The Florida Colony Trading Co.’s, co-founders, Paul and Newman, are lifelong friends and full-time wanderers who share a passion for travel and endless adventure. Both attribute this shared passion, in part, to their close connections to their families’ lineage.
Paul is an immigrant from Negril, Jamaica of African, Scottish, Chinese and Spanish descent. Paul’s family fled to Jamaica in the early 1500’s as Sephardic Jews were being persecuted in Spain. While Paul spent most of his life in the United States, he has always maintained a strong tie to his rich heritage.
As a native Floridian, Newman’s family heritage traces all the way back to 1658, when they were brought from Minorca, Spain, to an indigo plantation in New Smyrna – as indentured servants. Tired of living as oppressed people in the New World, these ancestors led a successful revolt and exercised their hard-won freedom by joining the Spanish colony in St. Augustine, Florida.
The pair’s combined deep heritages and travel adventures have inspired them to create The Florida Colony Trading Co., whose mission is to provide unique curated products from their favorite spots.
“Our philosophy has been to help people explore, experience and live by offering distinctive, hard-to-find trade goods from several of our favorite places throughout the Caribbean, South America and Florida …all inspired by our travels.”
Paul and Newman have visited five continents and thirty-nine countries (and counting), on a search for the unique, the unusual and a few things that will make their patrons’ lives a bit less ordinary.