The Battle of Bloody Mose was commemorated with re-enactments June 21-22 at Fort Mose Historical State Park. Photos by PETE VANDERHART
From Florida Living History Inc.
In the early morning hours of June 26, 1740, the village of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (mo-SAY), the first, legally sanctioned free black settlement in the continental U.S., became the site of the bloodiest battle in Florida’s part in the War of Jenkins’ Ear.
That day saw Florida’s Spanish soldiers, black militia, and native Yamassee auxiliaries locked in a “clash of empires†with invading English and Scottish Highlander troops from Georgia, a battle that culminated in desperate, hand-to-hand fighting as Fort Mose, St. Augustine’s northern-most defense, burned around them.
The decisive Spanish victory at “Bloody Mose†was one of the factors that ended British Georgia’s invasion of Spanish Florida.
On Saturday and Sunday, June 21-22, Florida Living History Inc., along with Fort Mose Historic State Park (www.floridastateparks.org/fortmose/) and the Fort Mose Historical Society (www.fortmose.org/), hosted the fifth annual Battle of Bloody Mose Commemoration.
The U.S. National Park Service and The Organization of American Historians named the Battle of Bloody Mose Commemoration as a Member Program of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Viva Florida, a division of the Florida Department of State promoting Florida culture and heritage, has named the Battle of Bloody Mose Commemoration as a 2014 Featured Event (www.vivaflorida.org/Events/The-Battle-of-Bloody-Mose-Commemoration).
