Deep roots in America

   Continuing a series of highlights before St. Augustine's 450th anniversary September 8.

   Juan Garrido, a veteran of the Spanish conquests of Hispanola, Puerto Rico and Cuba, was a member of the Spanish expedition led by Ponce de Leon that discovered Florida in 1513. Juan Garrido was a free black African.

   Estevanico was one of the early explorers of the Southwestern United States. Estevanico was a Muslim slave from northern Africa.

   American history recalls black Africans kidnapped from their home countries to work as slaves in New World colonies. But much earlier, African-born blacks, free and slave, helped shape the future Americas in Spanish explorations and colony building.

   Estevancio, slave of a Spanish nobleman, was with Panfilo de Narvaez in 1528, then explored Florida, Arizona and Mexico. Esteban, a black gun bearer, scout, slave, and soldier, was also with Narvaez. Juan Valiente, a black slave, was a member of numerous expeditions and fought side by side with Spanish soldiers in Guatemala, Peru, and Chile. Other blacks were members of expeditions led by Lucas Vasquez de Allyon and Hernando de Soto.

   And the Africans were with Pedro Menendez as he forged a presidio out of the wilderness at St. Augustine. 

   The first Underground Railroad in America led from north to south, as slaves in the late 1600s fled English-controlled South Carolina to freedom in Spanish Florida. 

   In 1738 a defense outpost was established north of the St. Augustine settlement. Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose became the first free black community in North America, home to more than 100 former black slaves. 

   The free black militiamen pledged to "spill their last drop of blood in defense of the Great Crown of Spain and the Holy Faith, and to be the most cruel enemies of the English." In 1740, that militia and Spanish soldados crushed a British assault on Fort Mose.

   The Africans were laborers, masons, and metalworkers in the building of the Castillo de San Marcos, and seawalls, bridges, and other public buildings. They were artisans, craftsmen, and merchants in the settlement of St. Augustine and rancheros and farmers supplying its food in the vast area around it.

   Africans would continue to be recognized, as both war leaders and interpreters for the Seminoles in the 1800s War of Removal with expanding America, creation of a thriving community in Lincolnville after the Civil War, and as foot soldiers in the St. Augustine civil rights movement that led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  

     Image: Explorer Estevanico,  NAACP Voices from Paris TX  

     Excerpt from 'The Africans,' in St. Augustine Bedtime Stories. Click for further information on this fascinating historic series.