Angola, Florida

Angola was a prosperous agricultural community[1]: 232  of Maroons (escaped slaves) who had close relations with disaffected Red Sticks that existed in the Tampa Bay area following the War of 1812, the Patriot War, the Creek War and the First Seminole War until Florida became a U.S. territory in 1821, after which point it was destroyed. Artifacts from that era have been uncovered in Manatee Mineral Springs Park along the Manatee River in Bradenton, Florida.[2] Despite this, the full extent of the settlement is unknown, possibly ranging from where the Braden River meets the Manatee River down to Sarasota Bay.[3][4]

Manatee Mineral Spring was a source of fresh water and later the location of the Village of Manatee, two decades after the destruction of the Maroon community. The only rigorous archaeological survey so far has been constrained to Mineral Springs Park.[5] The archaeology report by Uzi Baram is on file with the Florida Division of Historical Resources of the Florida Department of State. In 2019, the National Park Service added the excavated location at Manatee Mineral Springs Park to the Network to Freedom. Also, of archeological note is an "African-inspired mahogany drum found in the bank of the Little Manatee River."[6] The drum was found in 1967 and is now stored at the Florida Museum of Natural History, the artifact has received only minor attention."[7]

At the State Library and Archives of Florida, the Spanish Land Grant applications for both Jose Maria Caldez and Joaquin Caldez, each list Angola as on the north side of the Oyster River, respectively eight and nine miles from Tampa Bay (see Florida Memory). The location of Angola on the Oyster River as described by local history author Janet Snyder Matthews, was in "southern Sarasota Bay, eight miles from Tampa Bay."[8] 71 In the footnotes to Edge of Wilderness, Matthews speculated that the "Oyster River of Caldes which may have been present-day Whitaker Bayou or Hudson Bayou."[8]395

In his book on The Territory of Florida, John Lee Williams, described "A stream that enters the bay joining the entrance of Oyster River, on the S.W. it was ascended for six miles." Williams goes on to describe the land along this smaller stream and then refers to "The point between these two rivers is called Negro Point." He concluded that the "ruins" on the "old fields" of this "plantation here cultivated by two hundred negroes" belonged to the "famous Arbuthnot and Ambrister."[9] Also, he described the shore of "Sarrazota Bay" as "rocky and high" and on the eastern shore with "extensive old fields, of rich land" including the "ruins of fifteen old houses." Among the "old gardens" of these ruins Williams examined in 1828 he reported finding "among luxuriant weeds, tomatoes, lima beans, and many aromatic herbs perfectly naturalized."[9] His accompanying map was published in 1837.

Background

Spanish Florida was a haven for escaped slaves and for Native Americans deprived of their traditional lands during colonial times and in the first decades of U.S. independence. The Underground Railroad ran south during this period.[10][11][12]

Autonomous Maroon communities developed in Spanish Florida, though not simultaneously. Fort Mose was the first and smallest autonomous black community but it was abandoned in 1763 after the Spanish cessation of Florida in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War. Fort Mose was heavily influenced by neighboring St. Augustine.

Following the Treaty of Ghent, in 1815, British officials transported around 80 black veterans (Corps of Colonial Marines) of the War of 1812 to Tampa Bay area.[13] Other Colonial Marine veterans and their families were transported to other British colonies (see Merikans).

Another community was at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River, but it was destroyed by forces under the command of General Edmund P. Gaines in 1816 (Battle of Negro Fort). The refugees from this tragic event, including Maroons from the surrounding plantations who were not at the Fort, moved east to the Suwannee River valley and recreated their communities outside Bowlegs Town, named after Alachua Seminole leader Bolek (Bowlegs).[1]232-233 During General Andrew Jackson's invasion of Spanish Florida during the First Seminole War, the Maroons successfully defended the evacuation of the settlements before they were destroyed.[1]243-244 Archeological digs have recently begun at the site of Bowlegs Town, near present day Old Town.[14]

According to historian Canter Brown Jr., "Most Maroon settlements were tiny because people needed to escape detection. Angola's 600 to 750 people was an incredible size back then, and shows that these were capable people."[5]: 73  He described it as "one of the most significant historical sites in Florida and perhaps the U.S."[5]: 71 

Destruction

When Andrew Jackson became Florida's de facto territorial governor in 1821, he decided that the refugee Maroons and Red Sticks near Tampa Bay would need to be destroyed and its runaway slave populace returned to bondage. Without the official backing of the U.S. government, Jackson decided to employ Creek allies to raid in Florida instead.[15] "Acting in direct defiance of Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Jackson's first order of business was to send his Coweta Creek allies (see William McIntosh) on a search and destroy mission against Angola",[1]: 250  which was "burned to the ground".[5]: 73 

The result of the raid was "terror" all over Florida and many of the Maroons who could went to Cape Florida and left for the Bahamas.[1]: 250–252  Those Maroons who had been present at Prospect Bluff, especially the discharged Colonial Marines, considered themselves free British subjects, and had been promised protection within British territory like the Bahamas by Nicolls.[1] However, this attitude was not shared by all British leadership. Despite this, they still established a settlement on Andros Island, named Red Bays in 1821 (see Nicolls Town).[16]

A small number of the surviving Red Sticks (see Peter McQueen) joined other Lower Creeks refugees and formed a community called Minatti at the headwaters of the Peace River near Lake Hancock.

Additionally, many Maroons and Black Seminoles displaced from Angola and communities like it by the Second Seminole War stayed in Florida and fought alongside the Seminole Indians, and were deported in kind to Indian territories in Oklahoma. Some migrated even further to El Nacimiento, Coahuila.[17]

Commemoration

In July 2018, the first Back to Angola Festival was held at the Manatee Mineral Springs Park.[5]: 71  Descendants of those who had escaped to the Bahamas attended.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Millett, Nathaniel (2013). The Maroons of Prospect Bluff and Their Quest for Freedom in the Atlantic World. University Press of Florida. pp. 231–232. ISBN 9780813044545.
  2. ^ Baram, Uzi (June 2008). "A Haven from Slavery on Florida's Gulf Coast: Looking for Evidence of Angola on the Manatee River" (PDF). African Diaspora Archaeology Network Newsletter. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 3, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  3. ^ Young, Mark (March 24, 2018). "Slaves had key stop to freedom in Bradenton. It's drawing international attention". The Bradenton Herald. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  4. ^ Vickie Oldham, Uzi Baram (May 12, 2011). "Escaped Slave Community of Angola". C-SPAN Cities Tour. C-SPAN3. American History TV. Archived from the original on March 22, 2018. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d e Eger, Isaac (July 2018). "Angola's Ashes: A newly excavated settlement highlights Florida's history as a haven for escaped slaves". Sarasota Magazine. Vol. 40, no. 11. pp. 70–73.
  6. ^ Landers, Jane (1999). Black Society in Spanish Florida. University of Illinois Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-252-02446-7.
  7. ^ Baram, Uzi (October 2014). "Another Lesson that Provenience Matters: The Little Manatee River Drum found in 1967". Academia.edu. Retrieved October 31, 2025.
  8. ^ a b Matthews, Janet Snyder (1984). Edge of Wilderness, A Settlement History of Manatee River and Sarasota Bay 1528–1885 (2nd ed.). Sarasota, Florida: Coastal Press. ISBN 0-914381-00-8.
  9. ^ a b Williams, John Lee (1837). The Territory of Florida, Or, Sketches of Topography, Civil and Natural History, of the Country, the Climate and the Indian Tribes, from the First Discovery to the Present Time, With a Map, Views, &C. A. T. Goodrich. pp. 300, 24.
  10. ^ Smith, Bruce (March 18, 2012). "For a century, Underground Railroad ran south". Associated Press. Archived from the original on March 21, 2012. Retrieved March 23, 2020.
  11. ^ National Park Service. "Aboard the Underground Railway. British Fort". Archived from the original on May 14, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  12. ^ McIver, Stuart (February 14, 1993). "Fort Mose's Call To Freedom. Florida's Little-known Underground Railroad Was The Escape Route Taken By Slaves Who Fled To The State In The 1700s And Established America's First Black Town". Sun-Sentinel. Archived from the original on February 13, 2018. Retrieved February 15, 2018.
  13. ^ Rivers, Larry E. (2000). Slavery in Florida : territorial days to emancipation. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. p. 8. ISBN 9780813018133.
  14. ^ Gallagher, Peter B (March 29, 2016). "Bowlegs Town history, artifacts unearthed". The Seminole Tribune. Retrieved September 25, 2025.
  15. ^ Rivers, Larry Eugene (2012). Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Florida. University of Illinois Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-252-03691-0. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved July 2, 2021 – via Project MUSE.
  16. ^ Howard, Rosalyn (Summer 2013). ""Looking For Angola": An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Search for a Nineteenth Century Florida Maroon Community and its Caribbean Connections". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 92 (1). Florida Historical Society: 18–21. JSTOR 43487549.
  17. ^ Mulroy, Kevin. Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993.
  18. ^ Fanning, Tim. "Inaugural Back to Angola Festival celebrates history, culture". Sarasota Herald. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018. Retrieved December 24, 2018.

Further reading

  • Cox, Dale (2020). The Fort at Prospect Bluff, the British Post on the Apalachicola and the Battle of Negro Fort. Old Kitchen Media. ISBN 978-0578634623.
  • Baram, Uzi (2015). "Including maroon history on the Florida Gulf Coast : archaeology and the struggle for freedom on the early 19th-century Manatee River". In Delle, James A. (ed.). The limits of tyranny: archaeological perspectives on the struggle against new world slavery. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press. pp. 213–240. ISBN 9781621900870.

27°29′53″N 82°32′56″W / 27.498°N 82.549°W / 27.498; -82.549

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