USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Competition between Spain and Britain made Florida a haven for colonial South Carolina’s fugitive slaves in the 18th century. To destabilize British colonization in the north, Spain encouraged British slaves to escape to Florida, where they could convert to Catholicism and become Spanish citizens.

Detailed explanation-2: -In 1539, slavery arrived in present-day Florida when the slave trader and Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto attempted to establish a permanent settlement and claim more territory for Spain.

Detailed explanation-3: -Florida a slave state (1845–1861) On March 3, 1845, Florida became a slave state of the United States. Almost half the state’s population were enslaved African Americans working on large cotton and sugar plantations, between the Apalachicola and Suwannee Rivers in the north-central part of the state.

Detailed explanation-4: -On the eve of the Civil War, Florida was one of the fastest growing slave states in the South and the third to secede after South Carolina and Mississippi.

Detailed explanation-5: -The network of safe house and anti-slavery activists stretched from the northern part of the United States to the southern tip of Florida. Escaped slaves would travel from the Carolinas and Georgia through Florida to Key Biscayne, where they would sail across the Atlantic Ocean to Red Bays, Bahamas.