Browse Exhibits (6 total)
Amelia, Antebellum Period
Known only as Amelia, this nine-year-old girl was included in a list of chattels purchased to work a sugar plantation in Louisiana. Married to a man named David at age 19, Amelia lost her first child while pregnant due to frequent beatings. Of her three children who survived, Amelia was allowed to raise only one, as the others were sold away from her. Amelia was brought to St. Augustine where she worked as a laundress for her owner.
Juana Solam, Second Spanish Period, 1787
Juana Solam was sold to a plantation in Havana, being forced to leave her two small children in the hands of her brutal owner in St. Augustine. Rather than accept this fate, Juana drowned her children in a well the night before her departure. She avoided execution once the true nature of her owner’s deviance was made public; however, she was forced to wear and iron collar for the next 6 years. She must have spent the rest of her life wearing her anguish in her heart.
Gratia, First Spanish Period, 1595
It is believed by many that this fragile document will rewrite history. Here we find the earliest known record of the baptism of a newborn girl, Estebana, to an enslaved woman named Gratia on January 5, 1595, in St. Augustine. Father Francisco de Marron performed the sacrament.
Mariana Escovar, First Spanish Period, 1687
In 1687, a decree from King Charles II of Spain offered safe haven in St. Augustine to any enslaved person escaping English plantations in Carolina. This document records the “in necessity” baptism of Mariana Escovar, who was gravely ill when she arrived. Fleeing with 10 others, Mariana made the harrowing journey with a nursing infant on her back to their refuge in La Florida.
Violet Pinckney, Antebellum Period
Violet Pinckney’s teenage children were sold away from her in the 1850s. Her son, Alexander H. Darnes, never forgot his mother and sister. In 1880, Darnes received his M.D. from Howard University and settled in Jacksonville becoming the first African American to have a medical practice in Florida. His mother and sister's son lived with him and he served his community with distinction until his death in 1894. Violet lived many years raising the children of others, but in the end the good mother found solace.
Aunt Minte, 1867
In 1867, Rev. Henry J. Morton captured the image of a woman surrounded by laundry in a community sketch of St. Augustine. Known as Aunty Minte, she was a cook at a local boarding house and lived near the corner of St. Francis and Charlotte Streets. Her son Thomas is the subject of a piece by Earnest A. Meyer. We know little else, other than this former slave and her son live on in a sketchbook of St. Augustine history.