Waiting on the Tide: Climate Change, Cultural Heritage, and Legacies of Anti-Blackness at Fort Mose

Colonial Florida was a legal and jurisdictional borderland, within which many Afro-diasporic peoples negotiated to best protect their freedoms. However, they also found that emergent ideas about race were shaping the negotiation, circumscribing their options, and working to define a marginalized position for them within Florida society. The site of Fort Mose exemplifies this history and the challenges confronted by Afro-diasporic people within it. Furthermore, the threats to heritage preservation currently faced at the site highlight the ways which anti-Black ideology and action have had a persistent effect on the site, from its inception through the present day. Fort Mose was vulnerable by design. While it is today recognized for its symbolic role in the colonial era, as a site of Black heritage it is threatened not only by rising sea levels and increased storm activity, but also a historical legacy of marginalization.