The History of Florida (99 page)

concluded in 1865 that a majority of citizens believed “negroes will not work

on the plantations in a manner that will pay for the necessary investment of

capital.”2 Thus, to solve the state’s labor problem, anxious Floridians sought

to divert to their state a portion of the rising tide of European immigration

then flowing into the United States. For a few decades after 1868, Florida’s

official Bureau of Immigration promoted the state and its favorable pros-

pects to prospective immigrants, but it was notably ineffective.

More energetic and effective immigration activities emanated from pri-

vate interests. During the late nineteenth century, railroads, farm groups,

real estate companies, wealthy landowners, mine operators, and industri-

alists directed an impressive volume of literature about Florida to distant

parts of the globe. Italian immigrants received special attention in these

campaigns. The prevalent perception of Florida as the “Italy of the South”

and the common view that Italians excelled in citrus horticulture com-

bined to make them appear particularly desirable. In 1873, citrus developer

Immigration and Ethnicity in Florida History · 473

Henry S. Sanford explained that Italians were “a most valuable class of im-

migrants . . . intel igent and industrious, accustomed to orange and vine

culture, and to a warm climate.”3 A similar enthusiasm for Chinese workers

swept the state in these years, based on reports of their industriousness and

skil in gardening. Nevertheless, promotional efforts attracted only insignifi-

cant numbers of Italians and Chinese. When Florida turned away from sup-

porting immigration by the first decades of the twentieth century, these two

groups ironical y came to be regarded as the least acceptable newcomers.

The drive to acquire foreign immigrants col apsed for several reasons.

Since many Floridians supported foreign immigration as a means of re-

placing black workers, they assumed that new arrivals would be content

merely to change positions with the former slaves. Unsatisfactory crop lien

and sharecropping arrangements characterized the fate of many early immi-

grants who worked in Florida agriculture. Even worse, peonage exploitation

was a common circumstance in turpentine camps, lumbering operations,

and railroad construction projects. News of these conditions quickly spread

outward and considerably dampened enthusiasm for Florida among poten-

tial immigrants.

The attitudes of Floridians themselves similarly underwent a transfor-

mation. Slowly in the 1890s and then with increasing speed after 1900, the

proof

state’s earlier policy of open welcome turned to hostility toward foreign

settlement. Florida had become engulfed in the rising tide of nativist senti-

ment sweeping the nation. Concerns over the effects of introducing foreign

religions, alien political ideologies, and potential y disturbing new racial

strains rose to the surface. By 1910, most Floridians believed that if the state

were to retain its racial integrity, preserve its unique “American” charac-

ter, and protect is cherished institutions, it now had no room for foreign

immigrants.

Even during the turn against immigration, however, a variety of promot-

ers pursued colonizing plans. Immigrant colonies appealed to some land-

owners and financiers on several grounds. This mode of settlement disposed

of large tracts of land in one transaction and enhanced the value of adjacent

property substantial y. Moreover, this tactic seemed to offer the best pros-

pects of permanent residence, since newcomers settled as a group could

more easily perpetuate familiar customs and ease the difficult transition to

life in the new land.

Florida’s record of modern colony settlement included both success

and abject failure. One effort to bring fifty Scottish settlers to Sarasota in

1885 foundered when the new arrivals found not the thriving community

474 · Raymond A. Mohl and George E. Pozzetta

In 1913, three members of the Japanese colony of Yamato near present-day Boca Raton

posed for the camera outside what had once been their prosperous pineapple plan-

tation. A blight destroyed the crop in 1908, and, owing to cheaper, earlier-maturing

proof

rail-transported pineapple exports from Cuba, the plantation never recovered. Cour-

tesy of the State Archives of Florida,
Florida Memory
, http://floridamemory.com/items/

show/12149.

promised to them but rather a “swampy wilderness” and a few scattered

buildings. They soon abandoned their plans for a new life on Florida’s tropi-

cal frontier. Similarly, in 1893 approximately 500 Danes purchased land at

White City in St. Lucie County, only to learn shortly after arriving that their

on-site manager had died and the group’s financial agent had both sold

them land he did not own and absconded with their money. This venture,

however, was rescued at the last moment by the Florida East Coast Railway

(FECR), which provided emergency supplies and financial backing.

It was no accident that the railroad was on hand to assist. The company

owned vast tracts of land and supported a very active immigration bureau

for many years. The settlement of Dania by Danish immigrants in 1898 grew

out FECR operations, as did a l904 venture to establish a Japanese colony

cal ed Yamato near the present-day location of Boca Raton. In the case of the

Japanese, several years of successful pineapple farming raised expectations

of a large-scale movement of people. By 1907 the FECR had established a

Immigration and Ethnicity in Florida History · 475

rail station at Yamato, and several hundred industrious immigrants worked

the land. A devastating attack of pineapple blight in 1908 ruined the colony’s

hopes, however, and most settlers eventual y returned to Japan disil usioned

with Florida’s prospects.

As promoters and state officials vacil ated over the wisdom of attempting

to attract foreigners, immigrants themselves were often pursuing strategies

of their own and independently creating centers of foreign settlement. The

movement of Greeks to Tarpon Springs, for example, was guided by the

business enterprise and vision of John Cocoris, a Greek immigrant who

saw rich possibilities in the Florida sponge industry. Some Greek spong-

ers had worked in Key West during the 1890s, using the “hook” method of

harvesting from boats. But when huge sponge beds were found in the Gulf

of Mexico off the coast of Tarpon Springs, Cocoris recognized that the tradi-

tional Greek method of collecting, involving deep-water diving with special

suits, would yield much better results. After initial harvesting successes in

1905, a steady flow of Greek immigrants came directly to Tarpon Springs,

eventual y dominating by force of numbers the small community’s institu-

tions and culture.

Two instances of large-scale migration during this period resulted in the

creation of dense urban settlements capable of sustaining a ful range of

proof

viable ethnic institutions and an enduring immigrant culture. The first of

these emerged in Key West during and after Cuba’s so-called Ten Years War

of the 1860s. Expatriate Cuban and Spanish cigar workers and manufactur-

ers flowed into Key West and established a major cigar-making center, while

also turning the small island community for a time into Florida’s largest city.

By the 1870s, some 5,000 exiles labored in Key West’s cigar factories, orga-

nizing effective labor unions and community institutions. Key West was

quickly eclipsed, however, by a cigar-making rival located to the north in

Tampa.

During the years 1885–1924, thousands of Cubans, Italians, and Span-

iards came to the small coastal vil age of Tampa and transformed it into a

thriving industrial center. Drawn primarily to the cigar industry established

in Tampa by Spanish industrialist V. M. Martinez Ybor, the immigrants—

many moving from Key West—quickly made the city into the nation’s lead-

ing center for the production of high-quality, hand-rol ed cigars. Settling

in what was initial y the separate community of Ybor City, the “Latins”

of Tampa created a rich associational life that included immigrant labor

unions, foreign-language newspapers, ethnic fraternal clubs, radical politi-

cal organizations, and a thriving immigrant theater.

476 · Raymond A. Mohl and George E. Pozzetta

Cubans, Spaniards, and Italians came to West Tampa and Ybor City, east of Tampa, to

work in the hand-rolled cigar industry. At the Cuesta Rey factory in West Tampa in 1929,

proof

these men and women silently rolled coronas, perfectos, and panatelas while
el
lector

(the reader) on a raised platform (
right
) read to them in Spanish from newspapers,

novels, and political tracts. Photo by Burgert Brothers. Courtesy of the State Archives

of Florida,
Florida Memory
, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/27163.

No inquiry into the impact of immigrants on Florida during these years

would be complete without recognition of the role played by transient for-

eign workers. Isolated work gangs of Italians, Greeks, Chinese, Portuguese,

Spaniards, and many others crisscrossed the state laboring in plantation

fields, drainage operations, and construction sites. The FECR, for example,

regularly recruited work crews from far afield in its construction projects,

hiring immigrant workers through labor agents located in major northeast-

ern cities. In other economic sectors, such as sugarcane, citrus, and win-

ter vegetables, the seasonal influx of migrant workers from the Bahamas

and other locations became a long-term economic strategy that annual y

brought foreigners into Florida well into the twentieth century.

Black immigrants from the Bahamas added to the ethnic and racial di-

versity of nineteenth-century Florida. Black and white Bahamians had al-

ready established a distinctive presence in Key West by the mid-nineteenth

Immigration and Ethnicity in Florida History · 477

century. Bahamian fishermen, shipwreck salvagers, and Indian traders, ac-

cording to one Bahamian newspaper, regarded Florida “much as another

island of the Bahamas.”4 Facing meager economic prospects at home, Ba-

hamian blacks especial y found better employment opportunities in the

Florida island city. By the 1890s, Bahamians made up about a third of the

population in Key West, where they worked primarily in sponging, turtling,

and fishing. A large majority of today’s Key West blacks trace their ancestry

to Bahamian origins.

The black Bahamian migration to Florida intensified after the establish-

ment of Miami in 1896. Like most other Caribbean islanders, Bahamians

pursued a “livelihood migration” involving temporary labor elsewhere and

regular return to the home island. The building up of Miami at the turn of

the century created new opportunities for Bahamian migrant workers, who

were attracted to the city by the prospect of better jobs and higher wages.

As one Bahamian migrant remembered it, perhaps overstating the situation,

“Miami was a young Magic City where money could be ‘shaken from trees.’”5

Bahamians who returned to the islands enticed others to follow with exag-