colonies to take sanctuary in Florida. If they swore allegiance to the Spanish Crown and converted to Catholicism, they would be given supplies and even arms. When British settlements encroached ever further south, the Spanish in 1738 established a legally recognized community of free blacks, the first in North America, in northern St. Augustine, known as Fort Mose. St. Augustine also successfully repelled a British attack in 1740. However, after the end of the French and Indian War, Florida was ceded to British control in return for the British removing their occupying forces from Havana, Cuba. Most of St. Augustine's Spanish population, about 3,100 at the time, left.

The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ceded Florida back to Spain, before it was ceded to the United States in 1821. Florida later became a state in 1845. After the Civil War, freed slaves of St. Augustine established Lincolnville, a 1,400-acre district of St. Augustine in an area then surrounded by orange plantations. The district was originally called Little Africa, then renamed Lincolnville in 1878. St. Augustine was a focal point for the civil rights movement. A sit-in protest held at a St. Augustine Woolworth's lunch counter over civil rights violations, including the violence of local segregationists, led to the arrest of 23 black protesters: 16 adults and seven juveniles. Four of the juveniles were sentenced to reform school for their political activism and became known as the St. Augustine Four: Joe Ann Anderson, Audrey Nell Edwards, Willie Carl Singleton, and Samuel White. They were kept in reform school for six months, during which time their case commanded national attention, until a special meeting of the governor's office resulted in pardons for all of them.

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