Leader Of Gracia Real De Santa Teresa De Mos

Renegade.

Francisco Menendez is the Spanish name for the man who was the military and political head of the free black town of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose. Nothing is known of Menendez's early life. He might have been born in Africa or as a slave in the Carolinas or the West Indies. As an adult he lived as a slave in South Carolina but at some point made his way to the Indians and fought against his former masters in the Yamasee Indian War of 1715. What became of Menendez between 1715 and 1724 remains hidden, but in 1724, helped by the Yamasee, he and nine others arrived in Saint Augustine, Florida, then owned by Spain. They claimed to know of the Spanish king's promise of 1693 that if they converted to Catholicism they would be freed...