Free Black Community in St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine, Florida (founded 1565) had a documented free Black population in the early 1600s — among the earliest free African communities in what is now the United States. Colonial records document free Black artisans, soldiers, and landowners in the Spanish colonial town, where racial categories were applied differently than in English colonies. Fort Mose, established formally in 1738, grew out of this longer tradition of Black freedom in Spanish Florida.