BRADENTON, Florida — The settlement of Red Bays in North Andros will be the central focus of a three-day festival being hosted by the Oak Tree Community Outreach, a Florida-based not-for-profit corporation, at the City of Bradenton Manatee Mineral Spring Park July 13 -15th celebrating the historic ties between Red Bays and an early 1800s Florida community known as Angola.
Coming as it does on the weekend after The Bahamas celebrates its 45th anniversary of independence on July 10, the festival can be considered by Bahamians living in the Florida-area diaspora as an extension of their country’s independence celebrations.
Daphney Towns and Trudy Williams, principal organizers of the event, noted in a Facebook advertisement publicizing the weekend that it will feature Seminole Descendants, recording artist Clifford Bigbruh Riley, Creative Folklore Arts Company, Conquerors for Christ Junkanoo Group, wood carvers and basket weavers from Red Bays, Andros.
A press release announcing plans for the Back to Angola Festival, organizers reveaed that it has been discovered that Angola was “located near the Manatee Mineral Spring in today’s East Bradenton, Florida.”
The once forgotten maroon community called Angola was located at the Manatee Mineral Spring “by archaeology and historical research undertaken through the efforts of several groups and universities.”
“Some descendants of Angola still reside in Red Bays, Andros Island, Bahamas, where the Angolans fled in 1821,” the release said. “At the
Back to Angola Festival, descendants from Red Bays will join local descendants, as well as others interested in this part of history, to celebrate their shared history and the peace and refuge that was found at the Manatee Mineral Spring and in Red Bays, Bahamas.”
