Enough of Turnbull's seven years

What happened

Dr. Andrew Turnbull got sixty thousand acres, a ship and a cash bounty from the Crown, and with them he carried over fourteen hundred emigrants from Greece, Italy and Minorca to Florida's Atlantic coast. They expected freedom and abundance and got seven years of indentured labor on indigo, hemp and other subsidized crops. They landed in midsummer 1768, and in a few weeks they were ready to revolt, Rothbard writes (CiL, pp. 763-764). On Friday night, 19 August, Carlo Forni, whom Turnbull called the ringleader, and about twenty others seized firearms and plundered the store. Turnbull wrote that they forced the rest to join, with sentries told to shoot anyone who tried to leave. Turnbull's men and soldiers retook the store that night; two mutineers were killed and his manager, Mr. Cutter, was wounded in the head, hand and groin. About thirty seized a schooner and got away. Forni was captured months later and condemned. In January 1769 Governor James Grant wrote that Forni and Giuseppe Massadoli "suffered as examples" and that Clotha Corona and two others were reprieved. The colony went on under the same seven-year terms, and in 1777 its people marched to St. Augustine to complain.