December 8 - Fernando Joaquin Moreno Was Elected Mayor of Key West - a podcast by 43 Keys Media

There's nothing but saying there today. But 140 years ago, nearly 300 Africans were buried on what is now Higgs beach victims of slavery. It was 1858 and us warships had been ordered to enforce the anti slave trade laws. Five ships patrolled the Florida straits or slave merchants, for the tobacco and sugar fields of Cuba and Puerto Rico maintained vigorous commerce for human cargo with several African coastal states and principalities, including the king of the African state of Dahomey.

At least 3119 African men, women and children headed for Cuban ports were intercepted by Navy ships in 1860 alone. Most eventually returned to Liberia a country peopled largely by recaptured Africans, but not all were returned to Africa. In 1863, slavers as the ships recalled were captured with 1400 slaves who cheered and clapped their hands when the Navy freed them and brought them to Key West. While most would sail back to Africa 80 days later, 294 of them would not. Never realizing the Key West, their new land of liberation would be the last place they would ever see. They would all die of typhoid fever and dysentery and lie buried unnamed, and in an unnamed cemetery that became a public beach.

The Wildfire was one of the clippers running slaves that ended up in Key West waters. Built in Philadelphia in 1855. It sailed from New York in December 16, 1859, and with an American crew made a run to St. Thomas and then sailed for the Congo River. The captain of the USS Mohawk, wrote a letter June 8, 1860, after capturing the Wildfire, and described what he saw. "The slaves are packed below in as dense a mass as it would be possible for human beings to be crowded the space a lot of them being in general, about four feet high between the decks with little ventilation, these unfortunate people pass their days and nights emits the most horribly offensive odors of which the mind can conceive under the scorching heat of the tropical sun without room enough to sleep with scarcely space to die in the passage to the West Indies varies from 40 to 60 days and their sufferings are incredible."

As to what the people faced when they arrived in the Key West of 1860, a town of about 3000. Here's a quote from the Congressional Globe..." both on account of the deficiency of water and provisions and its exposure to the yellow fever, Key West is one of the worst spots for an African slave depot which could be found on the coast of the US." A more stark realization of the ultimate ending of the 294 can be discovered at the Islamorada library. It's a copy of a receipt dated Key West September 11 1860.

And the receipt was for making coffins and burying 294 deceased African slaves from the ships of the Wildfire, William and Name Unknown by order of F. J. Moreno, US Marshal. At $5.50 each for a total of $1617.

Archaeologists have confirmed that Higgs Beach was the site of the original slave cemetery for Key West. But after the hurricane washed it away (some bodies were found in trees), what did not get destroyed, was moved to the present City Cemetery.

F.J. Marino moved to Key West from Pensacola, Florida in 1836. His hobby was riding a pacing pony on Key West streets. He was slightly deaf and carried a silver ear trumpet over his left arm while riding the pony. He liked to tell about the time a young woman mistaking the trumpet for a cornet asked him, "Old man, when are you going to give your concert? You must be good. You always have your cornet and I would like to hear you play." So it turns out that the F.J. Marino who was the US Marshal and ordered 294 coffins for the African slaves on September 11 of 1860 also had a different job before then.

Because it was today, December 8, 1852, that Fernando Joaquin Moreno was elected as Mayor of Key West........ and that's what happened today in Key West history.

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