Captain Francisco Menéndez was a free black military leader serving the Spanish Crown in the 18th-century at St. Augustine, Florida. Born in 1709 he was one of the many enslaved people from the colony of South Carolina that escaped to Spanish Florida looking for freedom since 1687. Menéndez served as a captain in the Black militia of Florida, a military body created by Black citizens and the formerly enslaved of Carolina to help protect the region against outside incursions by the French and British. He was the leader of the garrison established in 1738 at Fort Mose, the first all-Black community in North America that is now a national historic landmark. Menéndez and his militia were vital to the defense of Castillo De San Marcos, a Spanish Fort that is today a monument managed by the National Park Service.
The Unhidden Minute is part of the Unhidden Podcast Project supported through a National Geographic Explorer Grant from the National Geographic Society, with the cooperation of the National Park Service. This series celebrates the untold stories of Black American history.
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Francisco Menéndez