Traces of a British Fort Found in Florida

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA—According to a First Coast News report, soil stains left behind by an eighteenth-century British fort have been uncovered in the Lincolnville neighborhood of St. Augustine, a city founded on the northeastern coast of Florida by Spanish colonists in the sixteenth century. Archaeologist Andrea White of the City of St. Augustine Archaeology Program said that references to seven such redoubts have been found in historic documents, but that this is the first time that evidence for one of the structures has been unearthed. The soil stains are several feet long and about 15 feet apart, and are thought to represent the edges of a moat. “So, it would have been a gun platform or someplace people could have used to shoot at their enemy,” White said. “Or even just a lookout and have people or soldiers stationed at them,” she added. This redoubt is thought to have been built in 1781, said archaeologist Katherine Sims. “However, in every map, it’s in a slightly different place and they’re all different shapes, which has contributed to why it’s been so hard to find them archaeologically,” she explained. The discovery could help archaeologists pinpoint the locations of the other six defensive structures, White concluded. To read about a militia in eighteenth-century Spanish Florida that was composed of formerly enslaved Africans, go to "Freedom Fort."