History is filled with the stories of people who escaped their enslavers by fleeing to the north. The Underground Railroad is so well known that hundreds of books have been written about the paths and people behind it. However, the formerly enslaved didn’t just escape to the north. Many went south.
The journey northward was harrowing and oftentimes carried too great a risk for those trying to escape, especially if they were in the Deep South. Help and escape came from unlikely sources, but when our ancestors wanted their freedom, they used their ingenuity to get it.
Still a Spanish colony at the time, Florida offered freedom and Spanish citizenship. The enslaved from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama who feared the long journey north found hope in Spanish Florida. Many settled in Cape Florida, while others sought to leave the United States entirely.
Once they were free Spanish citizens, some “Black Seminoles” awaited passage to the British colonies in the Bahamas. They faced possible recapture and pirates, but once there, they found a home with descendants of other formerly enslaved and free Black people.
It may not be as well known as the Underground Railroad, but the Saltwater Railroad still managed to save over 6000 people between 1821 and the 1830s. Our ancestors used every avenue at their disposal to find freedom.