When we get a line the term " Underground Railroad , " we usually think of the web of secret overland route deny by fleeting slaves escaping Frederick North into Ohio and across the border into Canada .
In early 19th century America , the Underground Railroad launch afreedom movementthat brought people of varying religions and races together in a interconnected fight against the horror and injustice of personal chattel thraldom .
But did you know there was a Southern reading of the Underground Railroad as well ?
" There is a Southern Underground Railroad that is little known , not just to the average American , but also to many students of U.S. chronicle , " says Dr. Paul George , resident historiographer atHistoryMiami Museum , in an email interview .
In the early 1800s , enslave pitch-dark the great unwashed in Florida and other regions of the cryptical South were hundreds of miles from borderline states like Maryland and Kentucky and one thousand of mile away from the"promised land"of British Canada , make their option and betting odds for a successful escape tight to zero .
" The Saltwater Underground Railroad headed south intoSpanishFlorida — a area which was really off the storage-battery grid and close to other areas outside of the U.S. which might be havens for fugitive slave , " says George .
Believed to have operated between 1821 and 1861 , the Saltwater Underground Railroad refers to thecoastal escape valve routefollowed by fugitive slaves into the British - controlled Bahamas . Fugitives from Southern slave states sought refuge on South Florida ’s beach . " An resistance from Georgia and Alabama , maybe South Carolina too , extend into Spanish Florida , " says George .
From there , some paid for their passage on Bahamian vessels , while others made their way of life across the perilous Atlantic in dugout canoe and modest boat . Once out to ocean , under blanket of night , they faced impossible unknown : unpredictable weather and storms , recapture by hard worker hunters , assault by pirates , and unfathomably thick , dark waters .
Why Escape To the Bahamas?
situate 150 statute mile ( 241 klick ) off the glide ofKey Biscaynein Miami , Florida , theBahamaswere a feasible destination for several reasons . For one , in 1825 the British political science decreed that anyone who relocated to British territory was free , regardless of their anterior status . And in 1834 , thraldom was abolished in all British soil , including the Bahamas . second , most of its habitant were ignominious , making it potential for resistance movements on the island to take hold . Free Blacks in the British Bahamas could get tie , own ground and pursue an education – introductory human rights that were impossible for enslave human beings in the antebellum South . And because the universe was mainly Black , it was easy for fugitive slave to assimilate into a diverse community of native Bahamians , made up of Bahamian descendants of African slave , Africans andmaroons , also call in " Black Seminoles , " who were fugitive from the bass South and Gulf coast who seek resort with the Seminole Indians in Florida .
" They settle into neighborhoods alongside families of earlier fugitives , " says George . " Many of their descendant still rest there . marine people , as well as farmers . "
Between 1821 and 1837 , in the former years after the U.S.acquiredFlorida from Spain in 1819 , one C of maroon fled to Andros Island in the Bahamas . The U.S. paid off Spain ’s debt to landowners who ’d lost their slaves , aka " property , " and set about a 40 - twelvemonth hunting expedition to locate and trance formerly enslave Africans who had escaped to Spanish Florida in club to avoidplantationslavery , as well as to hale the Seminoles onto reservations west of the Mississippi on theTrail of Tears .
In 1526 the Spanish had fetch the first enslaved Africans to what would later become America ’s southerly shores – near 100 long time before the BritishcolonizedNorth America . " Slaves had been in Spanish Florida since the late16th hundred . They labored in the fields and woodlet , " say George .
In an effort to destabilize British colonies farther northwards , Spain begin offering psychiatric hospital to fugitive slaves in 1693 , but only if they converted to Catholicism and did four years of military armed service . That enticing insurance policy made Spanish Florida into a haven for fleeting slave and led to the nativity of the first sanction barren grim colonization – Fort Mose – in what would at last become the United States .
" There was , near St. Augustine , Fort Mose , a community of ex - slaves , who likely provided assistance to fugitives from peak Second Earl of Guilford , " says George . " in the end , the fugitive ended up at theCape Florida Lighthouse , wait evacuation to the Bahamas by abolitionists or boat captain . Andros Island was a pet recourse of these fugitives . "
Florida Becomes a U.S. Territory in 1821
But with the ratification of the Onis - Adams Treaty in 1821 , Florida efficaciously became a U.S. territorial dominion that allowed bondage , spurring Black Floridians to make their way through palmetto fields , obtuse soggy flat , Rhizophora mangle forests , swamp with jutting airy radical , and other harsh terrain , to the beach of southerly Florida where they could hopefully procure safe musical passage to freedom in the Bahamas .
" Miami was likely the master escape point of the Saltwater Underground Railroad , more specifically Key Biscayne on the alcove and ocean , seven international mile southeast of Miami . With the Cape Florida lighthouse up by 1825 , it was all over for that main escape road of the Saltwater Underground Railroad , " say George . " We be given to view history from a British vantage point in time . Thus , all things Spanish Florida at the time were overlooked . Ironically , the Saltwater Underground Railroad end on the bakshish of Key Biscayne about where the lighthouse resist today . "
Here is an introduction to a series yell the " Saltwater Underground Railroad Experience : Retracing Pathways to Freedom : "
Historiansestimatethat by the 1830s as many as 6,000 enslaved masses had get away to the Bahamian islands .
Today there are two designated National Underground Railroad connection to Freedom sites in Florida : Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas andBill Baggs Cape Florida State Parkon Key Biscayne .
