The "Sarrazota, or Runaway Negro Plantations": Tampa Bay’s First Black Community, 1812-1821
Year: 1990
Type: article
Abstract: In April 1822 a resident of St. Augustine penned a lengthly account of recent events in the new Territory of Florida for the readers of a Boston newspaper.In so doing he hinted at an intriguing tale of enterprise, courage, and tragedy which occurred in the Tampa Bay area early in the nineteenth century.That tale, still largely unreported and almost forgotten, involved hundreds of black men, women, and children who yearned for the freedom afforded them by the relatively uninhabited lower Gulf coast.It also included southern slaveholders anxious for the enslavement of those blacks, and it featured bands of Coweta Creek Indians, desirous of the rewards that the favor of those slaveholders could provide.The St. Augustine resident, Charles Vignoles, wrote in 1822:The indians and negroes have been lately so connected with events in Florida, that a few observations, so far as they have been concerned, may perhaps be not unnecessary.The latter wars made by the Indians upon the United States having compelled the government to coercive measures, ending in the total defeat of Creeks, Choctaws, Alabamas and other hostile nations, many of the chiefs, most prominent in their depredations, fled away, and traversing the Seminole nation, settled themselves about Tampa Bay, Charlotte Harbor and their waters.The remnant of the black and colored people, who had served with Col. Nichols during the war, fugitive slaves from all the southern states, as well as from the Spanish plantations in Florida, followed up the steps of the Indians and formed considerable settlements on the waters of Tampa Bay.When the Indians went in pursuit of these negroes, such as escaped made their way down to Cape Florida and the Reef, where they were collected, within a year past, to the number of three hundred.Numbers of them have, at different times since, been carried off by the Bahama wreckers to Nassau; but the British authorities having invariably refused to allow them to be landed, they have been smuggled into remoter islands, and at this period large numbers of them are to be found on St. Andrew's Island and the Biminis. 1 The beginning of the tale touched upon by Charles Vignoles in the 1820s can be traced to the final months of 1812.Spanish Florida, at least its northeast corner, was embroiled in what has come to be known as the Patriot War.That struggle involved an attempt by Georgians and American-born residents of Florida to liberate East Florida from Spanish rule. 2 A major incident of the war occurred on September 27, 1812, when a volunteer force of Georgians under Colonel Daniel Newnan engaged a party of Seminoles and their black allies under King Payne near present-day Gainesville.After an indecisive day-long battle and several anxious days of waiting, *The author wishes to express his appreciation to James W. Covington and to Leland Hawes for their kind assistance in the preparation of this article.
Author: Canter Brown
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3085671151