Lost Black History
By Don Valentine
The poignant origin of slavery in the US dates back to 1539 in Florida. This was decades before the common denotation of 1619 as the beginning of slavery in the 13 colonies. In 1539, slavery arrived in present-day Florida when the slave trader, Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto, attempted to establish a permanent settlement here. His mission was to claim more territory for Spain. The African slaves were brought here as miners and farm laborers. The odious use of cheap Black labor is the fulcrum that began our Union. This dodgy mantle of exploitation is shared with other groups. The transcontinental railroad and western railroads came from the sweat of the Asians. A robust amount of farm crops came annually from the repugnant abuse of Latinos. Maybe the Constitution should read “Abuse for all,” and not “Freedom for all.”
The lust for gold spurred Spain’s King Ferdinand to send his explorers around the Americas for it. In a Washington Post article by Ciara Torres-Spelliscy she noted, “In 1511 Spain’s King Ferdinand instructed his subjects in the New World to “get gold, humanely, if you can, but at all hazards, get gold.” Spanish explorers heeded their King’s call.
During the 25 years leading up to the Civil War, a five-county region of North Florida grew into an aristocracy of plantations and farms that mirrored the wealthiest plantations of the Old South cotton kingdom. The vast majority of Florida’s slaves lived in this central part of the Panhandle along the Georgia border. Called “Middle Florida,” it centered on the capital city of Tallahassee and included Gadsden, Leon, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton counties.
While not saints, the Florida plantation owners were less sadistic than the Northern owners. The Miami New Times did an article discussing this nuance. In 1693, the Spanish crown officially began offering asylum to runaway slaves as long as they converted to Roman Catholicism and served in the military for four years. That policy was an attempt to destabilize the economy of the British colonies farther north. That led Spanish Florida to become a haven for runaway slaves in the 18th Century. Fort Mose, located near St. Augustine, in 1738 became the first authorized Black haven in what would later become the United States. The very first “Underground Railroad’’ led the slaves south to asylum in Florida.
Spanish Florida also set the precedent the US would later follow for former slaves. After Emancipation, hundreds of thousands of freed slaves in the South faced new difficulties: finding a way to forge an economically independent life. The Federal government established the Freedmen’s Bureau, a temporary agency, to provide food, clothing, and medical care for freed slaves.
Clearly our 246 year union has had growing pains. To quote George W Bush’s speech at the opening of the African American National museum “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws, and corrects them.” Take note, Governor Desantis!
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