Medal with Saint Christopher

1750-1777

Name(s) currently unknown

Gainesville, FL, USA, Florida Museum of Natural History (current location); Saint Augustine, FL, USA (find site)

This two-sided medal, bearing the image of Saint Christopher and, on its reverse, a compass rose, was found in Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, today known as Fort Mose, Florida. This community was founded by the Spanish for Africans fleeing slavery in the Carolinas. Travelers in hopes of otherworldly protection often wore medals like this one. Once a popular saint in Europe, Saint Christopher appears in many paintings and statues in the New World.

The giant Saint Christopher ferried a child across a river on his back. The terrible weight he felt midway made him realize that his passenger was the Christ Child, burdened down by the sins of the world. According to Christian narratives, upon reaching the far shore of his journey, Saint Christopher saw his staff miraculously transform into a date palm. The reverse side of the medal bears a compass rose, another emblem familiar to travelers. The pierced hole allowed the medal to be hung by a cord or string around a person’s neck or waist.

Common, everyday objects like this one were rarely signed. People of many social classes wore religious medals. While this medal was probably worn by a person of modest means, an elaborate version, like that carved in tagua nut, would have been worn by a rich woman. Because this particular medal was found in Fort Mose, a town founded by the Spaniards for black people fleeing slavery, its owner was likely a Catholic ex-slave, or perhaps an indigenous person married to one of Ft. Mose’s free black residents.

Medals were easily made by heating and then stamping metal ingots in a die. The die was two pieces of hard medal, the bottom fixed like a small anvil, the top a metal cylinder, both bearing negative images. Once the die had been embossed or engraved, metalworkers could hammer out medals out by the hundreds.

This medal was found through archaeological excavation at Fort Mose, near Saint Augustine, the site of Spain’s first Florida settlement. In the mid-18th century, Fort Mose was a small town of free black people living in thatched houses with a single wood church. Among the household items found at Fort Mose were ceramics, glass bottles, and thimbles.

Through simple objects like this medal, people living in Spanish America could evoke the presence of the saints, and call on otherworldy protection in their daily lives. Saint Christopher, although no longer accepted as a saint by the Catholic Church, was believed to protect against fires, earthquakes, and floods; he was also the patron saint of travelers and his image was (and still is) frequently worn. The excavation of this medal in a town established expressly for African and African-American people suggests the medal once belonged to a Catholic ex-slave or an indigenous person married to one of the town’s free black residents. The presence of St. Christopher’s image amongst freed slaves in a border town shows how widespread the visual culture surrounding the cult of saints was. Moreover, this humble object suggests how visual culture shaped the daily experience of people from all ranks of society.

Reproduced courtesy of the Historical Archaeology College of the Florida Museum of Natural History

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

Fort Mose: America's Black Colonial Fortress of Freedom.

Deagan, Kathleen and Darcie MacMahon. 1995. Ft. Mose, Colonial America’s Black Fortress of Freedom. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

Fort Mose: America's Black Colonial Fortress of Freedom. Florida Museum of Natural History.

Landers, Jane. 1999. Black Society in Spanish Florida. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.