Spanish Corsairs of "Broken Color" in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

Spanish Corsairs of “Broken Color” in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

In attempting to recover sailors claimed as prizes of war during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, the governor of Florida wrote that Spain could not maintain its navy “without those of broken color.” Francisco Menéndez was one of those multi-racial corsairs on whom Spain depended. A Mandinga man who escaped slavery in English Carolina, Menéndez became the military leader of the first free black town in what is today the United States, Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, in Spanish Florida.  After receiving commendation for their military service during the English assault on St. Augustine in 1740, Menéndez and other men from Mose transferred their military skills to the sea, serving as Spanish corsairs and attacking British ships and settlements along the Atlantic coast to Oakracoke. Some, like Menéndez were captured and re-enslaved by British Admiralty courts in New York and the Bahamas, and Spain attempted to recover them legally, but with little success.  Menéndez was one of the lucky few who regained his freedom. On returning to Mose, he battled British and Indian attacks on Florida until leading his community into exile in Cuba in 1763. This paper uses a wide array of documentary evidence, including petitions by Menéndez and other corsairs, correspondence and military reports of Spanish officials, and British Admiralty Court records to examine the careers and impact of the multi-racial corsairs Spain deployed in its eighteenth-century Atlantic contests with Britain.