American Civil War by which slaves escaped to freedom, most often to the North and Canada, but also to the Bahamas and Mexico. Modern identification and recovery of the site The site was abandoned when Spanish Florida was ceded to British in 1763 Treaty of Paris, with the community being evacuated by the Spanish to Cuba. The empty site was demolished by the British in 1812, during the War of 1812. In 1968, motivated by the recent (1963–1964) racial violence in St. Augustine (see St. Augustine movement), Frederick Eugene "Jack" Williams, a long time St. Augustine resident, historian and amateur archaeologist, located the site from an old map, purchased the land, and began a campaign, supported by the Black Caucus in the Florida legislature, to have the site excavated. From 1986 to 1988, a team of specialists, the Fort Mose Research Team—led by Kathleen Deagan of the Florida Museum of Natural History, Jane Landers, and John Marron of the University of Florida—performed an archaeological and historical investigation at Fort Mose. Their work revealed the site of the original fort, as well as the second facility constructed in 1752. Their discoveries showed that Africans played important roles in the geopolitical conflicts between European colonial powers in the southeast of what is now the United States. Documents examined by historian Jane Landers in the colonial archives of Spain, Florida, Cuba, and South Carolina reveal who lived in Mose and some idea of what their lives were like in the settlement. In 1759 the village consisted of twenty-two palm thatched huts housing thirty-seven men, fifteen women, seven boys and eight girls. The people of Mose grew their own crops and their men stood guard at the fort or patrolled the frontier in service to the crown. They attended Mass in a wooden chapel where their priest also lived. Most of them married other refugees, but some married Indian women or slaves who lived in St. Augustine. In the first year of excavating the archaeologists uncovered remains of fort structures, including its moat, clay-daubed earthen walls and the wooden structures inside the walls. They found a wide assortment of artifacts: military paraphernalia such as gunflints, lead shot, metal buckles and hardware; household items such as pipestems, thimbles, nails, ceramics, and bottle glass; and food remnants such as burnt seeds and bone. Fort Mose's location on the small tidal channel called Mose Creek (Caño Mose)