Captain Francisco Menéndez

Francisco Menéndez, a native of West Africa, arrived in St. Augustine in 1724 as a refugee from slavery and a seasoned warrior. Previously captured and enslaved in British Carolina, he had fought alongside Indigenous forces against the colonists in the Yamasee War but escaped to Spanish Florida, where he pledged loyalty to the Spanish Crown and converted to Catholicism. As the military commander of Fort Mose and the de facto leader of its community of farmers, fishermen, and laborers, Menéndez guided them in their pursuit of self-sufficiency and defense.