St. Johns County, Florida
Tolomato Cemetery, St. Augustine
This is an old Indian cemetery (catholic) on Cordova Street in St. Augustine, Florida and is located on the former site of the Tolomato village of the Guale Indian converts to christianity. It was part of the Franciscan mission. The cemetery also contains burials of black slaves who had converted to Catholicism after escaping from the Carolinas. Later, it was the burial ground for the Minorcan colonists, who were refugees. The cemetery was closed in 1884. An historically significant early burial is that of America's first black general, Jorge Biassou, a leader of the 1791 Haitian slave uprisiing. Biassou became, in the twists and turns of international politics, a Spanish general and was sent to St. Augustine in 1796, as the second highest-paid official of the colony, and stayed until his death in 1801. He was buried in Tolomato in a grave that is now unmarked. Also buried within the cemetery are a number of Confederate soldiers, including some members of the Saint Augustine Blues, the local militia unit which took possession of the St. Francis Barracks and the Castillo de San Marcos for the Confederacy at the beginning of the War Between the States.
