Spanish Florida Offers Freedom to Escaped Enslaved People

A 1693 Spanish royal proclamation offered freedom to enslaved people who escaped English colonies and converted to Catholicism, provided they served the Spanish Crown. This created a direct incentive for flight south. By 1738, Fort Mose near St. Augustine became the first legally sanctioned free Black settlement in North America, a destination that shaped the logic of the Stono Rebellion and other flight attempts.