In the spring of 1814, the British established a military fort in Spanish Florida as a base of operations for their planned invasion of the US South. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Nicolls of the British Royal Marines, a man who held uniquely staunch anti-slavery views for a military officer of the time, actively recruited Native Americans and formerly enslaved Black people to fight against the Americans and gain their freedom in his ranks. General Andrew Jackson, who like many white southerners feared the idea of a multiracial world mobilized, galvanized, and armed by the British, readied his forces in the United States. The looming clash between Nicolls and Jackson held great consequences for the futures of the Indigenous and free Black people who had found refuge in Spanish Florida for centuries.
Hosts: Sebastian Garcia and John Lancaster.
Featuring: Matthew Clavin, Nathaniel Millett, and F. Evan Nooe.
Voice Actors: Kevin Garcia, Brooks Nuzum, and Richard Weber.
Music by Pixabay artists.
Researched, Written, and Edited by Sebastian Garcia and John Lancaster.
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The Memory of Negro Fort Podcast is produced by UCF graduate history students Sebastian Garcia and John Lancaster and hosted by the UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research, with additional support from a gift that was made as an extension of the American Historical Association's Sinclair Workshops for Historical Podcasting.
Further Reading:
Clavin, Matthew. The Battle of Negro Fort: The Rise and Fall of a Fugitive Slave Community. New York University Press, 2019.
Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida. University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Millett, Nathaniel. The Maroons of Prospect Bluff and Their Quest for Freedom in the Atlantic World. University Press of Florida, 2013.
Nooe, F. Evan. Aggression and Sufferings: Settler Violence, Native Resistance, and the Coalescence of the Old South. University of Alabama Press, 2024.
Primary Source:
Cochrane, Alexander. “Proclamation: A British Appeal to American Slaves.” Bermuda, April 2, 1814. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/alexander-cochrane-proclamation.
