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Florida Historical Quarterly

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Contract Labor In Florida During Reconstruction, Edward K. Eckert May 2021

Contract Labor In Florida During Reconstruction, Edward K. Eckert

Florida Historical Quarterly

Until relatively recent times the historiography of the Reconstruction period in Florida could be summed up by Claude G. Bowers’ three-word paragraph, “Florida was putrid.” Legislatures full of swindlers, “railroad steals,” “shabby strangers,” and “old black mammies,” praising God and voting Republican, were all a part of the traditional image of this so-called dark era of United States history. Revisionist historians such as Howard K. Beale, David Donald, Kenneth Stampp, and Rembert W. Patrick have challenged this view. They describe the years after the Civil War as a progressive age for the South when civil, educational, and economic reforms brought …


Contents Of Volume Xlvii, Florida Historical Society May 2021

Contents Of Volume Xlvii, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Contains a list of articles and authors for Vol. 46


Encounter By The River, Frank Laumer May 2021

Encounter By The River, Frank Laumer

Florida Historical Quarterly

It was mid-winter 1835 in Florida and the United States Army was gathering its strength at Fort Drane. Until a month ago the place was called “Auld Lang Syne,” a plantation devoted to raising sugar-cane on some 3,000 acres in the center of the Territory. It had gained the status of “fort” by the expedient of erecting a twelve-foot pine-log wall in a rectangle 460 yards in circumference around the main building. For ten years the owner had tended his dual duties as planter and general, but now the hue and cry was raised again and Fort Drane was headquarters …


A Florida Soldier In The Army Of Northern Virginia: The Hosford Letters, Knox Mellon, Jr. May 2021

A Florida Soldier In The Army Of Northern Virginia: The Hosford Letters, Knox Mellon, Jr.

Florida Historical Quarterly

A long neglected area of American Civil War history has been the thousands of unpublished letters and diaries still found gathering dust in hundreds of attics across the nation. The recent Civil War centennial brought out some material of this type, and the general public has grown more aware of the advantages to be gained from the publication of soldiers’ memoirs. Despite this fact, it is rare indeed to find as moving and articulate a series of letters as the ten written by a young Florida Confederate officer, Lieutenant John W. Hosford, to his sweetheart, Miss Laura Rich, between November …


Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society May 2021

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Reviews of De Conde, The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797-1801 by Richard W. Van Alstyne; Thompson, Robert Toombs of Georgia, by Ben Procter; Swint (ed.), Dear Ones At Home: Letters From Contraband Camps, by George R. Bentley; Spain, At Ease in Zion: A Social History of Southern Baptists, 1865-1900, by Wayne Flynt; Wynes (ed.), Forgotten Voices: Dissenting Southerners in an Age of Conformity, by Phillip S. Paludan; Clark and Kirwan, The South Since Appomattox: A Century of Regional Change, by Allen J. Going; Matthews and Prothro, Negroes and the New Southern Politics, by …


British And Indian Activities In Spanish West Florida During The War Of 1812, Frank L. Owsley, Jr. May 2021

British And Indian Activities In Spanish West Florida During The War Of 1812, Frank L. Owsley, Jr.

Florida Historical Quarterly

When Britain lost control of Florida in 1783 to Spain, many English merchants and public officials, especially the governors of Jamaica and New Providence, did not consider the loss of Florida as permanent. They continued an extensive legal and illegal trade with the Indians in Florida and the southern United States. The mouth of the Apalachicola River and the area around it comprised one of the main seats of this commerce, especially the illegal part. In line with their objectives of regaining control of Florida, these various British officials and merchants sent such filibusterers as William Augustus Bowles, who plotted …


First Campaign Of The Second Seminole War, George C. Bittle May 2021

First Campaign Of The Second Seminole War, George C. Bittle

Florida Historical Quarterly

There was no one basic cause of the Second Seminole War which began in Florida in December 1835. Major General T. S. Jesup, a regular army officer who served in Florida during the war, said that the Indian attacks were primarily the result of white efforts to secure Negroes held by the Seminoles. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri believed the oppressive and intriguing nature of federal Indian supervision was to blame. Major General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, who served briefly in Florida early in 1836, thought that the Florida conflict was an example of border warfare. Mrs. Ellen Call Long, …


The Free Negro In Florida Before The Civil War, Russell Garvin May 2021

The Free Negro In Florida Before The Civil War, Russell Garvin

Florida Historical Quarterly

Freedom for negroes in a society where race was the only qualification for slavery was at best an anomaly and at worst an illusion. In either case though, freedom survived alongside slavery. Florida first acquired free Negroes early in the seventeenth century. In 1704 the Spanish governor, Zuniga, opened the territory to fugitive slaves from British plantations to the North. Thus established, potential liberty across the border tempted Carolina blacks and tormented their white owners. It was hoped that the colonization of Georgia would serve as a buffer region to prevent the escape of slaves to Florida. Carolina benefited, but …


Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco) In The Civil War (Part Ii), Kenneth W. Porter May 2021

Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco) In The Civil War (Part Ii), Kenneth W. Porter

Florida Historical Quarterly

Elias Rector as an ardent partisan of the Confederacy, must have particularly wished in subsequent years that his report of Billy Bowleg’s death had been more than just a rumor, for Bowlegs was one of the principal chiefs of the Five Civilized Tribes who supported the Union in the Civil War. Although a number of Seminole chiefs, along with representatives of all the other Civilized Tribes, were bullied or cajoled into signing a treaty with the Confederacy, before the war was over it was estimated that two-thirds of the Seminole Indians and practically all their Negroes were within the Union …


Federal Expedition Against Saint Marks Ends At Natural Bridge, Edwin C. Bearss May 2021

Federal Expedition Against Saint Marks Ends At Natural Bridge, Edwin C. Bearss

Florida Historical Quarterly

In the last year of the Civil War, the Union forces took advantage of their seapower to carry the conflict to sections of Florida that had heretofore escaped the ravages of war. Operating from bases which they had seized along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the state, Union columns would strike deep into the interior and fall back before the Confederates could rally a force strong enough to intervene. Raiding parties were likewise put ashore from transports. If they ran into serious opposition, the raiders would fall back to the beach, where they would be covered by the great …


Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco) In The Seminole Wars (Part I), Kenneth W. Porter May 2021

Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco) In The Seminole Wars (Part I), Kenneth W. Porter

Florida Historical Quarterly

If a group of informed Americans were asked to name a Seminole chief, it is likely that most of them would reply “Osceola.” If asked to recall a second Florida Indian, at least a majority of those responding would name “Billy Bowlegs.” The second choice would be more accurate, for Osceola was a Seminole only by adoption - being by birth a Red Stick Creek from Georgia or Alabama who came to Florida at about the age of ten. He was not a chief by hereditary right, whereas Billy Bowlegs, to use his common white-man’s nickname, was what an army …


Drake Destroys St. Augustine: 1586, James W. Covington May 2021

Drake Destroys St. Augustine: 1586, James W. Covington

Florida Historical Quarterly

Sir Francis Drake, scourge of the Spanish Main, came to Florida and destroyed St. Augustine in 1586. Judging from other battles that took place during Drake’s swing through Spain’s Caribbean empire, the Florida episode was a relatively minor affair. St. Augustine at the time was a small out-of-the-way village of about 300 persons with its only defense the small outpost, San Juan de los Pinillos. In contrast to the splendid buildings, numerous soldiers, and excellent defenses of Santo Domingo and Cartagena, St. Augustine was not very important. But in defensive tactics and in its use of manpower, the Florida town …


The Man Who Was Pedro Menendez, Albert Manucy May 2021

The Man Who Was Pedro Menendez, Albert Manucy

Florida Historical Quarterly

Four sixteenth century sources are the basis for most of the knowledge that we have about Pedro Menendez de Aviles. They include archival manuscripts, biographies by two of his contemporaries, and a priest’s journal of the voyage to Florida. Titian painted him by order of Philip II, and the portrait engraving so often reproduced is based on the painting. He is not a handsome man; his head is small, held quite erect; dark hair, half curly despite a rather close cut, frames a high, round forehead. The beard is also trimmed short. His nose is overlong and the mouth too …


Aftermath Of Military Reconstruction, 1868-1869, Ralph L. Peek May 2021

Aftermath Of Military Reconstruction, 1868-1869, Ralph L. Peek

Florida Historical Quarterly

The military reconstruction of Florida ended on July 4, 1868, with ratification of a new constitution and the election of Harrison Reed as governor, William Gleason as lieutenant governor, and Charles Hamilton as congressman. A state legislature with a large Republican majority in both houses was also elected.


The Indian River Settlement: 1842-1849, Joseph D. Cushman, Jr. May 2021

The Indian River Settlement: 1842-1849, Joseph D. Cushman, Jr.

Florida Historical Quarterly

No section of the Territory of Florida suffered more than the east coast as a result of Indian deprecations during the Seminole War. The flourishing sugar plantations of the Halifax country were reduced to charred ruins, the tiny port of New Smyrna was entirely deserted, and the infant citrus industry suffered a staggering setback just as it was beginning to show signs of prosperity. After seven years of fighting, many Floridians gravely doubted the truth of General William Worth’s pontifical pronouncement that the Seminole conflict would be “officially” terminated on August 12, 1842. The settlers were alarmed at the naivete …


Military Operations On The St. Johns, September-October, 1862 (Part Ii) The Federals Capture St. Johns Bluff, Edwin C. Bearss Apr 2021

Military Operations On The St. Johns, September-October, 1862 (Part Ii) The Federals Capture St. Johns Bluff, Edwin C. Bearss

Florida Historical Quarterly

All of Brigadier General John M. Brannan’s Union soldiers and their arms, horses, and rations had reached shore by 9 p.m., October 1, 1862. Among the first units to land were sixty troopers of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry. The horsemen spent the afternoon and early evening reconnoitering.


Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society Apr 2021

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Reviews of Evolution of a Federalist, William Loughton Smith of Charleston (1758-1812). By George C. Rogers, Jr. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1962. xiv, 439 pp. Preface, charts, bibliography, index. $8.00.); Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty. By Dumas Malone. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1962. xxx, 545 pp. $7.50.); Ante-Bellum Southern Literary Critics. By Edd Winfield Parks. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1962. 259 pp. $7.50.); The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. By P. J. Staudenraus. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961. ix, 323 pp. Appendix, bibliography, index. $6.00.); McClellan, Sherman and Grant. By T. Harry Williams. (New Brunswick: …


Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society Apr 2021

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Reviews of Travels with Charley, In Search of America. By John Steinbeck. (New York: The Viking Press, 1962. 246 pp. $4.95.); Cycles of Conquest. By Edward H. Spicer. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1962. xii, 609 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. $ 12.50.); The Colonial Records of South Carolina, Series I: Journal of the Commons House of Assembly, March 28, 1749-March 19 1750. Edited by J. Harold Easterby and Ruth S. Green. (Columbia: South Carolina Archives Department, 1962. 490 pp. Preface and index. $12.50.); The Department of War, 1781 - 1795. By Harry M. Ward. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, …


Memoir Of A West Pointer In Florida: 1825, Cecil D. Eby, Jr. Apr 2021

Memoir Of A West Pointer In Florida: 1825, Cecil D. Eby, Jr.

Florida Historical Quarterly

In the early summer of 1825 the group of Seminoles relegated to the Big Swamp area of central Florida by the treaty of Moultrie Creek, signed two years before, were subjected to a drought so severe that nearly their whole crop was destroyed. Forced to subsist upon game, the Indians obtained permission from Major Gad Humphreys, their agent at the post that later became known as Fort King, to send hunting parties beyond the boundaries of their reservation to the north. While the incursion of Indian hunters into territories belonging legally to white settlers was absolutely necessary for the survival …


Lincoln's Courier: John L. Worden's Mission To Fort Pickens, James P. Jones Apr 2021

Lincoln's Courier: John L. Worden's Mission To Fort Pickens, James P. Jones

Florida Historical Quarterly

The spring of 1861 was a time of decision-making for the newly installed Lincoln administration. First on the agenda was the reinforcement and supply of Ft. Sumter, but an equally grave problem involved Ft. Pickens in Pensacola harbor. For several months a truce arranged between two members of President Buchanan’s cabinet and Confederate military authorities had been in force. This truce was an agreement not to reinforce Pickens if the Confederates promised not to attack. By March, 1861, Lincoln, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, and General Winfield Scott were growing concerned over the Pensacola situation. The Pickens garrison remained …


The English Invasion Of Spanish Florida, 1700-1706, Charles W. Arnade Apr 2021

The English Invasion Of Spanish Florida, 1700-1706, Charles W. Arnade

Florida Historical Quarterly

Though Florida had been discovered by Ponce de Leon in 1513, not until 1565 did it become a Spanish province in fact. In that year Pedro Menendez de Aviles was able to establish a permanent capital which he called St. Augustine. Menendez and successive executives had plans to make St. Augustine a thriving metropolis ruling over a vast Spanish colony that might possibly be elevated to a viceroyalty. Nothing of this sort happened. By 1599 Florida was in desperate straits: Indians had rebelled and butchered the Franciscan missionaries, fire and flood had made life in St. Augustine miserable, English pirates …


The Editor's Corner, Florida Historical Society Apr 2021

The Editor's Corner, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Father Jerome of St. Leo’s Abbey, St. Leo, Florida, sends us an interesting note relating the pro’s and con’s of the dispute centering about the identity of the first Catholic Bishop of Florida, and a document which he assures us provides “a definite silencing of the dispute.” The search for this documentary proof led Father Jerome to the Library of Congress, the Hispanic Society of America, and to the Franciscan archives in Washington - all without success.


Lawlessness In Florida, 1848-1871, Ralph L. Peek Apr 2021

Lawlessness In Florida, 1848-1871, Ralph L. Peek

Florida Historical Quarterly

The clash of ideologies, conflicts over rights and status, and a struggle for power, all of which have marked man’s efforts to achieve a society satisfactory to himself, created an intense conflict in Florida during the years of Reconstruction, particularly in the period 1868-1871, In this bloody struggle the issue at stake was the possession of local, state, and national political and economic power, and this issue was colored and made more complex by social and racial elements, including the most virulent race hatred. The incipient conflict, created by the aftermath of war and the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, flared …


The Spanish Conquest Of British West Florida, 1779-1781, Albert W. Haarmann Apr 2021

The Spanish Conquest Of British West Florida, 1779-1781, Albert W. Haarmann

Florida Historical Quarterly

Florida passed to British control in 1763 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. A Royal Proclamation on October 7 of that year established West Florida as a colony and Pensacola was designated as its capital.


Captain Nathaniel Wyche Hunter And The Florida Indian Campaigns, 1837-1841, Reynold M. Wik Apr 2021

Captain Nathaniel Wyche Hunter And The Florida Indian Campaigns, 1837-1841, Reynold M. Wik

Florida Historical Quarterly

In January, 1837, Captain Nathaniel Wyche Hunter arrived at Fort Huleman, Florida, to engage in the military campaigns against the Seminole Indians. His letters and diaries during the next four years provide a vivid account of military life in the Peninsula State. Although his observations do not alter the history of the Seminole wars, they do reflect the thoughts of a perceptive officer facing the frustrations common to this theater of frontier warfare. They also present a soldier’s view of the United States government’s action in removing the Florida Indians to lands beyond the Mississippi river.


The 1789 Saint Augustine Celebration, Helen Hornbeck Tanner Apr 2021

The 1789 Saint Augustine Celebration, Helen Hornbeck Tanner

Florida Historical Quarterly

One of the most elaborate celebrations of Saint Augustine’s colonial history occurred in December, 1789, when the civilian and military populations joined in honoring Charles IV’S ascension to the Spanish throne. Parades, theatricals, religious services and soirees with dancing till dawn were features of the three day festival beginning the afternoon of December 2.


Zespedes And The Southern Conspiracies, Helen Hornbeck Tanner Apr 2021

Zespedes And The Southern Conspiracies, Helen Hornbeck Tanner

Florida Historical Quarterly

The peace treaty by which the American colonists gained their independence in 1783 created a situation along their southern border almost designed, it seemed, to provoke hostility. By the treaty, the provinces of East and West Florida, which had belonged to Britain for the previous twenty years and had remained loyal to the Crown, were returned to Spain. Thus Europe’s oldest colonial power regained a foothold on the southeastern seaboard of North America, but now was threatened by an ambitious young republic - the first independent nation in the western hemisphere. Furthermore, a portion of the border remained in dispute …


Panton, Leslie, And Company, Indian Traders Of Pensacola And St. Augustine, J. A. Brown Apr 2021

Panton, Leslie, And Company, Indian Traders Of Pensacola And St. Augustine, J. A. Brown

Florida Historical Quarterly

The North American peace settlement of 1783 confirmed the Spanish in their reconquest of Pensacola and returned His Catholic Majesty’s banner to the bastions of the Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine; however, it did not end - but rather intensified - the struggle for the allegiance and trade of the 45,000 Indians on the Florida frontier. A new and dynamic United States, surging to the Mississippi, and from its Bahamas outpost a covetous England, intrigued with the savages to turn the Spanish out, and failing that, to divert to their own nationals and treasuries a part at least …


The Cession Of Florida And John Quincy Adams, Secretary Of State, Lester Harris Apr 2021

The Cession Of Florida And John Quincy Adams, Secretary Of State, Lester Harris

Florida Historical Quarterly

The cession of the Floridas stands out as one of the greatest victories in the history of American diplomacy. Ownership of Florida insured to the United States a continuous seaboard on the Atlantic Ocean. It led to the recognition by the United States of the South American colonies, then in revolt against Spain. The treaty with Spain gave the United States its first recognized claim to the western lands bordering on the Pacific Ocean. 2 It became the basis for the acquisition of Oregon and Washington, and parts of present day Montana and Idaho. Cession led directly to the Monroe …


Indian Presents: To Give Or Not To Give: Governor Whites's Quandary, Richard K. Murdoch Apr 2021

Indian Presents: To Give Or Not To Give: Governor Whites's Quandary, Richard K. Murdoch

Florida Historical Quarterly

At the close of the Eighteenth Century the use of presents to obtain loyalty, friendship, neutrality or allegiance was an old story to the nations of Western Europe, dating back to the days of the Greeks and Romans. Later presents were employed for the same purpose in the feudal period and in the campaigns of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. In the early years of the modern era the Portugese used presents to obtain peaceful entry into African ports as prelude to the slave trade. And finally presents were employed in the Americas by all the colonizing powers as …