THE STORY OF
ESTEBANA and the First Black Community
by Dr. Leslee Keys
On January 5,1595, Estebana became the first recorded Black child to be born and baptized in the New World. Her mother Gracia was an enslaved Black woman. The day was Epiphany, and the place was the 30-year-old Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, Florida. Friar Francisco de Marrón, Custos( Custodian) of Florida for the Diocese of Cuba, performed and recorded the ceremony at the city’ s first church, Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, or Our Lady of Solitude, honoring Mary.
The written record of the baptism is preserved as part of the oldest parish records in the United States, the Archives of the Diocese of St. Augustine. Located in St. Augustine, Florida, the Archives is on Aviles Street, the first platted street in North America. St. Augustine is the nation’ s oldest city, founded on September 8, 1565— 460 years ago— by the Spanish.
According to historian J. Michael Francis, two additional documents preserved at the Catholic Archives are important to this little-known, but critically foundational, American story. On February 10, 1605, a marriage certificate recorded the union of Simón, a royal slave of African descent, and Maria, an enslaved woman owned by Antón Martin. Two Black men, Baltasar and Felipe, the couple’ s sponsors, were likely free men. Another baptism took place August 20,1606, when enslaved couple Agustín and Francisca had their son Agustín baptized.
Historian Fernando Ballve has noted that between 1597 and 1604, Irish parish priest Richard Arthur“ did not enter the baptism of a single Black slave in the church ledger for which he was responsible, thereby suspending a practice dating back to 1595, if not earlier.”
SEPTEMBER 2025 | 5 |