Mosquito Colony: An Echo Left in Time and Place

Life in America proved to be more challenging than the European settlers had expected. Indenturing themselves to an adventuresome Scottish doctor, Andrew Turnbull, for passage and land in the biggest colonization endeavor ever to arrive in America, they abandoned their diverse Mediterranean homelands seeking a better life. Over fourteen hundred Greek, Italian and Minorcan passengers boarded eight British ships for a devastating three month journey over the stormy Atlantic. Starvation and sickness took the lives of 148 of them. This was only their beginning of sorrows.

Preparations for only five hundred awaited them. Lack of shelter, food, and clothing, combined with ill treatment, bad water, insects, snakes, Indians and disease further decreased the colony, dooming their dreams for years. With financial failure of their plantations due to severe weather and political intrigue, governmental changes and Colonial war, a new way lead them on to other adventures.

Though considered fiction, the story, places and people are real. Their romances, adventures, and experiences were enhanced where necessity required. This uniquely combined ethnic colony bonded. Intermarrying, God parenting, exchanging and combining traditions and religion, and sharing hardships creating a new breed of American. Their legacy lives on in northeastern Florida.