The History of Northeast Florida

On the night of December 19, 1827, the waters off Key Largo, Florida, fractured with the sounds of wood splintering, heavy artillery firing, and the screams of hundreds of captive people. The Spanish brig Guerrero, a heavily armed vessel carrying 561 enslaved West Africans, crashed at full speed into Carysfort Reef. The impact was a catastrophic groan of oak tearing open against a jagged thicket of razor sharp coral. Below decks, the captives were plunged into absolute blackness, broken only by flashes of lightning through the deck as the foul bilge water began to rise rapidly around their shackled ankles. Pursued through a blinding storm by a British Royal Navy anti-slavery schooner, the outlaw vessel tore its hull open, snapped its masts, and began to sink. The wreck of the Guerrero was not an isolated maritime accident, but a geopolitical clash, an act of piracy, and a human tragedy. It remains one of the most significant, yet overlooked, events in the twilight years of the transatl...