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Sculpture commemorating the U.S. slave trade greets visitors at the entrance National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. The memorial is dedicated to the legacy of enslaved blacks [not the more numerous Native Americans] and those terrorized by lynching and Jim Crow segregation in the USA. Conceived by the Equal Justice Initiative, it is intended to foster reflection on our history of racism (Bob Miller/Getty Images).
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As the New York Times noted recently in a blockbuster issue of its magazine, African slavery started in America in 1619. That’s true, but only if you ignore a significant chapter of American history: the Spanish-Afro-American historical experience in Florida.
In many parts of the United States -- including Florida, Texas, and New Mexico -- Spanish [speaking European enslavers] arrived first.
That matters not just for historical accuracy. It also helps reframe the current rhetorical and political upheaval that surrounds immigration from Spanish-speaking nations to the United States, by reminding us how Spanish-speaking black slaves helped build the nation [the USA] we now have.
There is a tendency of many people who write the history of America to have a view of the world centered on Jamestown and the Anglo-American experience. When history fixates on the 13 original American [actually imperial British] colonies, the rest of the map, including Florida, seems to fall away.
But it's worth expanding that picture to include Spanish-occupied territory [in the Americas] in what is now the United States of America.
When we consider those lands, we see that slavery actually dates a full century before 1619.
Slavery in Florida reveals how a multinational slave trade built on personal [and imperial] greed and white supremacy [because the Spanish are as white as any Europeans] forced [Spanish-] Africans [Moors] and African Americans to build North American wealth in which they would not be able to share.
Then, adding insult to injury, these early black slaves [possibly Moors brought from Europe in addition to captured Africans] were erased from the standard narrative of American history.
In 1511 Spain's King Ferdinand instructed his subjects in the New World to "get gold, humanely, if you can, but at all hazards, [to] get gold."
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| Fountain of Youth, 1546 (Lucas Cranach) |
Spanish explorers heeded their king's call. Florida was named by Juan Ponce de León, who claimed it for Spain in 1513 when he was searching in vain for the Fountain of Youth and gold.
Spanish empire-building in the era was driven in part by desire for greater territory. Conquests in [Imperial Spain's] Mexico by Hernan Cortés in 1521 and in Peru by Francisco Pizarro between 1531 and 1534 had also produced an insatiable lust for gold that fueled the treasure hunt in the New World.
Ponce de León, however, had to settle for merely claiming the land of Florida for Spain, since there was neither gold nor mythical [mineral, alchemical, biblical "troubled water"] fountains to be found.
On the heels of Ponce de León's claiming Florida, the Spanish empire tried to create settlements in its new territory.
For example, in 1526 another Spanish explorer, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, tried to establish a Spanish settlement at "San Miguel de Gualdape" in what was then La Florida (the current Georgia or South Carolina coast).
The Ayllón group included both Spaniards and African slaves who were brought as mining and agricultural laborers. But the settlement collapsed.
First, some of the Spaniards mutinied against Ayllón. Then the African slaves burned down the mutineers' housing and went to live with Native Americans in the area. More
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