Pensacola's forts built by slave bricklayers

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Pensacola News Journal Exploring the hallways of Fort Pickens and Fort Barrancas, the beauty of those structures can make you forget they were built to protect Pensacola from foreign enemies.

The walls' bricks were made by workers skilled in the task — workers who were Pensacola slaves rented for the job.

"I heard somebody say one day that black people made no contribution to this country and that's simply not true," said Georgia McCorvey Smith, local author and retired school teacher.

"Without the labor of blacks, you wouldn't have some of what the United States has today. When you're looking at Fort Barrancas and Fort Pickens, you're looking at something built by slaves.

Having written six books on Pensacola history, Smith found through her research that many Pensacola structures, including some that are military, were built with bricks made by rented slaves.

The book Smith is working on now, "Elizabeth Finds Freedom for Christmas," is a historical children's book based on true facts and events. The book includes a character who is the master of slave bricklayers, not unlike those who made the bricks used to build Fort Pickens and Fort Barrancas.

"People are surprised to learn that slaves built the forts because we weren't supposed to know how to do stuff like that," Smith said.

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