Starter chapter
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St. Augustine’s founding by Spain in 1565 made it the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in what is now the continental United States. That date is a beginning for the city’s colonial record, not the beginning of human history here. Indigenous peoples, including Timucua communities, lived in the region long before Spanish arrival, and their histories should not be reduced to a preface to colonization.
The city’s past includes Spanish colonial rule, periods of British and U.S. control, and the work and lives of people of African descent. Fort Mose, north of the historic center, became a community of free Black people and a place of refuge connected to Spanish Florida. Today, public sites such as Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Mose help visitors encounter different parts of the story. Read interpretive material closely: the same place can hold military, Indigenous, colonial, and community histories at once.