{"id":21590,"date":"2012-03-20T01:48:18","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T01:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=21590"},"modified":"2012-03-20T21:20:54","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T21:20:54","slug":"for-a-century-the-first-underground-railroad-ran-slaves-south-to-florida-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=21590","title":{"rendered":"For A Century, The First Underground Railroad Ran Slaves South To Florida (PHOTOS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

For A Century, The First Underground Railroad Ran Slaves South To Florida (PHOTOS)<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Huffington Post<\/a>
\n2012-03-18<\/p>\n

Bruce Smith<\/strong>, Associated Press<\/p>\n

CHARLESTON, S.C. — While most Americans are familiar with the Underground Railroad<\/a> that helped Southern slaves escape north before the Civil War<\/a>, the first clandestine path to freedom ran for more than a century in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

Stories of that lesser-known “railroad” will be shared June 20-24 at the National Underground Railroad Conference<\/a> in St. Augustine, Fla.<\/a> The network of sympathizers gave refuge to those fleeing their masters, including many American Indians who helped slaves escape to what was then the Spanish territory of Florida<\/a>. That lasted from shortly after the founding of Carolina Colony<\/a> in 1670 to after the American Revolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They escaped not only to the South but to Mexico, the Caribbean and the American West.<\/p>\n

And the “railroad” helps to explain at least in part why the lasting culture of slave descendants \u2013 known as Gullah<\/a> in South Carolina<\/a> and Geechee in Florida<\/a> and Georgia<\/a> \u2013 exists along the northeastern Florida coast.<\/p>\n

“It’s a fascinating story and most people in America are stuck \u2013 they are either stuck on 1964 and the Civil Rights Act<\/a> or they are stuck on the Civil War,” said Derek Hankerson, who is a Gullah descendant and a small business owner in St. Augustine, Fla. “We have been hankering to share these stories.”…<\/p>\n

…Slaves likely started fleeing toward Florida when South Carolina was established in 1670, said Jane Landers<\/a>, a Vanderbilt University historian who has researched the subject extensively. The first mention of escaped slaves in Spanish records was in 1687 when eight slaves, including a nursing baby, showed up in St. Augustine.<\/p>\n

Spain refused to return them and instead gave them religious sanctuary, and that policy was formalized in 1693. The only condition is that those seeking sanctuary convert to Catholicism.<\/p>\n

“It was a total shift in the geopolitics of the Caribbean and after that anyone who leaves a Protestant area to request sanctuary gets it,” Landers said.<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For A Century, The First Underground Railroad Ran Slaves South To Florida (PHOTOS) The Huffington Post 2012-03-18 Bruce Smith, Associated Press CHARLESTON, S.C. — While most Americans are familiar with the Underground Railroad that helped Southern slaves escape north before the Civil War, the first clandestine path to freedom ran for more than a century […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,3015,6,6940,20],"tags":[10109,10110,10108,7026,7027,2425],"class_list":["post-21590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-native-americans","category-new-media","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-bruce-smith","tag-derek-hankerson","tag-huffington-post","tag-jane-g-landers","tag-jane-landers","tag-the-huffington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}