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Program directed by Digital Archaeology Uzi Baram, New College of Florida Reconstructing the Past with support from Sherry Robinson Svekis, SRS Consulting The virtual worlds are digital animated visualizations based on archaeological Virtual Reconstructions by Tragedy and Survival: research. Edward González-Tennant and Bicentennial of the Diana González-Tennant created the digital reconstructions in 2016. They allow Southward Movement of the viewer to walk the landscape of the Black Seminoles on the early 19th-century maroon communities. Gulf Coast Prospect Bluff Funding provided by Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities Scholarly Advisors for the Program: Rosalyn Howard, University of Central Florida Manatee Mineral Spring Nathaniel Millett, Saint. Louis University Vickie Oldham, Looking for Angola Terrance Weik, University of South Carolina The Virtual Worlds are available from the New College Public Archaeology Lab Uzi Baram, Director Commemorating the July 1816 5800 Bay Shore Road Destruction at Prospect Bluff and New College of Florida Consequential History of Maroons on the Sarasota FL 34243 USA Florida Gulf Coast through Phone: 941-487-4217 Digital Archaeology: The goals of the virtual reconstructions: to Fax: 941-487-4475 inspire further interest, study, and research. E-mail: [email protected] Virtual Worlds for the Early 19th-century The programs are available through the Landscapes at Prospect Bluff and Angola New College Public Archaeology Lab. Prospect Bluff on the Manatee Mineral Spring on the Maroons of Second Apalachicola River Manatee River Spanish Period Florida: The borderlands between Spanish imperial control Rivers of Freedom, and the United States offered a haven for those Landscapes of Liberty escaping slavery and fighting for freedom. In 1814 Royal Marines under the leadership of Captain In 1693, King Charles II proclaims George Woodbine began training at the those enslaved could find a haven in Apalachicola River. Edward Nicolls proclaimed Spanish St. Augustine. Peoples of those fighting with Britain would be British African descent lived in and fought for subjects; he organized a fort below the confluence their freedom at Fort Mosé (1738 to of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, and then 1740 and 1752 to 1763). Maroon, another at Prospect Bluff. As hundreds rallied to coming from the Spanish cimarrón, is the British fort, known to those in the USA as the used to describe the diversity of Negro Fort, the US Navy entered the river. On July Braden River enters the Manatee people seeking freedom and liberty; 27, 1816 the schooners Semilante and General Pike River - flows into Tampa Bay and Seminole becomes the term in Florida. and gunboats No. 149 and 154 commanded by then the Gulf of Mexico In the Second Spanish Period (starting Sailing Master Jarius Loomis blew up the magazine in 1783), maroons come to a new and the fort; Garçon and an unnamed Choctaw The community on the Manatee River first haven for freedom, one established by leader were captured and killed. Survivors fled to recognized as a maroon community by Canter Edward Nicolls on the Apalachicola the Suwannee River and the temporary safety of Brown Jr.’s archival research led Vickie Oldham to River. Self-emancipated people, those Bowlegs Town. In March 1818 Andrew Jackson create Looking for Angola as an interdisciplinary born in freedom, and other maroons orders a fort built over the ruins, known as Fort community-based public anthropology program. In establish communities first on the Gadsden. 2013, traces of Angola were uncovered by the Apalachicola River, then by the Manatee Mineral Spring on the south side of the Suwannee River, and finally on the The landscape is reconstructed to envision a Manatee River. Manatee River. The Spanish Empire maroon perspective on the fort, the Apalachicola released Florida to the United States River, and the community’s material culture. Maroons might have started the community in the of America in 1821, under the Adams- late 18th century; after the Battle of Suwannee Onís Treaty of 1819. A punishing raid hundreds came to Angola seeking freedom. For down the Florida Gulf Coast several years, maroons built homes, tended fields, destroyed Native American and and traded with Cuban fishermen on the coast and maroon communities; some escaped Seminoles in the interior. In 1821, a military raid to the British Bahamas and others to destroyed the community, capturing hundreds the Florida interior. Red Bays on while others escaped to the Florida interior or to Andros Island sustained the Cape Florida and ultimately to Andros Island in the descendants through the generations. British Bahamas In Florida, maroons and Seminole peoples would rise up, starting in 1835 Reconstructing this landscape required piecing as the Second Seminole War. This past together fragments from several sources, offering a has tragedies but the history is one of Chattahoochee and Flint rivers converge into the view of what the area by the Manatee Mineral survival: a heritage of freedom across spring might have been like in the early 19th Apalachicola River - flows into Apalachicola Gulf Coast Florida. century. Bay and the Gulf of Mexico .

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