Battle of Bloody Mose - Florida event

The "Battle of Bloody Mose" Commemoration

June 21-22, 2014
Fort Mose Historic State Park, St. Augustine, Florida

Photo by John Alison, courtesy of 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.

  

Photo by Jackie Hird, courtesy of Florida Living History, Inc.

On Saturday and Sunday, June 21-22, 2014, Florida Living History, Inc., along with Fort Mose Historic State Park (www.floridastateparks.org/fortmose/) and the Fort Mose Historical Society (www.fortmose.org/), will host the fifth, annual Battle of Bloody Mose Commemoration. 

Now expanded to a two-day heritage Event, the award-winning Battle of Bloody Mose historical re-enactment will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Fort Mose Historic State Park, located at 15 Fort Mose Trail; St. Augustine, Florida; 32084.

A re-enactment of the battle itself will take place at 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. White, black, and Native American re-enactors and volunteers from across the state and the Southeast will participate in this Event, which will include:

• period weapons and tactics;
• period foodways;
• and more!

The National Park Service has named the annual Battle of Bloody Mose Commemoration as a Member Program of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom (www.nps.gov/ugrr).