Negro Fort: The Seminole Maroon Connection

This is the first event of the two-day program. The weekend's activities, commemorating Palm Beach County's Seminole Maroon history, are sponsored by FBHRP, Inc. and held in partnership with Loxahatchee Battlefield Preservationists and Palm Beach County Parks. (Please make sure to Register for this event.)

The two-day event culmiates on Sunday, January 19, as a tradition of 32 years continues with the Annual Seminole Maroon Spiritual Remembrance at Riverbend Park. Program of Speakers begins at 10:00 am, and tour of battlefield site begins at 1:00 pm.

Above image: The “Freedom Tree Monument” at Loxahatchee Battlefield in Jupiter (see photo), unveiled May 20, 2023, in observance of Florida’s Emancipation Day.

The Monument was made possible by support from Palm Beach County Parks, African American Research Library and Cultural Center of Palm Beach County, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and National Endowment for the Humanities.

Thomas Mitchell is a descendant of Seminole Maroons who lived in the area of Negro Fort on the Apalachicola River. Listen to his story.

--Video by Serge Dorsainvil

Antoinette Riley—great-granddaughter of Seminole Maroon Florence Ealer Jones Hamm of West Palm Beach who was born on Mikasuki settlement near Tallahassee, FL—chats with attendees at Annual Spiritual Remembrance at Loxahatchee River Battlefield Park in Jupiter, FL.

Performing artist, composer and collaborator, Fluteity, Afro-Indigenous Flautist, brings her sacred sounds to the Cleansing Ceremony at Loxhatchee Battlefield, Sunday, January 19, 10:00 a.m.

--Photos courtesy of Andrew Foster

This annual event acknowledges two 1838 military encounters: The Seminole victory against a Naval expedition force (January 15) and the massive retaliation (January 24), which finally turned the tide of the decades-long conflict which was the “longest, costliest, and bloodiest” in the nation’s history until the Vietnam War.

This year's focus on "Negro Fort" on the Apalachicola River provides background to the three Seminole Wars and to the possible source of the Maroon commnity on the Loxahatchee River.

The Sunday event opents with American Indigenous and African traditional rituals. The ceremony honors all of the fallen on both sides, and the memory of the hundreds of Native and Black Seminoles who were not defeated on the battlefield but later were captured under a flag of truce at Fort Jupiter and deported on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma Territory (with some being turned over to “slave catchers”), all under the aegis of Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830.

The providential coincidence of these dates with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend has also made this an appropriate occasion to meditate on the horrific consequences of violence and warfare.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

West Jupiter Recreation Center, 6401 West Indiantown Road, Jupiter, United States