Sunday Favorites: The Search for Angola

The location of this community is thought to have been at the confluence of the Manatee and Braden rivers, according to Sarasota-based historian, Vicki Oldham. The site was unknown until the early 2000s, when Oldham teamed up with New CollegeAnthropology Professor Uzi Baram, director of New College Public Archaeology Lab and discovered relics thought to be associated with the community, according to a 2018 article in Sarasota Magazine called "Angola's Ashes: Newly Excavated Settlement Highlights Florida's History of Escaped Slaves," by Isaac Edger.

The article sites a book called "Florida's Peace River Frontier, a detailed history of 19th-century Florida Seminoles," by Canter Brown Jr. The book features a detailed account of the village made up of African-Americans and Seminole Indians. The perimeters of this community reached from the Manatee and Braden Rivers all the way to Sarasota Bay.

The story of how this village came to be is a complex and political journey.

Nearly a century before Harriet Tubman secretly led more than 300 slaves north to freedom, slaves were escaping south into the Florida wilderness and forming alliances with another group of exiled people, the Seminole natives.

Called Black Seminoles, or Maroons, the group of people that lived in Angola were decedents of free and runaway slaves in Georgia and the Carolinas. At the time, Florida was under British rule. The British offered the group sanctuary if they joined forces and fought against the U.S. during the War of 1812, according to Edger.

The group of Maroons manned a fort on the Apalachicola River known as Prospect Bluff. When the United States Government got wind of its existence, it sent Gen. Andrew Jackson to destroy it. The destruction of the fort put the black Seminoles on the move again. They are thought to have escaped down the coast, finally settling in Angola. There they farmed, hunted and traded with seasonal Cuban fisherman. They also utilized large dugout sailing canoes to travel back in forth to the Bahamas. The community existed until 1821, when Gen Jackson organized an attack that burned the community to the ground.

The next few decades were tragic for the group of people, but they were determined to protect their freedom. In the 50 years preceding the Civil War, African Americans had the most significant influence shaping Seminole affairs, including the First and Second Seminole wars. But the alliance of the Africans and Native Seminoles was a constant source of concern to the U.S. Government because the Seminoles were seen as a major threat to the institution of slavery.

The U.S. Government set out re-enslave those free black people and drive their Native American alliances south. Many of the Angola residents were able to escape to Bahamas where their ancestors still reside.

Those that fought with the Seminoles were driven into the Everglades, where some of their ancestors live today.

The thriving community of Angola is an intriguing legend of a brief utopia that provided hundreds of people sanctuary. The only remaining proof of it's existence is a new historical marker dedicated to its history, thanks to historians like Oldham and Baram, who fought to keep the story alive.

Tune in next week, when we research another lost community in this interesting series.