Preservation magazine, published by the National Historic Trust
for Preservation, recently carried a short item on
“Mitchelville—The Nation’s First Freedman’s Village.” The
description puzzled at least one St. Augustine resident who is,
of course, familiar with Fort Mose in St. Augustine, “the first
legally sanctioned free African settlement in what is now the
United states.” In 1738 Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose
(Moze, with a “z” if one uses the spelling of the 1700s) was
formed at St. Augustine. In 1862, slaves freed by Union troops
organized Mitchelville near Hilton Head, S.C. Spanish Florida
Governor Manuel de Montiano officially created the town at Mose
about two miles north of Castillo de San Marcos, according to
his letter written in November 1738. Ten years earlier, the
location had served as an Indian mission village, which was
abandoned, probably after an epidemic. The residents of the free
black town at Mose were former slaves who had escaped mostly
from British South Carolina. British settle