The History of Florida

The History of Florida

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University Press of Florida

Florida A&M University, Tal ahassee

Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers

Florida International University, Miami

Florida State University, Tal ahassee

New College of Florida, Sarasota

University of Central Florida, Orlando

University of Florida, Gainesville

University of North Florida, Jacksonville

University of South Florida, Tampa

University of West Florida, Pensacola

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The

History

of

Florida

•

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Edited by

Michael Gannon

University Press of Florida

Gainesville · Tal ahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton

Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota

A Florida Quincentennial Book

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Copyright 1996 by Michael Gannon. Previously published as
The New History of Florida.

All new material copyright 2013 by Michael Gannon.

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America. This book is printed on Glatfelter Natures Book,

a paper certified under the standards of the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). It is a

recycled stock that contains 30 percent post-consumer waste and is acid free.

This book may be available in an electronic edition.

18 17 16 15 14 13 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

University Press of Florida

15 Northwest 15th Street

Gainesville, FL 32611-2079

http://www.upf.com

The editor dedicates this volume to that gentle band of Franciscan friars,

nearly 200-strong, who over 130 years of ministry in the hinterlands ensured

that Florida’s written history began with narratives of education, social

justice, and benevolent service.

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Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Michael Gannon

1. Original Inhabitants . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Jerald T. Milanich

2. First European Contacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Michael Gannon

3. The Land They Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Paul E. Hoffman

4. Settlement and Survival . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Eugene Lyon

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5. Republic of Spaniards, Republic of Indians . . . . . . 76

Amy Turner Bushnel

6. The Missions of Spanish Florida . . . . . . . . . 91

John H. Hann

7. Raids, Sieges, and International Wars . . . . . . . 112

Daniel L. Schafer

8. Pensacola, 1686–1763 . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Wil iam S. Coker

9. British Rule in the Floridas . . . . . . . . . . 144

Robin F. A. Fabel and Daniel L. Schafer

10. The Second Spanish Period in the Two Floridas . . . 162

Susan Richbourg Parker and Wil iam S. Coker

11. Free and Enslaved . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Jane Landers

12. Florida’s Seminole and Miccosukee Peoples . . . . . 195

Brent R. Weisman

13. U.S. Territory and State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Daniel L. Schafer

14. The Civil War, 1861–1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Robert A. Taylor

15. Reconstruction and Renewal, 1865–1877 . . . . . . . . . 260

Jerrell H. Shofner

16. The First Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Thomas Graham

17. Fortune and Misfortune: The Paradoxical 1920s . . . . . . 296

Wil iam W. Rogers

18. The Great Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Wil iam W. Rogers

19. World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Gary R. Mormino

20. Florida by Nature: A Survey of Extrahuman

Historical Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Jack E. Davis

21. The Maritime Heritage of Florida . . . . . . . . . . . 389

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Del a A. Scott-Ireton and Amy M. Mitchell-Cook

22. Florida Politics: The State Evolves into One of

the Nation’s Premier Political Battlegrounds . . . . . . . 415

Susan A. MacManus and David R. Colburn

23. Florida’s African American Experience:

The Twentieth Century and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . 444

Larry Eugene Rivers

24. Immigration and Ethnicity in Florida History . . . . . . . 470

Raymond A. Mohl and George E. Pozzetta

25. Boom, Bust, and Uncertainty: A Social History

of Modern Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Raymond A. Mohl and Gary R. Mormino

List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

It is a happy coincidence of history that within three years’ time, Florida

celebrates two major historical moments. The first, occurring in 2013, is the

500th anniversary of the documented discovery of the peninsula by Juan

Ponce de León. The second, to take place in 2015, is the 450th birthday of St.

Augustine, the oldest permanent European community in what are now the

United States and Canada, antedating Jamestown in Virginia and Plymouth

in Massachusetts by forty-two and fifty-five years, respectively. Consider the

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age of St. Augustine: founded in 1565, it appeared on the scene one year after

the death of Michelangelo and the birth of William Shakespeare.

To tell the long recorded history of this state, the University Press of Flor-

ida in 1993 commissioned twenty-three historians, al leading authorities

in their fields, to col aborate on a joint history. Published in 1996,
The New

History of Florida
has had a consoling success. Now that volume has been

updated and enlarged by three new chapters and is offered as
The History of

Florida
.

Readers will observe that most of the twenty-five chapters of this book

fol ow upon each other chronological y, e.g., “Fortune and Misfortune:

The Paradoxical 1920s” (chapter 17) is followed by “The Great Depression”

(chapter 18), which in turn is followed by “World War II” (chapter 19). Cer-

tain subject areas, however, overlap several or numerous time periods, and

these are treated thematical y. Thus, chapter 11, “Free and Enslaved,” treats

African societies in Florida from the sixteenth century to the middle of the

nineteenth century. Similarly, chapter 12, “Florida’s Seminole and Miccosu-

kee Peoples,” follows those peoples from their first arrival in Florida during

the early eighteenth century as far as the 1900s. In this way, certain subjects

· 1 ·

2 · Michael Gannon

of special interest are not broken up into segmented time periods but are

presented as studies in one continuous, connected form.

The editor thanks Meredith Babb for her leadership in sparking this

revised edition, his fel ow authors for their exceptional chapters, and his

spouse, Genevieve Haugen, who was a true coeditor.

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1

Original Inhabitants

Jerald T. Milanich

What is now the state of Florida was first settled by humans whose an-

cestors had entered North America from eastern Asia during the Pleisto-

cene era, the Great Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago. Sea levels—as much as

350 feet lower than at present because of huge amounts of water tied up in

Ice Age glaciers—exposed a large land bridge between Siberia and Alaska

across what is now the Bering Strait. Hunter-gatherers in search of game

and other foods easily crossed this land bridge which connected Asia and