Predawn, June 26, 1740, both the wisdom of Spanish Governor Manuel Montiano in establishing this northern outpost and refuge for escaped slaves, and their fighting will against the hated British, would be tested.

     Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose - Fort Mose (Mo-SAY),was established two years earlier as a matter of both religious pressure and military expediency. It answered the moral dictates of the Catholic Church, and would weaken the economy of the British colonies.

     That early morning of June 26, Fort Mose was occupied by British and Scottish forces after being abandoned to the security of St. Augustine's Castillo. General James Oglethorpe, founder and governor of the British colony of Georgia, was poised to seize the Spanish colony of St. Augustine.

     Governor Montiano saw recapture of Fort Mose as key to defeating Oglethorpe's plans. Gathering his officers, including Fort Mose's Commander, Captain Francisco Menendez, a surprise attack in the predawn hours was planned.

     Spanish soldiers, black militia, and native Yamassee auxiliaries made up a 300-man force that "swept over (Fort Mose) with such impetuosity that it fell with a loss of 68 dead and 34 prisoners," Montiano later wrote.

     "At length they came on again sword in hand and entered the gate. At the same time another party entered one of the breaches so that the fort was at once full of Spaniards, it being then about half an hour before the day," a surviving British soldier recounted.

     The attack came to be known to the British as "Bloody Mose," and successfully helped end Georgia's invasion of Florida.

     The black militiamen rebuilt Fort Mose in 1752, and it prospered until 1763, when Spain ceded Florida to Britain by treaty. Its commander, Captain Menendez, and black residents of Fort Mose - knowing slavery would return under the British - fled to Cuba with most of the Spanish citizens, where they formed a new community, Ceiba Mocha, in the Matanzas province. Menendez is believed to have died in Havana.

 Photo: Clann Nan Con, living historians based in Georgia, who will  portray