About 300 people on 27 sloops and dugout canoes: the Cape Florida exodus (Key Biscayne, 1821)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet proven
Year: 1821 · Places: Florida, Gulf Coast, Caribbean, Europe
SUMMARYAbout 300 people on 27 sloops and dugout canoes: the Cape Florida exodus (Key Biscayne, 1821) [Connections: Miami & Lake Okeechobee, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDNational Underground Railroad Network to Freedom marker (2004), Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park: in the early 1820s enslaved people, freedom seekers and Black Seminoles gathered at Cape Florida; Bahamian sloop captains carried them across the Gulf Stream; in 1821 eyewitnesses reported about 300 people boarding 27 sloops or paddling dugout canoes to Andros; the federal lighthouse built in 1825 shut down this route; descendants in Red Bays, Andros, some still calling themselves Black Seminoles, live there today. Wikipedia (Cape Florida Light) says the light became a setback for those escaping at night
PATTERNA federal lighthouse was, in effect, a border post against Black and Black-Seminole escape
LENS (WW9)The first light at Miami was built in the years they were sailing away
OPENIdentify the 1821 eyewitness reports cited by the marker (likely Spanish/US or Bahamian official correspondence) and the Nassau customs records
SOURCEEscaping to Freedom in the Bahamas marker (HMdb); Cape Florida Light (Wikipedia).