Fort Mose: National standing is official

Fort Mose: National standing is official



Publication Date: 04/22/09

Official and visible national attention has finally come to Fort Mose, the first free black town established in 1738 in what is today's United States.

This first free community of ex-slaves -- located north of St. Augustine off U.S. 1 -- has been recognized as an Underground Railroad Commemorative Site by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. It is now part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program. This recognition is given after careful review to sites that helped the cause of freedom for slaves.

Fort Mose helped African slaves, brought to the United States in bondage, to escape to freedom, from the British colonies along the eastern seaboard. Many people only connect the nation's Underground Railroad to the Civil War era, but Fort Mose predates it by more than a century.

For more than 20 years, a lot of people have worked hard at the local, state and national levels to put this venerable site on the heritage tourism map. Annual events, including Juneteenth and the Flight to Freedom reenactments, have drawn visitors from around the country, many by happenstance.

It deserves this national recognition, but it hasn't been easy getting it.

There is nothing there to show people -- no fort. Artifacts, ground studies and digs, and ancient maps confirmed the location, though. Members of the Fort Mose Historical Society and the Florida Park Service, which operates Fort Mose as a state park, swam against many tides to secure the site in the 1980s. St. Augustine and St. Johns County governments, and the National Park Service, lent many hands to the fight. No one gave up.

African-American history has been often overlooked. Even the city's Tour Guide study booklet left it out until recently.

Having this national recognition means Fort Mose's presence will no longer be ignored. As its Web site -- www.fortmose.org -- says, Fort Mose "is one of the most important sites in American history." We agree.

The history of St. Augustine, of Florida and the nation's founding should never be told without Fort Mose in the forefront.

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