The History of Fort Mose Florida
Fort Mose Florida
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
“More than 300 years ago, courageous Africans escaped
from enslavement in British colonies. They fled southward on foot to Spanish St. Augustine, crossing
swamps and dense tropical forests. Along they way, they sought assistance from
Natives, thus creating the first ‘underground railroad’”. The Fort Mose Story https://fortmose.org/about-fort-mose/
Most people think the path to
freedom for enslaved Africans in the British colonies and the US ran from the
South to the North along the fabled “Underground Railroad”, but that is not the
case. Blacks escaped via a Southern route to Florida and a few fled into the Mid-Western
territories.
Spain had a different approach to
slavery. Slavery existed in Spain
but in Spain
slaves who were mostly prisoners of war had rights they could own property and
they could sue in court. As a strategic move King Charles II of Spain ordered
the Florida colony to provide free haven to enslaved people from the British
colonies. “In 1693, King Charles II of Spain
ordered his Florida colonists to give runaway
slaves from British colonies freedom and protection if they converted to
Catholicism and agreed to serve Spain.
The fugitive slaves from South
Carolina who made it to Spanish Florida could expect
to gain more control over their own lives, even as Spanish slaves. Between the
late 17th and the mid-18th centuries, an unknown number of slaves from South Carolina successfully escaped to Florida. Spanish records note at least six
separate groups of slaves who escaped from South Carolina
to St. Augustine
between 1688 and 1725. This policy of refuge encouraged fugitive slaves to flee
to Spanish Florida with the hope of a better life if they made it to a Spanish
outpost, and it gave the Spanish a weapon to use against the British. Spain’s policy
toward runaways took laborers from the British colony and boosted
its own colonial population to oppose the British.” Fort
Mose Site Florida https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/American_Latino_Heritage/Fort_Mose.html
The first actual Black settlement
in Spanish Florida was Fort Mose
it was founded in 1687. The Spanish who were bitter rivals of England France
and the Dutch offered freedom to escaping enslaved people with the condition
they pledge loyalty to the Spanish crown and convert to Catholicism. Most of
the Africans who fled left South Carolina
heading South to Florida.
Escaped males had to serve in the Spanish militia. The hardy souls who made the
trek had to traverse swamps and thick forests to make their way to St Augustine. Many did
not survive the journey. The first to arrive was a small band that included
only eight men two women and an infant child.
The escapees were a welcome
addition because they provided skilled labor and men to man the fortified
settlements. “The Spanish were glad to have skilled laborers, and
the freedmen were also welcome additions to St. Augustine’s weak military forces. In 1738
the Spanish governor established the runaways in their own fortified town,
Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, about two miles north of St. Augustine, Florida.
Mose (pronounced “Moh- say”) became the first legally sanctioned free Black
town in the present-day United
States, and it is a critically important
site for Black American history. Mose provides important evidence that Black
American colonial history was much more than slavery and oppression. The men
and women of Mose won their liberty through great daring and effort and made
important contributions to Florida’s
multi-ethic heritage.” Fort Mose
America’s Black
Fortress of Freedom https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/histarch/research/st-augustine/fort-mose/
A fortified town was established
and the Black men who arrived served in the militia defending the fort. “By
1738, more than 100 freedom seekers had achieved asylum. In that year, a
fortified town named Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose was constructed on St. Augustine’s
northernmost border. Fort Mose became the site of the first free black
community in what is now the United
States.
A formerly enslaved African led the
free black militia of Fort
Mose. His name was
Captain Francisco Menéndez. For years, the warriors valiantly protected St. Augustine. However,
when Spain ceded all of La Florida to England
in 1763, the citizens of Fort
Mose once again faced
enslavement. They abandoned the fort and sought safety in Spanish Cuba.” https://fortmose.org/about-fort-mose/
The wars between Spain and England
spilled unto their colonies and the British took Fort Mose
in 1740. The residents fled to nearby St.
Augustine but regrouped under their leader Francisco
Menendez and subsequently retook the fort. “By 1738 there were 100 blacks,
mostly runaways from the Carolinas, living in what became Fort Mose.
Many were skilled workers, blacksmiths, carpenters, cattlemen, boatmen, and
farmers. With accompanying women and children, they created a colony of
freed people that ultimately attracted other fugitive slaves. When war broke
out in 1740 between England
and Spain, the people of St. Augustine and nearby Fort Mose
found themselves involved in a conflict that stretched across three continents.
The English sent thousands of soldiers and dozens of ships to destroy St. Augustine and bring
back any runaways. They set up a blockade and bombarded the town for 27
consecutive days. Hopelessly outnumbered, the diverse population of
blacks, Indians and whites pulled together. Fort Mose
was one of the first places attacked. Lead by Captain Francisco Menendez,
the men of the Fort Mose Militia briefly lost the Fort but eventually
recaptured it, repelling the English invasion force. Florida
remained in Spanish hands and for the next 80 years remained a haven for
fugitive slaves from the British colonial possessions of North Carolina, South
Carolina and Georgia and
later when these possessions became part of the United States.” Fort Mose Florida
(1738-1820) James Bullock https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/fort-mose-florida/
Fort Mose
was abandoned and was overrun by marsh. Fort
Mose garnered attention in the mid
twentieth century when archeologists began uncovering the ruins and discovering
the African contribution to St
Augustine Florida.
The state of Florida
acquired the twenty-four acre site and administers it through the Anastasia State Recreation Area. The area is located in
a marsh so there is no public access to the actual fort site. In 1994 Fort Mose
was designated a National Historic Landmark.
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Iatrogenesis
Iatrogenesis
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
“Injury or illness caused by the healer is called
iatrogenic harm. It’s so widespread, so frequent, so massive, and so continuous
that it rarely makes headlines. And unlike a plane crash or a building
collapse, the vast majority of iatrogenic deaths can be kept under wraps — and
they are. Death by medical error or accident is the nation’s leading cause of
accidental death, exceeding all other causes of accidental death combined. Medical error and
accidents kill approximately as many people each month in the U.S. as
Covid-19 did before vaccines became available.” Use systems redesign and the law to prevent medical
errors and accidents by Michael J Saks and Stephan Landsman https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/04/medical-errors-accidents-ongoing-preventable-health-threat/
One
of the best kept secrets in this nation of bountiful concealments and intrigue
is the number of adverse reactions and deaths due to Iatrogenesis. What is
Iatrogenesis you ask? Iatrogenesis is when a patient is harmed or dies as the
result of: doctors’ wrong diagnosis, prescription error, faulty procedure,
medical error, negligence, equipment malfunction, hospital or nursing home
acquired infection or plain old malfeasance.
Iatrogenesis is a major cause of death in
the United States.
“There were a total of 3.35 million deaths in the United States in 2020. The leading
cause of death was heart disease, with 690,000 deaths. The second leading cause
was cancer, with 599,000 deaths. And the third leading cause? Iatrogenic death
– literally death by healer – causing approximately 400,000 hospital deaths.
(The Covid death toll in the United
States in 2020 was 345,000.) https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/michael-saks-on-the-epidemic-of-death-and-injury-from-healthcare/
Yet there is no outcry or uproar
about these increasingly high injuries and deaths.
Five
hundred ninety-nine thousand deaths due to the “health system” and these
numbers don’t include mild or severe injuries, extended hospitalizations or
deaths outside of hospitals! Not only is this an extremely well kept secret,
the medical, pharmaceutical and insurance industries are working diligently to
keep it that way. “Because hospital medical records often do not list incidents
of iatrogenic harm, novel methods have been developed to detect it. The
Institute for Health Care Improvement created a technique known as the Global Trigger, which scours medical records for subtle indications
that a patient suffered unexpected harm. A 2013 meta-analysis of Global Trigger studies found 10 times as
many adverse events as found by conventional records reviews, with deaths
numbering as many as 440,000 per year. Other studies, using on-scene observers,
have found comparable numbers of incidents. But hospitals are not the only
place where health care is delivered. Vastly more patient contacts occur
outside of hospitals, where the error profile is different, dominated by
diagnostic and medication errors. The limited data that exist suggest that the
number of deaths caused by iatrogenic harm outside of hospitals is roughly
equal to the number that occur inside hospitals.” Use system redesign and the
law to prevent medical errors and accidents Michael Saks and Stephan Landsman https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/04/medical-errors-accidents-ongoing-preventable-
health-threat/
While they may be inconvenient for the
patient, injuries and adverse reactions generate additional “treatment” thus further
revenue! There is a disincentive within the “health care system” to fix the
problem! Why would they fix this problem if they prioritize profit over people
and lack the moral fortitude to do the right thing when doing the right thing
would limit their bottom line?!
The
Pharmaceutical/Health delivery/insurance complex is a huge profit generating
partnership to the tune of trillions of dollars a year. https://www.statista.com/topics/6701/health-expenditures-in-the-us/#dossierKeyfigures
“But data on the five largest companies
in each sector by revenue show pharmaceutical company profits are leagues above
their health insurer and hospital peers, both on the for-profit and
not-for-profit side. The top five drug makers saw a cumulative profit margin of
19.4% in 2018. For health insurers, that was 4.3%. The profit margin across the
largest investor-owned health systems was 6% and 3% across the largest
not-for-profit health systems.” Pharma profits highest in healthcare Tara Bannow https://www.modernhealthcare.com/finance/pharma-profits-highest-healthcare.
None of these
entities want to kill their cash cow. None of them are talking about reducing
healer induced injury or death. In fact they are actively engaged in lowing
their liabilities and responsibility. Health care providers and insurance
companies don’t want to pay out losses due to suits and Big Pharma has been
working for decades to limit liability. “The pharmaceutical industry is currently
pushing an agenda to essentially eliminate the ability of individuals to pursue
fail-ure-to-warn claims against manufacturers, regardless of the adequacy of
the warning provided. Despite the existence of serious questions about the
integrity of industry raised by misconduct involving the medications Ketek,
Neurontin, Paxil, OxyContin, Trasylol, Vioxx, and Zyprexa, industry asserts
with a straight face that because it is regulated by the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), federal law should bar an individual's ability to bring a
failure-to-warn claim. The concern is that some courts have begun to buy this
argument.” Redemption, tort reform and pharmaceutical claims Russell J.
Thornton JD https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190559/
The wholes system is
corrupt. The FDA is under regulatory capture by Big Pharma, the medical
equipment and the food processing industries as I have shown in previous
articles. What we are seeing with the COVID injection adverse reactions and
deaths are exacerbating Iatrogenesis on a global level! Nevertheless the Big
Pharma/medical/insurance hydra has no plans or means to reduce Iatrogenesis any
time soon.
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