A Black free-and-fugitive fort in Spanish Florida triggered the Seminole Wars and Jackson’s conquest

Evidence

U.S. troops attack a Black military installation, known as Negro Fort, in Spanish Florida, killing nearly all the soldiers, women, and children. The fort was established by the British during the American Revolution and left at the war’s end to a unit of free Black people and fugitives from slavery. The presence of this fort struck fear in the hearts of white Southerners, in part because of the long history of Spanish Florida as a haven for fugitives, dating back to Fort Mose, a legendary Black stockade that inspired rebellions, escape, and white reprisals during the colonial era. The Battle of Negro Fort begins the Seminole Wars, which lead to Andrew Jackson’s conquest of Florida and the end of the region as a destination for those escaping slavery. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 597

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Supports the reframing claim that Black armed communities and the fear they inspired in white Southerners were a decisive driver of U.S. territorial expansion, echoing the origin-story-as-infrastructure framing.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s case study of how Florida, once a fugitive haven, was closed — the flip side of Noah’s and the fort’s history; pairs with the Revolutionary-War-cause dispute about who the war was really fought over. — connects to: Seminole sanctuary for runaway slaves provoked the First Seminole War — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 156