Righting the past: Pensacola’s only Black mayor, Salvador Pons, is dead at 55

​​Editor’s note: This is the sixth in a series of historical obituaries written today to honor the men and women of the past who were denied the honor at the time of their death because of discrimination due to their race and/or gender.

Salvador T. Pons, a notable citizen who served as Pensacola’s only Black mayor, died on March 21, 1890. He was 55 years old.

The historical record about Mr. Pons, a man who led Pensacola as the city clerk, a city councilman, a Florida legislator, and the mayor, is surprisingly sparse. Despite serving in these important roles for almost two decades, his death notice in the Pensacola News included just 44 characters: “Creole-Salvador Pons, 55 years, consumption.”

Mr. Pons was born in Florida on Dec. 23, 1835. He was the second son of John Pons, a White sailor, and Maria Rosario, a free woman of color. When Mr. Pons was 2, his godfather, a ship captain named Lorenzo Pla, willed a portion of his estate to him.

By his 14th birthday, Mr. Pons lived in a bustling Pensacola house of eight, including four younger Pons siblings, ages 12 to 4. Their father lived next door. Two years later, the elder Pons died, leaving his entire estate, including property on the corner of Government Street and Baylen Street – just one block from our City Hall today - to Mr. Pons’ mother, Maria Rosario, and her existing and future children.

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On Dec. 21, 1859, Mr. Pons married Mary Eliza McDuff. Their first child, John, was born the following October, a month before Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Though it is a mystery how this young family navigated the early years of the Civil War, records show Mr. Pons working as a laborer at Fort Barrancas in 1864.

It took three years after the end of the Civil War before Black Pensacolians like Mr. Pons could finally participate in civic life. Though freedmen across the South still faced many barriers to full equality, Black Pensacolians eagerly embraced the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. Mr. Pons quickly showed himself to be a political maverick. He was elected to represent Escambia County in the Florida House of Representatives in 1868. That August, former Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory stated: “Pons was the honest, honorable and fit representative of Escambia County.” County voters would reelect him to the House in 1869, 1870, and 1875.

Mr. Pons dedicated the rest of his life to public service, doing his part to build Pensacola’s Reconstruction-era multiracial democracy. He served as a Pensacola councilman from 1869-1870 and a one-year term as mayor in 1874. Voters elected him city clerk for two terms, 1877-1880 and 1882-1884.

Mr. Pons served Pensacola in a variety of ways outside elected office too. He worked as a federal customs inspector in Warrington. He represented Pensacola at a variety of state conventions as well as the 1876 Nashville Convention of Colored People, a national meeting of Black leaders. At these conventions, Mr. Pons stressed basic education, temperance, land ownership and moderation over calls for aggressive political action.

In addition to civic service, Mr. Pons worked as a bricklayer to support his three sons: John, George and Charles. Mrs. Pons maintained their household, a testament to the family’s success in postwar Pensacola. In 1870, the family lived between prominent lawyers Edward Perry and A. C. Blount, the two men who, along with William D. Chipley, would later engineer the overthrow of Republican rule — and Mr. Pons’ political career.

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Pensacola’s 16-year embrace of multiracial democracy ended in 1885 with the ouster of the city’s democratically elected government and the burning of the city’s archives on Plaza Ferdinand. Mr. Pons’ storied political career was over.

He would live his last six years at his home on the corner of Government and Florida Blanca Street with his wife and sons, working as a driver. His health had been weakened by a case of yellow fever during the deadly 1882 epidemic, and he died of consumption on March 21, 1890. Mrs. Pons lived another 24 years. She is buried next to her husband at St. Michael’s Cemetery in downtown Pensacola.

While the newspapers in Pensacola all but ignored Mr. Pons’s death, The Morning News of Savannah, Ga. noted: “The death of Salvador T. Pons removes a familiar figure from the streets and political circles of Pensacola.”

Celebrating our past is part of what makes Pensacola so special. Salvador Pons was a remarkable Pensacolian. There were so many more like him who we can learn from. As we continue to share and uncover more about our past, the city of Pensacola remains committed to interpreting and commemorating its entire history.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola only Black mayor, Salvador Pons, dead at 55; Righting past