vp

AC,;

A J,-~

otl

~-8A,

I~I~I~TL~9L~sPp~WA~~~I~ZP~DI~ X~Y"I'

'Z"--V/"LL

FROM THE
Florida Historical Quarterly

FLORIDA

pVrL
pr
1r

UNDER FIVE FLAGS

rii t

M

I --. c

,,

II.Y*mb* ~rrr
b .rrm I Mu
~L~pl *~YYrl
I:~r~M r*'
ry.r r..~h a
I hd.u ~e

FLORIDA ABOUT 1845

\'Y\ ^

A e(

c

('.LE1

iWs
tetL.
uC4.-M

aso. lo.

V,1 hLlslLhl. BIT If% MIR IM I.I., r~l

~I~Fj~-- ~ .... .......I.-~
It-kaal~l
I~ IC.lrrrl~? L

.v r 4 .. I

iiJfi *j 4. 1 f rF1

flsrr ri r xrtirs
if ffEt1S

ii~i ii

tEoe_;u~i:.Cro
Ir~~SJ~id~~-cbPCP

1. 9

ST. AUGUSTINE IN 1671

FLORIDA

UNDER FIVE FLAGS

REMBERT W. PATRICK

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA PRESS Gainesville, 1955

1
:r

~ a, ~g-~
r
:
r

(96^
AGRI-
CULTURAL
LIBRARY

oo the

TPeople

of

GJlorida

A :UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA PRESS BOOK

COPYRIGHT, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, 1945
AND REVISED EDITION, 1955
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUE CARD NO. 55-11901
MANUFACTURED BY THE RECORD PRESS, INC.
ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA

FOREWORD

LORIDIANS AND VISITORS have been told again and again
that Florida has the longest and one of the most interesting and
colorful histories of all the states, but until now those who have
little time for reading have had no chance to see this for themselves.
Here is a story of Florida's four hundred years which can be read in a
short evening.
Robert E. Lee's foremost biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman,
says in a review of the author's Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet: "Dr.
Patrick has written well and selected wisely from the materials. He has
used his sources with so much skill that one hopes this fine book will
be followed by others." Well, here is one for which Dr. Patrick went
again to the original sources and used them with the same care and skill.
In so few pages there can be no detail-only the thread of the story
and its interpretation. Every reader will miss a name or several names
with which he is familiar, men who have had important parts in our

DRAWING BY GEORGE BRUNETTI-COURTESY LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
ST. AUGUSTINE PLAZA MONUMENT AND CATHEDRAL

state's history; but only those could be brought in who carried on the
thread of the story. Perhaps this little volume will lead some readers to
one of the larger Florida histories in which the others are given a place.
The war has limited the celebration of Florida's centennial (1845-
1945). This is the University's commemoration.

During the ten years since the above and the volume were written,
Florida has had an extraordinary growth; hence much has been added
to this second edition to give a picture of the Florida of today.

JULIEN C. YONGE, Editor
FOREWORD Florida Historical Quarterly

VI
University of Florida
August, 1955

ST. AUGUSTINE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

PREFACE

HIS SMALL VOLUME was planned and written to present a
brief and interpretative account of the growth of Florida
which could be read in a few hours. Both the length of the
period covered, 1513 to 1945, and the mass of source material available
complicated the work of selection and condensation. Data not essential
to the theme of a chapter had to be discarded; otherwise the purpose
of the volume would have been unattained. Although, in the interest
of brevity, neither a bibliography nor footnotes have been included,
every effort was made to achieve factual accuracy by the careful use of
both primary and secondary historical sources.
The author is grateful to those who generously contributed to this
study. The idea of a commemorative volume for Florida's centennial of
statehood came from John J. Tigert, president of the University of Flor-
ida, and his interest in and support of the project were a constant encour-
agement. Julien C. Yonge was untiring in the search of sources and in
the critical examination of the manuscript. J. E. Congleton made numer-
ous suggestions which improved the composition and style. During the
latter part of the winter of 1945, Helen S. Haines and Eleanor Bangs
Patrick smoothed many rough passages as they listened to a reading of
the manuscript. Ruby Leach Carson, Mark F. Boyd, T. Frederick Davis, V
Dorothy Dodd, R. L. Goulding, Paul L. Hanna, and Edith P. Pitts read V
the original copy and gave many constructive criticisms. Marjorie C.
Proctor contributed valuable editorial assistance in preparing the manu-

A n i
.,, oIO,;,,,I ,,ITW r ,,R
Dar ~,IgWtauWdrO n TWa~or. '. .
COURTESY LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY

script for publication. The care with which Ruth Dixon Bryan copied
and recopied the manuscript saved hours of tedious labor.
The public reception of this brief history has justified a revised and
enlarged edition. In preparing the manuscript for the revised edition
some changes were made in former chapters IX and X and a new chap-
ter was added on Florida since 1945. The new material was written
during the summer of 1954, but a few additions were made since that
date to bring the story of Florida to 1955.
The illustrations in this volume were made from prints supplied by in-
dividuals, libraries, corporations, civic organizations, and state agencies.
The author is indebted to W. J. Harris of St. Augustine for the photo-
graph of the Castillo de San Marcos and to J. Carver Harris of St.
Augustine for the photograph of La Leche Shrine. Prints for the new
illustrations used in the revised edition were furnished by Marian Mur-
ray of Sarasota, John Childs of Dade City, S. E. Lorinier of Jacksonville,
Don Barbour of Orlando, J. R. Mickler of Tampa, and William Decker
of Fernandina Beach. The author is grateful to them and to the in-
dividuals and organizations named in the preface to the first edition for
PREFACE whatever attractiveness this volume has. Neither these individuals nor
any others are responsible for any errors which may be included or for
V III opinions expressed herein. REMBERT W. PATRICK
Gainesville, Florida
August, 1955

DE SOTO LANDING AT TAMPA BAY

CONTENTS

FOREWORD, by Julien C. Yonge....................... V
PREFA CE ............................................. VII
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ....................... X
I-DISCOVERY ...................................... 1
II-SETTLEMENT ................................... 6
III -CONFLICT ................... ........... ....... 12
IV-UNDER CHANGING OWNERSHIP........... 18
V-A UNITED STATES TERRITORY............. 30
VI-ANTE-BELLUM STATE....................... 39
VII-CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION...... 50
VIII-PUSHING BACK THE FRONTIER.......... 63
IX-URBAN STATE.................................. 85
X-MID-CENTURY PROSPERITY.................103 IX
XI-TODAY AND TOMORROW....................129
INDEX. ................................................ 135

MAP -ROUTE OF PONCE DE LEON............................... I

MAP- FLORIDA ABOUT 1845...................................... II

ST. AUGUSTINE IN 1671 .............. .............................. III

ST. JOHNS RIVER.............................. ................. IV

NARVAEZ MONUMENT, TAMPA.................................... V

ST. AUGUSTINE PLAZA MONUMENT AND CATHEDRAL............. VI

ST. AUGUSTINE IN THE 18th CENTURY.............................VII

FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN BARTOW, 1858...........................VIII

DE SOTO LANDING AT TAMPA BAY............................... IX

JUAN PONCE DE LEON............................................. 1

FLORIDA INDIAN SCENES...................................... 4

MAP LOCATION OF ABORIGINAL INDIAN TRIBES ............. 5

PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILLS .................................... 6

MASSACRE OF RIBAUT .................... .. ................... 9

FIRST MASS SAID IN ST. AUGUSTINE............................... 11

NUESTRA SENORA DE LA LECHE.................................. 12

CASTILLO DE SAN MARCOS. ............... .................... 16

OLD FORT REDOUBT............. ...................... ......... 17

PENSACOLA IN THE BRITISH PERIOD............................... 18

MAP BRITISH FLORIDA......................................... 19

FIRST NEWSPAPER PRINTED IN FLORIDA......................... 21

HEADQUARTERS OF PANTON, LESLIE AND COMPANY............. 22

MAP -ACQUISITION OF FLORIDA................................. 25

OLD AVILES STREET, ST. AUGUSTINE............................. 27

CORDUROY ROAD .................. ................................. 29

STATE CAPITOL IN TALLAHASSEE................................. 30

KEY WEST IN THE 1830's......................................... 33
ILLUSTRA-
TIONS INDIAN VILLAGE ON THE APALACHICOLA........................ 34

X ARSENAL AT CHATTAHOOCHEE............................. -.. 34

APALACHICOLA RIVER...................................... .....35

RAILROAD AT TALLAHASSEE..................................... 35

STREET SCENE IN TALLAHASSEE.................................. 36

"FAITH BOND" OF THE UNION BANK.............................. 38

A VIEW OF TALLAHASSEE......................................... 39

ANTE-BELLUM SMITH HOUSE, MADISON ........................ 40

ANTE-BELLUM GAMBLE MANSION, NEAR BRADENTON ............ 41

BLOCKHOUSE AT FORT MYERS................................... 42

OLD SPANISH JAIL, PENSACOLA.................................. 43

OLD FLORIDA NEGRO SCENES................................... 45

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, TALLAHASSEE......................... 47

DESTRUCTION OF CONFEDERATE SALT FACTORY ............... 50

CONFEDERATE BATTERY, FORT BARRANCAS.................... 52

FEDERAL SHIPPING FROM FERNANDINA......................... 53

BATTLE OF OLUSTEE ................ .. ..... ............... 54

ST. AUGUSTINE DURING THE WAR.............................. 55

SKIRMISH NEAR CEDAR KEYS.................................... 56

BATTLE OF GAINESVILLE........................................ 57

JACKSONVILLE DURING RECONSTRUCTION........................ 60

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AT MANDARIN ...................... 62

FIRST TRAIN INTO MIAMI......................................... 63

STREET SCENE IN JACKSONVILLE................................ 64

EXCURSION TRAIN IN THE 1880's................................ 65

STEAMBOAT ON THE ST. JOHNS RIVER........................... 66

STEAMBOATS ON THE OCKLAWAHA RIVER....................... 67

BUILDING A CITY- MIAMI, 1897-1940............................68-69

ORANGE GROVE NEAR LAKELAND ................................ 72

ORANGE CLUSTERS ............................................. 73

A PAIR OF "CRACKERS" OF 1880............... ................... 74
ILLUSTRA-
FIRST STREETCAR LINE, PALATKA .............................. 75 TIONS

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, TALLAHASSEE...................... 76 X I

AUDITORIUM, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, GAINESVILLE........... 77

RAILWAY STATION, ST. PETERSBURG, 1889 ....................... 78

COLONELS ROOSEVELT AND WOOD NEAR TAMPA................. 78

SOLDIERS AT PORT TAMPA.................................... 79

ORLANDO, 1883........................................... ....... 79

LEE HALL, FLORIDA A. & M. UNIVERSITY, TALLAHASSEE......... 80

GOVERNOR'S MANSION.......................................... 83

WORLD WAR I MEMORIAL.................... .................. 84

WINGS OVER PENSACOLA ................. ........................ 85

SUGAR M ILL......................... ..... ..... ................. 86

FIELD OF SUGAR CANE ................... ... .... .......... ...... 87

CLEARWATER, MIAMI BEACH, ST. PETERSBURG IN THE 1940's..... 89

PENSACOLA, LAKELAND, WEST PALM BEACH IN THE 1940's........ 90

HIGHWAYS OF FLORIDA ..........................................92-93

TRANSPORTATION IN THE 1940's........... ............... .. 96

1941 AIR TRAFFIC TO AND FROM MIAMI ........................... 97

PULP WOOD INDUSTRY .......................................... 98-99

FARM SCENES .................................................... 100

STATE CAPITOL, TALLAHASSEE.....................................102

GARDEN IN JACKSONVILLE........................................103

INDIAN CREEK, MIAMI ........................................... 105

SCENE IN POLK COUNTY ...........................................107

RINGLING MUSEUM, SARASOTA ....................................112

SAILING ON FLORIDA WATER.................................... ....115

FLORIDA'S LIQUID SUNSHINE.................................... 119

AERIAL VIEW OF JACKSONVILLE.................. ..............120

ORLANDO SKYLINE ........... ...... ........................................ 125

TAMPA SKYLINE ........................... .......... .......... 127

HARBOR FRONT AND GATOR BOWL, JACKSONVILLE .............128
ILLUSTRA-
TIONS FORT CLINCH, FERNANDINA BEACH........... .............. 129

X II RECREATION IN FLORIDA..................................... 130

FLORIDA BEACHES............................................133

HIGHWAY INTO THE FUTURE ......................................134

JUAN PONCE DE LEON

DISCOVERY

FROM A DRAWING IN HERRERA

HREE SMALL SHIPS rode the choppy sea. Beneath white sails,
men once imbued with the fever of adventure grumbled in
discontent. Back in Puerto Rico they had dreamed of gold and
pearls and lands of Oriental wealth; and to some even the story of a
magic fountain with youth-restoring powers must have seemed within
the realm of possibility. The island of Bimini, where their most extrava-
gant hopes might be fulfilled, could not be far; but as days grew into
weeks and islands supplied only ordinary springs of water or vistas of
color, reality made former dreams fantastic. Discontent brought recol-
lection of feasts and celebrations-for it was Easter, 1513.
Then from aloft came the cry "Land to port!" The words quickly
spread over the ships to the leader, Juan Ponce de Le6n. Could this be
the long-sought Bimini with its treasures? Men dreamed once more, only

CHAPTER

I

to learn that they had arrived at another island, similar to those sighted
in previous weeks. For five days the comforting shore was lost as they
sailed on toward the northwest, but on the sixth day, April 2, the welcome
cry "Land to port!" renewed the joy of hope. Exploration of the coast
in the days which followed raised doubts that this new land was an
island. On some beach, probably between present-day St. Augustine and
the mouth of the St. Johns River, Ponce de Le6n disembarked and doubt-
less planted a cross as he took possession in the name of His Majesty,
Ferdinand of Spain.
It was a colorful land, this land he named Florida, but Ponce de Le6n
was searching for gold and glory, not for the beauty of flower and tree.
In vain he sailed down the coast to the Florida Keys and Tortugas, meet-
ing at every landing hostile Indians whose appearance gave no indication
of wealth, and who offered to lead him to neither hidden treasure nor
magic fountain. One of his ships eventually reached Bimini, but nowhere
was there evidence of the riches that motivated his quest.
Ponce de Le6n failed in his search for gold, and his quest for re-
juvenating waters-a dream enlarged if not created by the romantic
generations that followed him-brought death on a second voyage,
though he gained enduring glory. He had discovered and named a vast
land which, in Spanish opinion, stretched beyond the Mississippi on the
west and to the Arctic on the north. Eventually the colonizing efforts of
England and France contracted the area of Florida, and when their day
was spent, the United States carried on to carve slices of old Spanish
Florida for Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Yet Florida retained
her name through the centuries; and with Florida, Ponce de Le6n gained
immortality.
Ponce de Le6n was the inheritor of the spirit of Columbus and the
forerunner of many other conquistadors in the new world. From the
islands of the Caribbean they moved north, west, and south, thirsty for
gold and glory and desirous of Christianizing the savage. A few followed
Ponce de Le6n northward, but the discoveries of precious metals by
Cortes in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru diverted Spanish interests from
Florida. The fingers of mighty Spain were long, however, and could
grasp many lands simultaneously. In 1528 Panfilo de Narvaez landed
near Tampa Bay, and, enticed by Indian tales of gold, led his three hun-
dred men up the peninsula. After enduring many hardships they built
rough barges and started westward along the coast. All but four perished,
and these four, led by Cabeza de Vaca, wandered overland seven years
before finding a haven in Mexico.
Undeterred by the failure of Narviez, Hernando de Soto, grown
wealthy from his years with Pizarro in Peru and honored as one of the
four great captains of Spain, gathered a fleet and six hundred select re-
cruits with all the paraphernalia requisite to conquest and settlement.

FIVE FLAGS

2

Good fortune at first smiled on the conquistador, for a few days after
landing at Tampa Bay in May, 1539, Juan Ortiz, who had a speaking
knowledge of the Indian tongues, came into camp. He had been a mem-
ber of the ill-fated Narvaez venture and owed his life to a beautiful
daughter of Hirrihiqua, whose pleas had saved him from being burned
alive. Lured by Indian assurances of gold in the interior, De Soto moved
north and west but found only the golden waters of the Mississippi, and
there on a bank of the Father of Waters he died. Half of his original
company, sick and starving, reached safety later but Ortiz was not among
them. He, too, had given his life in quest of El Dorado.
Though De Soto's fate may have frightened it did not quell other
adventurous spirits who begged the honor of conquering Florida. The
leader of the next approved expedition, Father Luis Cancer de Barbastro,
sought to save the souls of Indians rather than to secure gold. His only
thought was the peaceful conversion of the heathen, and years of sacri-
fice among the Indians of Central America bore eloquent testimony to
his sincerity and ability. In 1549 the captain and crew of a small, un-
armed vessel sailed from Havana with orders to place Father Cancer and
four monks on some hitherto untouched Florida shore, but the pilot
steered to Tampa Bay, where previous explorers had freely shed Indian
blood. There two monks were landed, and word soon came that their
scalps were decorating Indian wigwams. Despite the entreaties of his
companions Father Cancer determined to land, and as the Indians moved
back from the beach, he ordered his boat to withdraw and proceeded
alone to a sandy hillock where, with cross held firmly, he offered prayer.
A native came forward, embraced Father Cancer, and led him to the
other Indians who, without a word, clubbed him into eternity. Thus
the blood of priest joined that of Indians killed by Spaniards of earlier
expeditions.
Ten years later Tristan de Luna, a brave and devout patriot, spent
his personal fortune and more for the conquest and settlement of Florida.
Supported by royal resources and aided by the Viceroy of Mexico, the
ambitious and well-planned Luna expedition hoped to plant colonies
on the Florida Gulf coast, in the Alabama country, and at Santa Elena
on the Carolina shore. Five hundred soldiers and one thousand settlers,
led by Tristan de Luna, entered Pensacola harbor, the best natural har-
bor in Florida, and the scene, a few days later, of a hurricane that de-
stroyed most of his ships and food supplies. Small forces were sent from
Pensacola to explore and to settle. Quarrels developed; and Luna, ill and
irritable, saw his grand plan fail through misfortune and inefficiency.
Dismissed and replaced by Angel de Villafafie, Luna eventually returned
to Mexico to die, his solitude broken only by hounding creditors. In 1561
Villafafie embarked for Santa Elena with all the remaining settlers and
soldiers who volunteered for service. The expedition, however, was

DISCOVERY

3

INDIAN AGRICULTURE

INDIAN CHIEF AND
HIS COURT

THE RIBAUT COLUMN

FROM DRAWINGS BY LE
MOYNE IN DE BRY,
Bi evis Narratio

FLORIDA INDIAN SCENES

UCUAN

TRIBES

DRAWN BY JOHN W. GRIFFIN-
COURTESY FLORIDA PARK SERVICE

p
LOCATION OF ABORIGINAL INDIAN TRIBES IN FLORIDA
AT TIME OF DISCOVERY BY PONCE DE LEON

doomed to failure, for near the Carolina coast a second hurricane ended
the grandiose colonizing attempt of Tristan de Luna.
Almost fifty years had passed since the voyage of Juan Ponce de
Le6n, and yet no Spaniard had gained a foothold on Florida soil. Attempts
to conquer or to colonize had again and again been wrecked by nature
and by the savage. Neither gold nor pearl had been found; had it been
otherwise, Spanish conquest would not have been delayed. Indians, it
is true, were there to be saved, but Spain was content to wait until a
more propitious time for their conversion by her missionaries.
Florida's strategic location would enable Spain to control the com-
merce of .the new world. The colonization of the peninsula was not
fundamental in itself, but arose from the necessity of preventing posses-
sion by an enemy who would thereby point a dagger at the heart of
Spanish colonial trade. If the might that was Spain's had failed, there
was little fear in Spanish hearts of success by a weaker European power.

DISCOVERY

5

FROM A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING

SETTLEMENT

CHAPTER

II

SHORTLY AFTER THE FIRST VOYAGE of Columbus, Pope
Alexander VI issued a papal bull dividing the Western World
between Spain and Portugal. The spheres of influence thus es-
tablished at Spanish request eased the colonial conflict of the great
exploring nations, but overlooked the possibility of other claimants for
new-found lands. For a time neither England nor France could contest
Spanish monopoly of the Western Hemisphere; but when the young,
vain, and often rash Francis I came to the throne of France, he lost no
time in throwing the gauntlet before his neighbor. By what right, he

PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILES

asked, did Spain and Portugal inherit the earth? If by father Adam's
will, let them produce it or a copy; nothing less would prevent France
from claiming all unoccupied lands touched by her explorers. The en-
suing years, however, found Francis too engrossed in loosening Spain's
vise-like grip on Europe to conduct extensive colonial enterprise. Thus
Philip II of Spain, viewing European affairs after the Luna expedition
in 1561, expected no trouble from a France bled white by war and
already in the throes of religious discord. One year later the unexpected
happened.
Fifty-eight years before the English Separatists landed on the rocks
of Massachusetts Bay, the French Huguenots, led by Jean Ribaut, stepped
onto the sands of Florida. Behind Ribaut was the power of Gaspard de
Coligny, Admiral of France, and supporting Coligny were thousands of
Huguenots who had been caught in the flames of a rebellion lighted by
Luther and fanned by Calvin. Fundamentally it was France, with her
discordant and struggling vitality, that gave national support to the Ribaut
expedition which sailed from Havre-de-Grace on February 18, 1562. On
May Day Ribaut reached a majestic river on the Florida coast which he
named the River of May, now the St. Johns. There he landed, won the
Indians with mirrors and tinsel, and erected a column to record French
ownership. After two days of exploration near the present town of
Mayport, twenty-three miles east of Jacksonville, he sailed northward,
stopping in passage to honor streams with the names of French rivers.
Far up the coast he anchored in a broad harbor which he named Port
Royal. This harbor he selected as a strategic base from which French
vessels could prey on richly laden Spanish merchantmen. A fort was
built and manned by twenty-eight volunteers whom Ribaut left with
the promise of a speedy voyage home and a quick return. Religious wars
in France prevented his making good the promise; and with its lifeline
cut, the colony sank into privation, strife, and death.
It was 1564 before Admiral de Coligny returned to his colonial
project. Because Ribaut was held prisoner in England, where he had
wandered in quest of aid for the infant colony, Rene de Laudonniere, a
lieutenant of the first voyage, led an expedition of three hundred settlers
that embarked in April. Once off the Florida coast he was convinced by
his exploration that a settlement should be made on a bluff overlooking
the River of May. The land was fertile, the Indians friendly, the site
defensible, and the river accessible to the interior where, surely, gold
and silver lay. The small triangular Fort Caroline was erected on the
river bank and fortified with naval guns. The promise of the beginning
was fair, but misfortunes appeared and deepened into tragedy. Day after
day the colonists searched for gold, while their ever-increasing demands
for food made the once friendly Indians surly and, at last, open enemies.
The English slaver, John Hawkins, homeward bound from the Indies

SETTLEMENT

7

in 1565, found the discontented Frenchmen thinking only of home. The
timely arrival of Ribaut, exuberant in his restored freedom and supplied
with seven ships, provisions, and reinforcements, shattered their gloom
with the sunlight of his plans. But these high hopes were destined to be
short-lived, for up from the south death was on the march.
Philip II was not the man to leave this French encroachment on
Spanish domain unchallenged. The settlement at Port Royal was a threat,
but Fort Caroline endangered all Spanish West Indian trade, and Philip's
anger mounted as spies brought details of French plans and preparations.
By royal command Pedro Menendez de Aviles, noble by birth and tested
in battle, fitted out an armada. As adelantado of Florida he was to explore
the coast as far north as Newfoundland and to destroy the piratical
settlements of other nations. On August 28, 1565, the same day that
Ribaut's fleet anchored in the St. Johns, Menendez entered a harbor some
thirty-five miles south, where the feast day of St. Augustine was cele-
brated with High Mass and the place named in his honor. Eager to attack
the French interlopers, Menendez waited impatiently while his colonists
were provided with temporary quarters, and then he hastened away in
anticipation of destroying Fort Caroline before it could be reinforced.
His disappointment at finding Ribaut already there spurred his attack
on the superior French vessels which, caught by surprise and forced to
flee, easily outdistanced their slower rivals. Menendez turned back but
found the fort too powerful for his forces, and returning to St. Augustine,
he busied himself in erecting a fort and establishing a settlement.
The indecisive meeting of Spanish and French vessels off the St. Johns
foreshadowed the conflict to come. Ribaut gathered his fleet and sped to
attack before Menendez could build strong defenses. Nature, which had
so often wrecked Spanish plans, now aided them, for a violent storm
swept Ribaut's fleet to destruction on the islands south of St. Augustine.
In spite of drenching rains and in the face of possible overland attack
from Ribaut's shipwrecked army, Menendez ordered his men to march
against Fort Caroline. The Spaniards waded swamps and cut through
virgin forests to reach Caroline four days later. Their victory was com-
plete: the women and children were spared, but all the others who failed
to find cover in the woods found death. Meanwhile Fort Caroline, re-
named San Mateo, was manned for Spain and Menendez hastened back
to St. Augustine.
But Ribaut's force threatened Spanish control of St. Augustine; and
when Indians brought news of a number of men near an inlet to the
south, Menendez marched with forty men to find almost five times that
number of starving Frenchmen. Although promised nothing beyond such
treatment as the Lord ordained, they surrendered to Menendez. Eight
professed Catholics were shipped to St. Augustine; the others were started
overland under guard. As the day faded, these French Huguenots, hands

FIVE FLAGS

8

FROM SCRIBNER'S Popular History MASSACRE OF RIBAUT

bound behind them, were slaughtered by the swords and pikes of the
conquerors. A few days later the main body of Ribaut's force, along with
their leader, reached the inlet, which the Spanish named Matanzas or
"Slaughters," and Menendez marched to repeat his performance. Ribaut
and less than half of his men begged for mercy and received death. Those
who had refused to surrender later yielded near Cape Canaveral when
Menendez promised them honorable terms; as his own forces now out-
numbered the prisoners, he could be merciful without endangering Span-
ish domination of Florida.
"He has done well," said Philip II on hearing of the victory. Menendez
had done well. France had been thrust from Florida.
France, stung to the quick by the slaughter of the colonists, exacted
vengeance in 1568 when Dominique de Gourgues captured San Mateo.
Evidently believing that Menendez had hanged the French captives of
Fort Caroline in 1565 and nailed over them some such inscription as,
"I do this, not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans," Gourgues hanged
his Spanish prisoners and wrote above them, "Not as to Spaniards, but
as to Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers." It was a bloody episode in the
story of colonial rivalry-nothing more. France never again attempted
settlement on the Florida peninsula.
The more valuable, though less dramatic, work of Menendez lay be-
fore him. Under his able direction the camp at St. Augustine grew into
a pioneer village, and the surrounding land yielded some food, although

SETTLEMENT

9

-Zkr 111

Bia~.iJUL'

the crops were inadequate for colonial needs. The possibilities of orange
culture were investigated; Indians were held in check by treaties and
arms; the coasts north and south were explored; and from Santa Elena
(Port Royal) to Tocabaga (Tampa Bay) forts or blockhouses were erected
at strategic points. These were garrisoned for the defense of Florida and
provided with Jesuits for the Christianization of the Indians. Menendez
moved here and there to quell the mutinies of his own men, to provide
protection against the savages, or better to secure the land in the event
of European attack. The infant colony's survival was a monument to
his leadership.
A leader of less resolution than Menendez would have abandoned
Florida in these early years. Even he, with all his restless energy and
constructive imagination, accomplished little more than the establishment
of military posts from which missionaries worked to convert the Indians.
In his time the Jesuits devoted their lives to the cause of Christianity,
toiled endless hours to learn the Indian tongues, and adapted their service
to the spiritual needs of the unbelieving savage. Their work, as intelligent
Indians learned to their sorrow, resulted in the practical enslavement of
those converted. The Indians reacted in the only way they knew-by
murdering the priests whenever opportunity arose. Missions planted with
the blood of martyrs often died when military support was withdrawn.
In 1570 Father Juan Bautista de Segura and eleven companions, one a
small boy, separated themselves from all military power to found a
mission on the Rappahannock River. Their ineffectual attempt to convert
the Indian ended in 1571 with the massacre of all the company except
the boy. The following year the Jesuits transferred their activities from
Florida to Mexico; while their record in Florida lacked tangible results,
they laid the foundation for others and thus in failure they triumphed.
The devoted brotherhood of Franciscans built on this foundation and
reaped a rich harvest in the generations after 1573. Though progress
was slow and the difficulties always tremendous, the courageous friars
extended their missions from St. Augustine to the St. Marys and to Gaule
(South Georgia). In 1597 an Indian revolt, resulting in the massacre of
six priests, temporarily halted their persistent expansion. One by one
missions advanced from the St. Marys past the Suwannee. By 1679 there
were fourteen in the Apalache country (near present-day Tallahassee),
and later the chain of missions advanced down the Gulf coast and up
the Apalachicola River. These religious settlements became the outposts
of the Spanish domain in the new world. Around them, converted Indians
labored on the land, beheld in partial understanding the beauty of the
Mass, and defended the country against their unbroken brothers. Slowly,
painfully, the friars were conquering Florida for Spain. Theirs was not
the vision of gold and silver which impelled the explorers and founders,
but the inner satisfaction of bringing the Church to the unknowing. In

FIVE FLAGS

10

THE FIRST MASS SAID IN ST. AUGUSTINE

return they demanded a contribution in labor from their converts in
order to spread the gospel deep into the hinterland. Left alone, or ade-
quately supported by Spain, the missions would have established Spanish
civilization in southeastern North America. This was not to be. Decade
after decade colonists from England and France, pushing down the
Atlantic and the Mississippi, reduced Spanish Florida to the peninsula.
The friars were valiant in defense of their labor, but Spain was weak,
and the missions perished.

SETTLEMENT

11

FROM A PAINTING IN THE SPANISH CATHEDRAL

PHOTOGRAPH BY W. J. HARRIS

CONFLICT

CHAPTER

III

NUESTRA SENORA DE LA LECHE, IN ST. AUGUSTINE, BUILT TO
COMMEMORATE THE FIRST MASS SAID IN FLORIDA

SHE APPEARANCE OF JOHN HAWKINS at Fort Caroline, in
1565, foreshadowed the growth of English interest in the new
world. Led by Hawkins and Francis Drake, British merchants
and seafaring adventurers looted eastbound Spanish galleons of their
gold and silver. While Queen Elizabeth secretly shared their profits and
openly denounced them, these freebooters laid a sound foundation for
English commerce. Elizabeth could not stop them, for she, as well as
they, believed England was destined to challenge Spanish naval and

colonial supremacy. Spain replied by sending her Grand Armada to
invade and conquer the upstart in her island home. In 1588 the lumber-
ing Spanish warships were defeated by trim English merchantmen that
struck and lived by speed to strike again; defeat became catastrophe
when a storm, believed by some to be the protecting hand of the Church
of England's God, wrecked Spanish vessels on the rocky Scottish coast.
Spain was defeated, not conquered; and through the years she remained
mistress of the Indies and formidable in her strength.
England's irregular ventures in North America in the sixteenth cen-
tury fathered her consistent advance in the seventeenth. In the 1580's
Walter Raleigh planted a colony on Roanoke Island and Francis Drake
warned the Spaniards of impending conflict by capturing and burning
St. Augustine. The colonization of Virginia in 1607 threatened Spanish
control of Florida, but lethargic Spain only watched and waited hopefully
for disease, starvation, or Indians to end the Jamestown settlement. When
hope faded, as success not only crowned English efforts in Virginia but
also in New England and Maryland, Spain bowed to the inevitable and
traded her indefensible territory along the Atlantic for the security of
her galleons carrying the riches of her southern possessions. In 1670,
after Carolina, with a boundary south of St. Augustine, had been granted
by England to eight proprietors, Spain recognized England's North Amer-
ican territory in exchange for vague assurances of no further expansion
south of Charleston. The indefinite boundaries of this American treaty
settled nothing, for England was bent on expansion by peaceful negotia-
tion, if possible; by war, if necessary. Thus Spain's unwise but inevitable
policy of defense by giving up expendable territory strengthened her
already robust opponent.
Spain could yield no more without surrendering all. Florida, in her-
self profitless, guarded the abundance of Mexico and the islands, and
somnolent Spain awakened to fight with the courage of desperation. The
Franciscan missions of North Florida became posts of military defense,
Indian allies were sought, and plans were drawn to encourage migration
to the colony. The wooden fort at St. Augustine gave way to a moated
coquina fortress, Castillo de San Marcos, which little by little was en-
larged and reinforced until its unconquerable strength became Florida's
center of defense. In 1686 Spain took the offensive to capture and plunder
Port Royal, but intermittent fighting proved inconclusive for both sides
until Governor Moore of Carolina captured St. Augustine in 1702. After
sacking the town he retreated in disgrace when the fort held firm. To CNFLICT
regain his honor he later devastated the mission settlements in the
Apalache country-a blow from which Spanish Florida never fully 13
recovered. 1
The struggle of England and France for world supremacy dominated
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spain with all her possessions

was caught in the riptide created by these two giants. The colonial ad-
vance of both in America engulfed section after section of what Spain
once called Florida. A year after the founding of Jamestown, the French
settled Quebec in Canada. Up the St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes,
and down the Mississippi her priestly explorers charted the path for
traders, those runners of the wood, who molded French America. Soldiers
of the king, along with transient settlers, manned the forts of this wilder-
ness empire. In 1685 La Salle sailed from France directly into the Gulf
to colonize the Mississippi area; his attempt failed, but the threat stirred
Spain to plant a colony in the region between peninsular Florida and
Mexico.
As usual Spain deliberated and procrastinated. The pilot of an expe-
dition sent to destroy the La Salle colony urged a settlement on Pensacola
Bay, but immediate attempts to execute this recommendation miscarried.
It was November, 1698, before Andres de Arriola led an expedition from
Mexico to the Bay, where he found two Spanish vessels from Havana
already in the harbor. Arriola, expecting much, found little. Disillusioned
by the appearance of the country, he questioned the wisdom of remain-
ing; and though dissatisfied, he constructed a fort and equipped it with
sixteen guns. It was well that he did, for in January a French fleet ap-
peared off the harbor. The sight of the fortifications checked the enemy
until the timely arrival of a hurricane sent them flying. But France came
back. The Mississippi region, or Louisiana, became hers, Mobile Bay fell
under her control, and in 1719 the fort at Pensacola surrendered to the
might of France. Pensacola was returned, for France and Spain moved
into alliance under the coercion of English aggression. Henceforth Span-
ish Florida was to suffer no further contraction by the power of France.
That which had been lost, however, could not be recovered. France had
carved western Florida for herself while England had sliced Atlantic
Florida to her taste.
England's prodigious appetite was not yet satiated, and the years
following the Moore expedition brought Florida no peace. Colonial trad-
ers moved inland to compete and fight with the Spaniard for Indian favor;
and Carolina planters complained of the Florida haven to which their
slaves escaped and of the Indian raids, encouraged, they said, by Spanish
words and guns. In retaliation the English colonists fell upon the Indians
to subdue and enslave them. Perhaps in the knowledge that theirs was
the greater fault, English propagandists painted a gruesome picture of
Spanish-Indian relations. Even the writings of the gentle Spanish bishop,
Las Casas, who consciously exaggerated Spanish cruelty to stir compassion
in the hearts of his countrymen, were flung to the world as confessed
proof of Spanish brutality. So while the Spaniard lived with the Indian,
often protecting him though working him unmercifully, the English
killed and enslaved him, and pointed to the mote in the eye of Spain.

FIVE FLAGS

14

No English propaganda, however well done, blinded the Indians to
reality; they arose in desperation, and for a time, the flame of colonial
life in Carolina flickered.
The Yamassee War of 1715 silhouetted the insecurity of Carolina.
This bloody evidence of their exposed position as a frontier colony
goaded the Carolinians to demand a buffer settlement for the protection
of their lives and accumulated wealth. After two attempts failed to colo-
nize the area between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, the Carolinians
planned a line of forts in the trans-Savannah country. They constructed
Fort George at the mouth of the Altamaha in 1721, but the cost of main-
taining it quickly convinced them of the impracticality of their scheme.
In their opinion the defense of Carolina was an imperial problem of the
mother country, not a provincial one; and though England knew this,
she preferred to pass the economic risks of settlement to her citizens.
Thus in 1732 King George II of England readily granted James Ogle-
thorpe and his associates the right to hold and settle Georgia. Oglethorpe
envisioned a colony for imprisoned debtors where neither the practice
of slavery nor the drinking of beer would corrupt men's morals. Though
his dream quickly faded into an historic memory, the location of his
grant between Spanish Florida and English Carolina, together with the
rivalry of the mother countries, determined Georgia's colonial function.
Oglethorpe, the humanitarian, became a warrior. From Savannah to San
Juan Island (Saint George), where the St. Johns flows into the sea,
soldiers manned hastily built forts. This invasion of Spanish-claimed
territory invited attack from St. Augustine, but the inadequacy of the
forces of Governor Jose Simeon Sanchez suggested the wisdom of ne-
gotiation. In 1736 an agreement was reached at Frederica, Georgia: both
nations would withdraw from the St. Johns. England thus gained tacit
recognition of her rights above the St. Johns, but Spain, outraged by the
surrender of her claims, repudiated the agreement and invited Governor
Sanchez to return home, where he was summarily executed.
The die had been cast for battle. Spain, hot with anger, moved re-
inforcements to St. Augustine, and England commissioned Oglethorpe as
commander in chief of the Carolina and Georgia forces. Yet the Florida-
Georgia controversy was but one of the many disputes between the mother
countries. More important was England's determination to gain unlimited
trade in Spanish America. The crisis came in 1739 when Robert Jenkins,
an English smuggler, presented Parliament with a severed ear, claiming
that the beastly Spanish sailors had relieved him of it some seven years CONFLICT
earlier. The ear was remarkably well preserved; perhaps it had been
taken the previous night from the unfortunate head of an inebriated 15
Englishman. Parliament rose in righteous wrath to declare war on Spain.
Other European powers chose sides and the fighting in Florida was
dwarfed by the world struggle which followed.

PHOTOGRAPH BY J. CARVER HARRIS CASTILLO DE SAN MARCOS, ST. AUGUSTINE

Long years of indecisive warfare opened in America when the Span-
ish forces from Florida destroyed a small English colony on Amelia
Island. Oglethorpe, with a sizable army of settlers and Indians, retaliated
by devastating the country around the St. Johns. A part of his army
proceeded up the river to capture Fort Picolata and Fort St. Francis de
Poppa, and the success of this flanking movement cut St. Augustine's
connection with the western Florida settlements. Then by land and sea
Oglethorpe struck to capture the city's outlying defenses. Here his suc-
cesses ended, for the Castillo de San Marcos held firm, and Spanish vessels
slipped into the harbor to bring reinforcements. Oglethorpe marched his
bickering, disease-ridden troops north. Deserted by the Carolinians and
unaided by England, he was faced with certain Spanish reprisal. In the
summer of 1742 the Spanish came with fifty ships and 2,800 men. The
battle of Bloody Marsh, though a minor reverse, helped to unnerve the
Spanish. They had, perhaps, a four-to-one advantage over the Georgians,
but theirs was a motley crew of inefficient fighting men, and the sudden
arrival of English reinforcements might spell disaster. The Spanish took
counsel and fled. No further activity of importance came from either
contestant, and the war officially ended in 1748 with peace terms as in-
conclusive as had been the fighting.
For over a decade England and Spain lived in peace. In the meantime
the North American empires of England and France drew the mother
countries into another war for world colonial supremacy; and by 1761
Spain, fearful of her colonial pre-eminence should France be defeated,
decided to oppose the English juggernaut. She had hesitated too long, for
France had spent her force. The foolhardy decision cost Spain Havana,
and with it, Cuba. When the Treaty of Paris closed the war in 1763, she
ransomed Cuba by ceding Florida. Though a defeated but grateful France
compensated her with the gift of Louisiana, this magnificent acquisition
failed to appease Spain for the loss of a colony which was so vitally

FIVE FLAGS

16

OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH U. S. NAVY-COURTESY LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
OLD FORT REDOUBT, PENSACOLA

important to the protection of her trade and for which she had fought
for over two centuries.
Spanish Florida had been the northern outpost of a vast American
empire. The country was inhabited by intractable Indians who resisted
conquest, and the difficulties of Florida's retention were increased by
the imperial wars of England and France. Economically Florida was not
profitable: her natural wealth was hidden and difficult to exploit; and
her soil, climate, and resources, though potentially valuable, required
careful and extended husbandry. Furthermore, Spain lacked the popu-
lation to colonize her empire. Her short-sighted policy of prohibiting the
immigration of foreigners and restricting the migration of her own non-
Catholic citizens decreased her available manpower.
With few settlers, Florida was no match for the relatively populous
English colonies to which men of all faiths and nationalities freely came.
Hence in the contest with England, as in the one to come with the United
States, Spain could not hold her undeveloped and underpopulated settle-
ments in Florida. CONFLICT

17

FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PENSACOLA IN THE BRITISH PERIOD

UNDER CHANGING OWNERSHIP

CHAPTER

IV

HE TREATY OF PARIS outlined extensive changes in the
ownership of North America. Spain ceded to England all the
possessions east of the Mississippi, and France withdrew from
the continent by delivering to England all her territory except Louisiana,
which was later given to Spain. Frenchman and Spaniard alike believed
these forced cessions to be no more than temporary expedients. Spain
retired from Florida, determined to wait until a more opportune moment
would assure her victory over England and the return of her colony;
France, humiliated in defeat, worked in the night of her sorrow and

BRITISH FLORIDA
- - 'Aor/wfer/-7 6oar-y o~ a/-/rl
,/Aoro//a as, A ~/c /,ed' y1tf
,A'oc/a17a//0'o7 of 1765

DRAWN BY ALBERT M. LAESSLE

waited for the day of her triumph; and a new state, soon to be born,
would rise to demand a share of the British empire in America. For
more than half a century, Florida, her permanent ownership in doubt,
was to be a pawn of those who played the game of imperialism.
In accordance with the treaty, Spain delivered Florida to England on
the arrival of the commanders with their troops of occupation. Captain
John Hedges took possession of St. Augustine on July 20, and Lieutenant
Colonel Augustin Prevost received Pensacola on August 6, 1763.. The
Spanish officials, though demanding pomp, ceremony, and the paying
of honor to their sovereigns, facilitated the transfers and worked dili-
gently to persuade Spanish residents to sell their holdings and accept
grants in Cuba. Recalcitrants were warned of the risk to their church
under British rule, although the treaty promised those who remained
the liberty of their Catholic faith. Spanish Floridians, soldiers and
civilians, joined the exodus of their leaders. By February of 1764 only
eight of over three thousand former colonists remained in the St. Augus-
tine area and these stayed behind as agents in the liquidation of property
holdings. The settlements of Spanish Florida were in reality mere mili-
tary posts supporting a few civilians; when the soldiers were withdrawn,
the settlers followed in their wake.

OWNERSHIP

19

The first military commanders of British Florida and those who suc-
ceeded them were unfavorably impressed by the country and the evi-
dences of Spanish culture. St. Augustine, the largest town, was a struggling
settlement with hardly more than nine hundred buildings on grounds
overgrown with weeds, and with no visible source of economic life. Pen-
sacola was a crude village-like camp of huts and military barracks which
were constructed mainly of bark, and which were without windows,
fireplaces, or adequate furnishings. Sandy soil, along with the climate
and the insects, gave the British cause for many uncomplimentary reports
to home authorities. In addition to natural disadvantages and inadequate
housing, the British occupation was further complicated by the presence
of the Spanish. Their departure ended the hardships arising from differ-
ences in language, law, and religion, but the new owners remained more
impressed by the poverty of the country than by the possibility of future
economic development.
The military occupation of Florida came in a year of transition when
England was reconsidering and revamping her colonial policy. The de-
fects of her colonial system, so clearly outlined in the course of the recent
war, forced England either to tighten her controls or recognize the inde-
pendence of her distant American settlements. A new imperial policy
enunciated by Parliamentary acts and executive orders in the postwar
years brought increased taxation, a standing army, a definite Indian pro-
gram, and governmental establishments for Canada and Florida. The old
French area along the Gulf was joined to Spanish Florida, and this almost
virgin territory stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi was divided
into the royal colonies of East and West Florida. East Florida, with its
government at St. Augustine, included the peninsula to the St. Marys
River, west to the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint, and south
along the Apalachicola to the Gulf of Mexico. West Florida, with Pen-
sacola as its capital, extended along the Gulf to the Mississippi, up this
river to the mouth of the Yazoo, due east to the Chattahoochee, and down
this and the Apalachicola to the Gulf. East and West Florida had little
in common during the period of English control: the former was Atlantic
in thought and interest; the latter looked to the Mississippi Valley.
In both colonies England established a government in the mold of her
royal Atlantic colonies. An appointed royal governor, together with a
crown-approved council and judiciary, ruled the settlements. The gov-
ernors, unlike those of the Atlantic colonies, received their salaries
directly from the English treasury and thereby avoided one source of
colonial conflict. There remained, nevertheless, ample cause for con-
troversy with the military authorities, the council members, the judges,
and the holders of large land grants, who broadly interpreted their rights.
The creation of elective assemblies for West Florida in 1766 and for East
Florida in 1781 added to the governors' problems. Although one governor,

FIVE FLAGS

20

VOL I:

Ea/l-Ilorida

NULLIUS ADDICTS JURAR E

THE

No. 16.

GAZETTE.

IN VERBA MAOISTRI. Hor.

From SATU R DAY, MAY 0o, to SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1783.
1 ,, _ll- --. .. *- :-- --- -

ST. AUGUSTINE, May 17.
S Sun I lIn Y .i t arflvel o our Bar, a
.J' . tit :, tiu.i NeA.Yo ,rk, his Majcf.
t) ii '..ji ;). ," t llm-1 tlfaru ha-imig unJer
Curis ,.:r t. i, en with peivifins foer this
IC^. ,. f" m c Slher vJistaIern had faitet in
x . I -' f, e at pl.tce, ,iat 'paratcdby fameC
a, :. I,. r p ,1i Lre.
SA S T F L 0 R ID A.
Bvy 's Ex'-..Pcn)y PATR ICK To-
NY N, .EI/f/iJe, Ca.ptain General,
CGern...,r and, Commander in
cl';f irt an / verr his Ml!jfi fly
Jr' vice f Fafl-Flori/a, Chan-
c.r / / Vice Admiral aof the

A PR OCI, AMATION-
ts^ 1-i Ri;AS his Exccl-
s lCe'y Sir C(;u CAR-
; L L. ETON, Command-
le ing in chief his Mla-
jcfty's forces in North
Am:rrica, lath informed me that
provitions to the i(t of Ofob .r
ncext, L.ave been fent to this pro-
vlnce, fo r the itpport of his Ma-
jcit-'s good and faithfiil fulbjec ,
who have bccn under the necefii-
ty of leaving the provinces of
bouth CarolinA and Georgia:
And whereas his Fxcellency the
lion. ROBERT DiGnY 'fquire,
coinmanding lhis Majefly's naval
forces in Norlth America, from
his tender and compaflionate re-.
gard for the fiflerings of his
Majefly's loyal futbjeds, and an-
xious to lighten their diitrcffes
by every means in his power,
hath given me the firongeft af-
furances of every affillance being
afforded the inhabitants of this
province for their removal; that
the commanding officer of his
Majefty's fhips of war on this
nation has his directions to con-
fulc the convenience of the in-
habitants; and that tranfports
may be had for fuch of them as
wit .to proceed to England or
the Weft-Indies, or any other
part ov his Maijefy's donminons,

previous to the evacuation of the
;lid province, which probably
will not be effeded during the
course of this fummer, as there
are no accounts of the definitive
treaty of peace being signed. I
have therefore thought fit by and
with the advice of his Maiefly's
Ilouourable Council, to notify
and imke public, and I do here-
by notify and make public fuch
information and affurances to all
his Majefly's good and faithful
fibjects of this his Majefty's
faithful province of Eaft-Flori-
da; and that fuch of the faid
inhabitants, who may not be em-
ployed in agriculture, and are
defirous of taking the earliest op-
portunity of departing, do forth-
with give in their names, nuim-
bers, and deflination, to the Se-
cretary"s ()lice, that they may
be properly accomtodatcd, here-
by offl in:g every aflifiance and
support in my power; and I do
earneltlv recommend and require
all his Maijcfy's faid fibjets who
may be employed in agriculture,
to be attentive in raising their
crops of provisions now in the
ground for their future lublift-
ance.
PATRICK TONYN.
Given under my hlad, and the
Great Seal of bi Majeftv's/fid
Province, in the Council Cham-
ber, at St. Adguftine, the twen-
tr-ninth day of Aril, one Bhou-
ftndfeven hundred and eighty
three, and in the tw-enty-tbird
yearofhis Maje.fl's Reign.
God iave the King!
By his Excellency's command,
David Yeates, Secretary.
LL persons who have any demands against the
Scftate of te late JOHN BRsD d ecefedt are
retired to btrng in their aeoontU port t-
t fed, and all tho any ways indebted to the id'
estate, ae tVircd to make a *rmefliatt rl.
to DONALD M'0Ia lIrKt Adma
WILLIAM ukNri J Al
St. AaVaf#w, kr, ilstlJ.

(BY PERMISSION1)
On TUESDAY Evenin, the soth
WILL BI PRIgS1EN
At the THI AIT T A *
In the STATe-HO .o E,
D O U G L A S,
A T a a T,
To uirb willk7 ddedr.
The ENTERTAINMENT of
BARN ABY BRITTLE, 1;
The Ch.aralters by Gentlemen, for the be-n ,it uf
the diftrefted Refsrgen.
Doors to be opened at IX o'Clock; Peri,-
mance to commence at SEVEN ; no mqnorc taken
at the aoor, nor any pcrfun admitted behind the
Scerocs.
Tickets to be had at Mr. JnsToton's fiore, for-
merly Mr. Payne's.
PlrTT. S. 1 G.LLE r, 4i. 9d.
PUBLIC AUCTION.
On THURSDAY next, the nd infl.
At LEVrEN e'Clork,
WILL BE SOLD,
(Hifbhon re/nrv)}
At Major M aNron's quarter, cew Barracks,
A MAHOGANY Bcd-cad with elegant
Foi nitire, and Window Crtalins
A guti ei;ht.day Clock
A double Cheit of Drawers
A IBok Cafe
A D1 rk aold other Drawers
Chirs and a Sopha
Pier, Chimney and drffinag Glafes
Rufa and other Dofgs
Tea ant Table China
CGlafrr and GIaf.
Shades
A well toned Cuittar
Some I'late, &c. &c.
JOHN CHAMPNEYS.
A NY ierfon having the followtnm NEGROFrs,
Good property, which they wil( to'tlifpnlf
of. mvy hear of a pnrchafer, who will pay down
the aAh., hv applying to the Printer.
A d Carp'tfner, Ifvt Brie"k har, a Bkad'
Smith #n4d a ged Cardl anr.
TEN DOLLARS REWARD.
STOLEN or frayed out of my yar on.the
n;ght or Tucfilay la,, a brimt bay Horfe
miw.-r Is of fourteen banduhsgh, abut (irht yumrs
old, paces, trots, and cantern; .ltly brandeWt
on the mnnnting shoulder, M.S. with a flit in hi.
left ear. The above reward will be given to aos
r tfon that will deliver the (aid Horfe to the fub;
fcriber in St. Augnuftiue, Captain carWnr at Pae
lato, or to Mr. Suitherandd at Hcfter' BIlu a:
JMER SRYMOtP.
NOyTART PU7-Kt
J o I N M I1:,Lt ',:. t
Fatr rsnv^ eaCnw aq u a t yasas )'At.chw^:
or d (tArt, 5. -
H.EREBY OtVBs NOTICE,
That he keeps his Ir e
At bis Houfetbe MNoth end of
tea the hofe of Mr. Pt ai"ars
AU L AW of LAW PRE CEDE ITS tN I
wlaith brt aod epeditioii. ** *r

FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

FIRST NEWSPAPER PRINTED IN FLORIDA

FROM A PAINTING OF THE ORIGINAL BUILDING, MADE ABOUT 1900 BY E. D. CHANDLER

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY HEADQUARTERS OF PANTON, LESLIE AND COMPANY, PENSACOLA:
FOCAL POINT OF THE INDIAN TRADE FOR THE GULF AND MISSISSIPPI AREAS

John Eliot, hanged himself in his study one month to the day after his
arrival in Pensacola, the other royal executives either bore the humiliat-
ing trials of office or fought to uphold the dignity of their position.
In spite of the ever-present political controversy, British leadership
gave Florida her first substantial development. The Indians were bribed
into treaties by glittering trinkets, free entertainment, and the honor of
small and great medals. Generous land grants induced responsible men
to move settlers to the colony. Dr. Andrew Turnbull and his associates
founded New Smyrna and peopled the settlement with Greek, Italian,
and Minorcan families; and the philanthropic Denys Rolle recruited
the destitute and the shiftless from London's crowded alleys to establish
Rollestown on the St. Johns. Campbell Town, on the west bank of the
Escambia River and north of Pensacola Bay, became a small village
inhabited by French Protestant refugees. These settlements never pros-
pered, but such centers as Mobile, Manchac, and Natchez grew in im-
portance with the passing years. Rough roads connecting the principal
settlements opened the country for agriculture. The plantation economy
of England's southern and island colonies found a productive home in
Florida, and the large farms with their slave labor not only supplied

FIVE FLAGS

22

a part of the colony's necessary foodstuffs but also produced staple crops
for export.
The work of the farmer, woodsman, and trapper laid the basis for
San expanding trade with England. As early as 1774 indigo, deerskins,
timber, naval stores, and oranges accounted for exports valued at over
22,000 from East Florida. The West Florida ports loaded ship after
ship with skins and furs; St. Augustine exported over 65,000 oranges
in the year of the American Declaration of Independence; and six years
later the Floridas were producing more than 22 per cent of England's
entire import of indigo. The colony's need for manufactured goods and
even food necessitated such large shipments, however, that the value of
her exports never equaled that of her imports. These advances under
England were encouraging evidence of Florida's agricultural and com-
mercial potentialities.
Much of this prosperity came from Florida's increasing population.
The growing difficulties between the mother country and her Atlantic
colonies caused a few northern colonials to migrate to England's south-
ernmost possession, where no thought of independence disturbed the
settlers, and with the advent of the Revolutionary War, thousands of
Loyalists found refuge in Florida. The eastern colony, where all but a
few settled, grew in population and wealth, but this good fortune was
temporary, for the rebellion of the thirteen colonies afforded powerful
European countries the long-awaited opportunity to crush England.
France, little interested in the welfare of the nascent United States but
exceedingly eager to humiliate England, joined forces with the Patriots.
Spain and Holland threw in their lots with France and the Revolution
became a world war.
Florida suffered in this war as she had in previous world conflicts.
Spain, bent on regaining her lost colony, moved from her bases at New
Orleans and Havana to capture Mobile in 1780. Pensacola fell the fol-
lowing year and British West Florida ceased to exist. In the east the
refugee colonial Loyalists were organized into the "Florida Rangers."
Thomas Brown, who had been tarred, feathered, and run from his
Georgia plantation, led them as they wreaked havoc along the frontier.
Such Rangers as Brown's and the Carolinian Daniel McGirtt, a onetime
Patriot who became a Loyalist when an officer demanded his favorite
mare, avenged their injuries by pillaging frontier homes. The Georgians
and the Continental army retaliated with repeated and unsuccessful
attempts to subdue East Florida. Although the British at St. Augustine,
especially after Yorktown, lived in constant fear of a thrust by the com-
bined forces of France, Spain, and the United States, the only successful
invasion of St. Augustine was that of the dislodged Loyalists in search
of new homes. Throughout the war East Florida remained an uncon-
quered British colony.

OWNERSHIP

23

The peace treaties accomplished that which war had failed to do.
England recognized an independent United States, whose territory ex-
tended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and from Canada to Florida;
and West Florida went to her Spanish conqueror. British East Florida,-
boxed in from the north, west, and south, would be at the mercy of
Spanish or American aggression, and England decided to withdraw from
a colony whose ownership would be more fruitful of conflict than of
profit. News of the intended abandonment of East Florida threw the
British population into panic. They waited in the hope that the final
treaty would provide for British retention of Florida, but English dis-
patches of September 30 and December 4, 1783, confirmed the cession
to Spain and ordered evacuation of the province.
Confronted with the painful choice of living under the restricting
hand of Catholic Spain or migrating, Englishmen preferred the latter.
England provided her suffering colonists with money, free transporta-
tion, and recompense in land of other colonial areas. A few hundred
returned to England, more went to Nova Scotia, but thousands chose the
Bahamas and British Caribbean colonies. Other thousands rejected these
offers and wandered over wilderness trails to the uninhabited American
west. Some, perhaps fewer than a hundred, remained in Spanish Florida,
but their influence, like England's, almost ceased when Spanish rule
became firm. Virtually twenty years of British rule were wiped out, but
still there remained the place names, the boundaries, the heritage of
political and religious freedom, and the example of a plantation economy
upon which Floridians would one day build a state.

During the second Spanish occupation Florida never reverted to
what she had been before the British came. The remaining foreign ele-
ment of Greeks, Italians, Minorcans, and English forced Spain to soften
her former rigid laws. The Indians, who had been spoiled by an abun-
dance of relatively inexpensive English goods, could not be satisfied by
the limited quantity of highly priced Spanish commodities. These and
other considerations led Spain to alter her previous colonial policy.
The change did not come with fanfare and blare of trumpet but
slowly year by year as necessity dictated. Where once only the devout
Catholic could enter Florida, now Catholics, as well as Lutheran and
other Protestant sects, lived together. A census of St. Augustine in 1786
listed many non-Catholic residents, and Protestant American farmers
moved down from Georgia with their chosen forms of worship. The
English trading firm of Panton, Leslie and Company, founded during
the British occupation, prospered from favors granted by Spanish offi-
cials. American farmers with their slaves and plantation economy found
a welcome in Spanish Florida, and lavish land grants were given to

FIVE FLAGS

24

/' / T' rr /. 7 '// l/^ cc/ ^ y pal'/7 ad/7
aCQ i/' ed" 4 / AeS, /7 J 5-/P; /es ,7
// O// u ct u/r C/e //, Un.' /.'.7/;/f '.C .i ra /O7

- Ocy'/ee/ Ay /Ae< i/e///ez/'3 /78/3/

\\ SC -f7rerder ec .,.5-0//7o ard occup'/ed
7 y /'e 4/,,/ed S/a Yes//7 /Z82/.

DRAWN BY ALBERT M. LAESSLE

Spaniards partly in return for past services but more in the hope of
increasing the colony's population. In the earlier occupation of Florida,
Spain had attempted to hold the province by missions and military posts.
This policy had failed and Spain now turned to the building of an
economically profitable colony whose population, she hoped, could fend
for itself with little aid from the mother country.
The altered plan for the retention of Florida was foredoomed to
failure. As the United States expanded westward and plantations de-
veloped in southern Georgia and the lands bordering on West Florida,
she boldly demanded Florida's Gulf outlets and rich plantation lands.
Spanish encouragement of American migration whetted rather than
satisfied the appetite of the land-hungry Anglo-Saxon. The central theme
of the second occupation became a conflict between Spanish retentiveness
and American acquisitiveness.
The United States did not take over all of Florida at one time. The
territory became American piece by piece with the United States waiting
and preparing new conquests between her aggressions. Justification for
the acquisition came from various sources: the inadequacy of Spanish

OWNERSHIP

25

control, Indian outrages, and the loss of escaping slaves. But funda-
mentally America wanted the plantation land with its rivers flowing into
the Gulf, and she determined to have it.
The motives for procurement were less complicated than was the
story of attainment. When Spain reacquired Florida in 1783, she claimed
all the territory formerly known as British East and West Florida. Thus
in Spanish opinion the northern boundary of West Florida was the line
32 degrees and 28 minutes between the Mississippi and Chattahoochee
rivers. The United States, denying the validity of the northern bound-
ary, set the line at the 31st parallel. Negotiation failed to settle the con-
troversy, for the Americans also demanded the free navigation of the
Mississippi without offering anything of value in return. Spain planned
a treaty whereby she would give the territory in question in exchange
for complete control of the Mississippi waterway. When the United
States refused to cripple her western territories by accepting such a
treaty, negotiations ceased. Meanwhile she developed a stronger gov-
ernment under the Constitution of 1787, and Europe was thrust into war
as a result of the French Revolution. Now faced with the growing power
of the United States and by uncertainties in Europe, Spain yielded free
trade on the Mississippi and accepted the 31st parallel as the northern
boundary of Florida. The clear title to this vast territory was acquired
by the United States and lost forever to Spain and to Florida.
The European war created additional problems for the United States
and Spain. France, dreaming of a new empire to rival that of England,
demanded and received Louisiana from enfeebled Spain. French own-
ership of the Mississippi endangered American control of the Mississippi
Valley and American commissioners were dispatched to Napoleon with
offers to buy not only the Island of Orleans, through which the Mississippi
flowed, but also Florida, which the Americans mistakenly thought was
included in the Louisiana grant. Florida could not be purchased, but
all of Louisiana with its poorly defined boundaries was secured for the
United States.
Florida remained as desirable as ever. An immediate attempt to pur-
chase the colony in 1803 failed, as did a later one in 1805. Undaunted
by these diplomatic rebuffs, the United States used the undefined east
boundary of southern Louisiana to claim West Florida to the Perdido
River, but Spain's well-founded protest stayed the American hand for
a time. The settlers of West Florida, however, were not so patient. After
Napoleon had placed his brother on the throne of Spain, the Spanish-
American colonies rose in rebellion. In West Florida where Spanish,
English, and American plantation owners, army deserters, and fugitives
lived, the authority of government gave way to anarchy. From this con-
fusion came the Republic of West Florida with a lone-star flag and a
request for immediate annexation by the United States. The territory

FIVE FLAGS

26

DRAWING BY HILDEGARDE MULLER URI-COURTESY LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
OLD AVILES STREET, ST. AUGUSTINE

between the Pearl and the Mississippi rivers was occupied by the United
States in 1810 and in the following year Congress authorized President
Madison to seize all of West Florida to the Perdido, if the local authori-
ties consented or if there was danger of foreign occupation of this region.
The territory west of the Pearl River was incorporated into the state of
Louisiana in 1812.
The international situation had dictated quick action. Spain, long a
dependent ally of France, had joined England in the hope of destroying
Napoleon. The United States had feared the possible annexation of Flor-
ida by England and already the demand in America for war with England
had reached feverish proportions. The elections of 1810 had brought
vigorous young expansionists to the American Congress, who ostensibly
demanded war with England to protect commercial and seamen's rights,
but who in reality wanted Canada and Florida. These aggressive nation-
alists planned the quick conquest of these territories and their consoli-
dation before either England or Spain could span the Atlantic to defend
their colonies.
Before the actual declaration of war in 1812 President Madison had
encouraged rebellion in East Florida. If the settlers there would declare
their independence of Spain, the United States might occupy the terri-
tory without bloodshed. The rebellion, instigated by Madison's agent,

OWNERSHIP

27

broke early in 1812. John Houstoun McIntosh was chosen governor of
the "independents," Amelia Island with the town of Fernandina was
taken, and St. Augustine was invested. Before the town and the fortress
of San Marcos the rebellion faltered, and Madison was forced to disavow
the act of his agent. The British later used East Florida as a supply base
in the war although Spain never declared war on the United States. Am-
bitious American plans for the conquest of East Florida were never
executed.
In the west there was a different story. General Andrew Jackson left
Nashville, Tennessee, in January of 1813 with frontier troops who hated
Spaniards and Indians and who knew little and cared less about inter-
national law. The general and his men were eager to plant the American
flag on the ramparts of Mobile, Pensacola, and St. Augustine. Their de-
sire was not realized for Jackson was ordered back and General James
Wilkinson occupied Mobile. Jackson entered the town in 1814 to defend
it from the British who were using the neutral Spanish port at Pensacola
as a base of attack. After throwing back the invaders, Jackson marched
on Pensacola, captured the town, witnessed the destruction of its pro-
tecting fort, and withdrew his forces to Mobile. From there he went to
New Orleans to win his greatest military success.
The United States, disillusioned by her defeats in battle, had made
peace with England before the Battle of New Orleans. The American
desire for Canada and Florida and the rights of neutrals-the real and
fictitious causes of the war-went unmentioned in the peace. As Spain
had never joined her English ally in the war against the United States,
she had no part in the peace treaty.
Florida, however, was not forgotten in the years that followed. The
United States retained control of the country west of the Perdido; while
in the Spanish territory, British agents operated freely, buying, selling,
and encouraging the Indians to resist American encroachment. Escaping
slaves continued to find refuge south of the Georgia border where they
joined other Negroes at an abandoned British fort on the Apalachicola.
Spain was unable to keep order in her colony. The United States com-
plained of this and coveted the ungoverned land.
Indian depredations in 1818 brought Jackson to Florida once more.
Coming down the Apalachicola he pushed the Indians before him, swung
east to take the Spanish fort at St. Marks, and went on to the Suwannee,
chasing and searching for the elusive Indians. Two Englishmen, thought
to be instigators of the Indians' hostilities, were captured and summarily
executed by Jackson, who allowed his personal antipathy to overcome
his judgment. Jackson's execution of these British subjects caused the
international sensation of the year and war might have resulted had
England not been tied down by diplomatic struggles in Europe.
Jackson's activities in Florida did much to convince Spain of the

FIVE FLAGS

28

difficulties inherent in keeping a colony
which bordered on so unfriendly a country
as the United States. The situation between
the two nations was tense. They either had
to fight or negotiate, and neither desired
war. Spain knew well that the United States
could take Florida, and when President
Monroe appeased Spanish honor by restor-
ing all the territory overrun by Jackson, the
way was open for negotiation. On February
22, 1819, plenipotentiaries of Spain and the
United States reached an accord in Wash-
ington. East and West Florida were ceded
without payment although the United States
agreed to cancel the claims of her citizens
against Spain and to satisfy the claimants '
to the extent of five million dollars. The
Senate ratified the treaty immediately but
Spain delayed for almost two years. It was
February 22, 1821, before ratifications were CORDUROY ROAD
exchanged and the treaty proclaimed.
The ownership of Florida had been determined. The first settled
colony of the Atlantic coast had been the last of that area to come under
American jurisdiction. Unlike Canada, Florida, with neither the size nor
the backing of a strong European country, had been unable to withstand
the determination of the Americans. Good fortune had at last smiled
on Florida.

OWNERSHIP

29

FROM A PAINTING BY COMTE DE CASTELNAU

A UNITED STATES TERRITORY

CHAPTER

V

HE SPANISH CESSION of 1821 marked the turning point in
the history of Florida. For over three hundred years the terri-
tory had been claimed by a European power whose colonial
interest centered in some other American possession. As the northern
outpost of the Spanish-American empire and the southern frontier of
the British colonies, Florida had suffered from centuries of imperial
neglect. Tied as she had been to warring nations the colony had felt
repercussions from every world struggle, and her story had been little
more than a footnote to the history of Europe. With the coming of
American ownership Florida's internationalism gave way to continental
isolation. Almost a century was to pass before she would again be caught
in the disturbance of world war, and though isolation from Europe did
not bring peace, it did give the territory, and later the state, an oppor-
tunity to develop an American culture. For the United States, in contrast
to former European owners, was ready to offer the economic and political
assistance which Florida required to fulfill her destiny.
President James Monroe appointed Andrew Jackson provisional gov-
ernor of Florida. Although the office did not appeal to him, the general

Irpl ~p3~f~t~s~; ~E~:,
~P'~~-~~~ors,
v
c
~cSSi~,:
~3~sl.

p~,

STATE CAPITOL IN TALLAHASSEE

accepted it, viewing the appointment as a vindication of his severely
criticized activities there. In June of 1821 the governor and his family
reached Florida, and Mrs. Jackson proceeded to Pensacola where she
visited friends and was shocked at the gaiety, dancing, and gambling of
the people.
Jackson refused to enter the town until the slow-moving Spanish
governor, Jose Callava, was ready to surrender the province. Meanwhile,
Colonel Robert Butler received the transfer of East Florida at St. Augus-
tine on July 10, 1821. One week later Governor Callava's procrastination
ended. At ten o'clock on the morning of the seventeenth Jackson reached
the town square and entered the government house, where the official
formalities transferring Florida to the United States were concluded.
The American flag, to the accompaniment of salutes and the playing of
The Star-Spangled Banner, replaced the Spanish flag over Pensacola.
Spanish soldiers marched to their waiting ships while their countrymen
watched, sad-eyed and mournful. The American residents, along with
those who had rushed to Florida in anticipation of political and economic
advantage, celebrated the transfer with hearty approval.
Andrew Jackson's stay in Florida was brief. He remained long enough,
however, to imprison former Governor Callava on a flimsy charge and
to confirm the notoriety of his ungovernable temper. There were other
and more lasting results of his administration: the counties of Escambia
and St. Johns with the towns of Pensacola and St. Augustine were or-
ganized into governmental units; and ordinances to check the levity
which Mrs. Jackson considered licentiousness were enacted. The military
government of the province became semi-civil as judges, attorneys, col-
lectors, a marshal, and two secretaries, one at Pensacola and the other
at St. Augustine, began their official duties. President Monroe had ap-
pointed his own meti for these posts, a fact which, as Mrs. Jackson
intimated, may have hastened Jackson's departure from Florida. By
October, 1821, when Jackson returned to Tennessee, the former Spanish
colony had a workable government under the executive direction of the
two resident secretaries.
Florida attained territorial status on March 30, 1822, by a congres-
sional act which vested executive power in a governor appointed by the
President of the United States, created an executive council, and estab-
lished territorial courts. William P. DuVal of Kentucky became the first
territorial governor, a position which he held for twelve years, and four
other governors succeeded him before the territory became a state. Most
of them were well known in American political circles. John H. Eaton
with his wife Peggy, the former barmaid around whom social snobbish-
ness had centered in Washington, came to Florida in 1834. The vivacious
Peggy was gawked at by the populace and snubbed by "aristocrats" even
in frontier Florida. Richard Keith Call, who came to the territory with

TERRITORY

31

Jackson and who was long to be associated with territorial and state
politics, followed Eaton, and after the short term of Robert Raymond
Reid, was reappointed to the governorship. John Branch, former gov-
ernor of North Carolina and member of the Federal Cabinet, served in
1844 and 1845 to complete the list of territorial governors.
The people of Florida gained experience in self-government under
the direction of these appointed executives. Gradually the powers of
home rule were extended. Almost year by year new counties were created
until there were twenty-six in the territory. Tallahassee, selected in 1824
as a compromise capital between jealous east and west factions, grew
into a sizable town with an adequate capitol building in its central square.
Other commercial and plantation villages such as St. Marks, Marianna,
Madison, Quincy, Jacksonville, Palatka, and the boom towns of Apa-
lachicola and its short-lived rival, St. Joseph, mushroomed over the land.
Military forts laid the base for the future cities of Tampa, Sanford, and
Ocala. On the Florida Keys the southernmost city of the United States,
Key West, became a naval base and salvage center. In these and other
political units men worked in the laboratories of self-government.
The knowledge gained in local government carried over into terri-
torial affairs. In 1826 Congress permitted the people of Florida to elect
their legislative council and twelve years later a senate and house of
representatives replaced the council. In the same year, 1838, a convention
met at St. Joseph to frame a constitution and request Congress to admit
Florida into the Union. Florida's political development under territorial
status was reaching maturity.
Economic expansion kept pace with political growth. An influx of
settlers came to buy land and operate profitable farms. Under Federal
direction the old Spanish and English land grants were either validated
or rejected. Much of the public domain was surveyed and almost a million
acres sold in the land offices of Tallahassee, St. Augustine, and New-
nansville, with over 90 per cent of the sales in the plantation region of
Middle Florida between the Apalachicola and Suwannee rivers. Planta-
tions worked by slaves, small farms with or without slave labor, and
backwoods shanties dotted this area. The products of agriculture and the
exploitation of accessible natural resources increased with the growth
in population. Cotton was the staple crop of export, but sugar cane,
tobacco, rice, corn, and vegetables had their place in territorial agricul-
ture. The export of oranges from St. Augustine reached into the millions
and a variety of other fruits was cultivated for home consumption. In
the west, Pensacola became a lumber and naval stores outlet, and al-
though the growth of the lumbering industry was rapid, the possibilities
were scarcely scratched before 1845. Agricultural and allied products,
together with the farmers' need for manufactured goods, built the
towns and enriched the merchants.

FIVE FLAGS

32

_~T=
C~d~~ ~d*liJII) I~t~~
91 ~s~
P'L1-ir' ,
~ a .
~lru~_~

4At1Wd~dL
ddl

FROM A PAINTING BY COMTE DE CASTELNAU

KEY WEST IN THE 1830's

The handmaidens of trade were not forgotten. Settlement and com-
merce could not be isolated from transportation. The crude trails of an
earlier period had mostly fallen into disuse by 1821. Within a decade a
road linked St. Augustine to Pensacola and branch lines of this road
served the growing settlements between the two towns. A coastal highway
from New Smyrna passed through St. Augustine and Jacksonville, and
extended almost to the Georgia border. Tampa Bay on the west coast
was connected to the Suwannee by a road which was later extended to
Jacksonville. Federal largess provided most of these rough highways, but
the counties and municipalities joined in the program of internal im-
provements by constructing local roads. Throughout the territorial period
the dirt road remained the most important course of inland transpor-
tation.
Canals and railroads, however, were a more engrossing field of
speculative activity. In a canal-crazy era Floridians advocated a trans-
peninsular canal and chartered many companies for the building of other
canals, but accomplished little. Four short railroads served the territory.
The Tallahassee-St. Marks Railroad was operated intermittently but at
a profit from its completion in 1837; the other railroads went bankrupt
before the end of the territorial era. Ambitious plans came to those who
dreamed of rail lines from Pensacola to Georgia and Alabama towns, of
connecting the east and west, or of spanning the peninsula and, although
some passed beyond dreams, none were completed.
Territorial banks served the transportation and planter interest. Some
banks, organized on speculative principles and supported by territorial
or "faith" bonds, grew into paper giants. When the boom of the 1830's
collapsed, so did the banks. There were none when Florida became a state.

TERRITORY

33

* ~" :~ ~.~

INDIAN VILLAGE
ON THE APALACHICOLA

ARSENAL AT
CHATTAHOOCHEE

FROM PAINTINGS BY COMTE DE CASTELNAU

The disaster of unbridled speculation almost coincided with the long
and bloody Seminole War. Both checked the territory's economic ad-
vance. The Seminoles, remnants of a number of Indian tribes, had been
driven deeper and deeper into peninsular Florida by the ever-advancing
farmer. In 1832 some of the tribal chiefs agreed to a treaty which pro-
vided for removal of all the Indians. After the ratification of the treaty
by the United States Senate in 1834, Wiley Thompson was appointed
agent and superintendent of the migration. The rank and file of the
Seminoles were opposed to the acceptance of western land in exchange
for their Florida acres, and warriors under the leadership of Osceola
massacred Thompson and a number of whites on December 28, 1835.
The war thus begun was to continue for almost seven years. Winfield
Scott, Thomas Jesup, Zachary Taylor, and other men, who later became

FIVE FLAGS

34

APALACHICOLA RIVER

RAILROAD AT
TALLAHASSEE

FROM PAINTINGS BY COME DE CASTELNAU

famous American leaders, sought to conquer the wily Indians. Osceola,
the Seminoles' great leader, was seized in camp under a flag of truce,
brought to St. Augustine, and then imprisoned at Charleston, South Caro-
lina, where he languished and died. The infuriated Indians led by Wild-
cat, who had been captured with Osceola but who had escaped from Fort
Marion at St. Augustine, fought back savagely though vainly. The war
dragged on with intermittent massacres until August, 1842, when little
more than a hundred warriors remained. These were allowed to stay in
southern Florida. The other Seminoles had been killed or moved west.
Peace brought new life to a movement for which Floridians had long
agitated. The treaty of Spanish cession of 1821 and the established policy
of the United States were harbingers of eventual statehood for Florida.
By 1842 many of the political and material developments necessary for

TERRITORY

35

a~-~tooL~

FROM A PAINTING BY COMTE DE CASTELNAU

FIVE FLAGS

36

STREET SCENE IN TALLAHASSEE

its fulfillment had been accomplished. A capital with an adequate gov-
ernment building had been constructed; the people had been prepared
for self-rule by decades of participation in local and territorial govern-
ment; a constitution had been approved by popular vote; and the rivalry
between east and west factions had been overshadowed by the phenomenal
growth of Middle Florida, where almost 50 per cent of the people lived.
A majority of Floridians had come to favor statehood.
The conflicting interests of local and sectional leaders delayed Flor-
ida's entrance into the Union. Many Floridians urged the creation of
two states, rather than one, from the territory of Florida, and this de-
mand was encouraged by Southern leaders who desired the greatest
possible number of slave states in the Union. Although the territory was
only a part of the vast land which had been known as Spanish Florida,
it was still the second largest political unit of the eastern United States.
Southerners contended that its size and the differences between East and
West Florida justified the creation of two states. Some Floridians held
out to the very end for a division of their land or at least for the right,
after admission, to organize two states from one. Northern leaders op-
posed these demands and objected to the admission of a slave state unless
provision was also made for the entry of a free state. Definite congression-
al action was deferred until 1845 when a compromise resulted in the Act
of March 3 which provided for the admission of Florida and Iowa.

Iowa refused to accept the conditions requisite to her admission, but
Florida acted with dispatch. Territorial Governor Branch called a state
election in May, 1845. The Democratic party nominated William D.
Moseley, a lawyer-planter and former North Carolina politician, for
governor; and the Whig party chose Richard K. Call, a leader who had
done more than anyone except David Levy to bring Florida into the
Union. Levy's services were rewarded with the Democratic nomination
for representative in Congress. His Whig opponent, Benjamin A. Putnam,
was a lawyer who had been an unsuccessful military figure in the Semi-
nole War, but who was second only to Call within the ranks of the party.
As usual, editors of Whig and Democratic newspapers magnified the
virtues of their party's candidates and abused their opponents with com-
plete abandon. Whiskey flowed freely on election day with the Whigs
offering the voter the jug and the Democrats handing out well-filled
glasses. Moseley and Levy, along with most of the Democratic candidates
for the Florida General Assembly, won by large majorities.
The assembly met in Tallahassee on June 23, 1845, to organize and
prepare for the inauguration of Moseley. On the morning of the twenty-
fifth the residents and visitors who filled the town were up at an early
hour. Old friends meeting again, perhaps, lingered over hearty break-
fasts, but the majority ate with haste and rushed to the Capitol Square
in their eagerness to miss none of the day's color and excitement. On the
arms of many were black crepe bands, for the news of the death of
General Jackson had reached Tallahassee as the first general assembly
convened. Both houses of the assembly, after passing commemorative
resolutions, had agreed to wear arm bands out of respect for him who
had led the common man in his fight for political democracy.
Shortly before nine on the morning of June 25 these crepe-banded
senators and representatives pushed through the crowd to enter their
respective legislative halls. The senators soon joined the representatives
to receive the official returns of the recent gubernatorial contest. While
the legislators performed their constitutional duties, the people outside
renewed old friendships and made new acquaintances. No doubt the news
of Jackson's passing calmed the wonted exuberance of those who had
shared his victories, and here and there men who had served under the
"Gen'l" at the Battle of New Orleans or fought with him against the
Spanish and Indians held back an honest tear. But death could not still
the excitement of life. Those who had known him best realized that Jack-
son would have enjoyed to the full this moment when the land he had
fought for was entering the Union.
At noon Governor-elect Moseley and Territorial Governor John
Branch were escorted to the east portico of the capitol building. With
them were James D. Westcott, Jr., chairman of the St. Joseph constitu-
tional committee, and two other surviving members of that committee,

TERRITORY

37

.............
46-,QE *'*.
Z,~-C

.........
oe 0
/4 A, JOmp, 00// WNWANOR Zo
rs e, lf11
'TBASFA
~I~/C~t~~//X

4~)YFJINOR

"FAITH BOND" OF THE UNION BANK. Because of the heading, many English investors believed
these bonds were guaranteed by the United States.

George T. Ward and Thomas Brown. The state flag, with its five hori-
zontal stripes in blue, orange, red, white, and green, and with the motto
"Let us alone," was hoisted on the flagstaff of the capitol. Governor
Branch made a short speech to his successor and the "several thousand"
assembled Floridians. Westcott's speech which followed was equally brief.
Governor-elect Moseley then took the oath of office as the first governor
of the state of Florida. The great state seal was handed him by Branch
and the constitution was presented by the constitutional committee.
At the conclusion of these formalities Governor Moseley proceeded
with his inaugural address. HIe gave his conception of the duties of a
public servant, touched on the importance of upholding states' rights,
outlined his program for advancing the state, and requested the cooper-
ation of the assembled senators and representatives. The booming of a
cannon and the deafening applause at the end of his address marked
the approval of his words. The shouts of the people told more than that.
Their acclaim expressed their personal satisfaction in knowing that
Florida was now a self-governing commonwealth and the political equal
of the other twenty-six American states.

FIVE FLAGS

38

TRF&IiHF

FROM A SKETCH BY JAMES E. TAYLOR

A VIEW OF TALLAHASSEE

ANTE-BELLUM STATE

HE TWENTY-SEVENTH STAR, representing Florida, was

added to the flag of the United States on July 4, 1845. Before

this date James D. Westcott and David Levy, who relinquished

his seat in the National House of Representatives, had been chosen by

the state assembly to represent Florida in the United States Senate. The

assembly also elected four circuit judges and the executive officers as

authorized by the constitution of Florida and levied taxes on business

enterprise, agricultural wealth, professional men, slaveowners, and free

Negroes. By the end of July a functioning state government had replaced

the old territorial rule.

CHAPTER

VI

?r -'-; ~ol
8-
JLY~
a r
--aE 8~
.I.R 4tln_
-1 :..~-5~ ..
pi -r
4'"
i
~a r

n ---.- --

--~
" L
i.(r
X' '"

1N"
i"
--~a.
------
--- -
3L~ -~9~
r~Q'Q~~P~c~p~e~- -~1
--"-
r
-o

Geographic and economic factors were paramount in determining
Florida's place in the American Union. With few exceptions state leaders
came from the lawyer-planter aristocracy to advocate the rights of the
South and support the Southern point of view. Florida's governors and
most of her other officials before 1861 were natives of Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Their backgrounds and precon-
ceived ideas added to the power of the geographic and economic forces
which made the state an integral part of the South.
Florida, like her sister states before the Civil War, supported two
major political parties. The Democrats were generally more successful
than the Whigs, but Whig candidates won many important elections.
Within a decade after statehood the Whigs elected a governor (Thomas
Brown), a senator (Jackson Morton), and a representative (Edward
Carrington Cabell). The four important offices of governor, representa-
tive, and two Senate posts were held by Whigs for two fifths of these
first ten years. After 1855 the growing sectional differences between North
and South forced Southern leaders to close their ranks and present a
united front to their Northern opponents; before 1860 the Whig party
was dead in Florida, and the Democrats ruled with almost unchallenged
conservatism.
The cultural ideals and material growth of Florida, like those of the
South, revolved around the plantation. Small farmers, merchants, arti-

ANTE-BELLUM SMITH HOUSE, MADISON

FIVE FLAGS

40

ANTE-BELLUM GAMBLE MANSION, NEAR BRADENTON

sans, and professional men yearned for the social distinction associated
with plantation ownership. Relatively few of the many who longed for
this preferred status achieved their ambition, for Florida never became
a land of numerous or large plantations. In 1860 fewer than eighty farms
contained more than one thousand acres, and not even fifty plantations
had one hundred or more slaves. Most of the plantations were located
in the "black arc," beginning at Jackson County and extending down
through Marion County, where Negroes were numerically predominant.
The ambitious Floridian, however, with characteristic American opti-
mism thought he, his son, or his daughter, would one day become a
member of the planter-aristocracy. A few did rise by work, luck, or
advantageous marriage, but for every successful aspirant there were
many who struggled only to sink deeper into debt and poverty.
On the plantations and in such towns as Tallahassee, Quincy, Monti-
cello, and Madison was developed a culture of charm and grace. Southern-
ers liked to call it a "way of life" and compared their living with the
bustling frenzy of the Northerner's existence. A Southern gentleman with
his code of chivalry, his paternalistic lordship, his cigar and drink, and
his leisure knew, or thought he knew, how to live in comfort and dignity.
This "way of life" produced little in Florida other than momentary satis-
faction. The ante-bellum generation created no literature, painting, or
sculpture of enduring value. Homes and public buildings, though archi-

STATEHOOD

41

% .~a~i ,:
...~. ..

~a?

FROM Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 1858 BLOCKHOUSE AT FORT MYERS

tecturally sound and pleasing in appearance, aped the creative genius
of others. Public schools and colleges were inferior to those in the free
states and even from politics, the forte of the Florida gentleman, came
no original contribution to either the theory or practice of government.
There was little time to develop an extensive culture in ante-bellum
Florida. If there had been centuries to work in, rather than less than a
generation, the plantation regime might have created a diversified culture
of outstanding merit. Southerners, at least, believed that their economy,
given sufficient time, would bring a new age more golden than that of
ancient Rome. On the other hand, the intellectual atmosphere of ante-
bellum Florida was not conducive to originality or departure from the
normal. By 1860 the slaveholder responded to just and unjust criticism
with an aggressive hotheadedness that stifled freedom. Unity and con-
formity in defense of the institution of slavery were demanded: freedom
of speech and press where the institution was questioned could not be
tolerated. A man of Richard K. Call's standing could denounce secession
and suffer no physical harm, but others were not so fortunate. The de-
fense of an outmoded and dying institution blighted the creative spirit
of a people.
The institution of slavery affected more than the arts in Florida.

FIVE FLAGS

42

FROM A PAINTING OF THE ORIGINAL BUILDING, MADE ABOUT 1900 BY E. D. CHANDLER
OLD SPANISH JAIL, PENSACOLA. Jonathan Walker, classed as a slave stealer by Pensacolians and
immortalized in Whittier's The Branded Hand, was imprisoned here for nearly a year.

Slaveowners found an uncertain future under a system that contributed
to staple-crop production and exhausted the fertility of the land. The
successful man, and even more his wife, spent long days of labor making
a precarious fortune. A single bad year often wiped out the gain of a
decade. Profits came more from the exploitation of virgin resources than
from slavery, and the consequent decline in the value of land reduced
or even wiped out these spectacular earnings. Behind the romantic glitter
of the plantation system was work and heartache and fear.
Two thirds of white Floridians owned no slaves. Many small farmers
cleared forests and built homes to achieve a life of frontier abundance.
These yeoman farmers, strong, self-dependent, and courageous, were the
solid citizens of the type who had made America great. Far beneath them
was the relatively small class of shiftless, ambitionless "poor white trash"
whose physical energy had been sapped by malnutrition and intestinal
parasites. These dwellers on the poor lands and in the piney woods lacked
the material benefits of slaves and, in fact, their only advantage over the
slaves was a freedom of person bestowed upon them by genealogical
accident. The urban counterpart of the poor whites huddled in the
shanties and alleys of Florida's ante-bellum towns. Within the towns, no
one of which had a population of three thousand, lived the workmen,
merchants, exporters, agents, and professional men. Some, but by no
means all of them, owned slaves. Here, too, the wealthier planters resided
in stately homes. Although there was a wide gulf between the top and
bottom layers of society, rich and poor were unified in the conviction
that the institution of slavery alone could control the Negro.
Negro slaves were more numerous than any one class of whites; in

STATEHOOD

43

the black arc they comprised a majority, and in all Florida almost equaled
the number of whites. The slave's life was one of toil, mitigated by
lethargy and simple pleasures. Food, shelter, clothing-economic se-
curity in general-were his, but not freedom: he was property-like a
wagon or a mule-though a peculiar property with human form and
reason. Where the kinship of humanity failed to restrain a wrathful
owner, the economic loss which would result from bodily injury to his
property usually sufficed. The master was neither the evil lord of lash
and leash painted by the rabid abolitionist nor the saintly father por-
trayed by the Southern apologist. Inhumane overseers and sales resulting
from bankruptcy or the settlement of estates brought suffering and sepa-
ration to Negro families, but most of the slaves lived under a rule, the
legal harshness of which was tempered with indulgent laxity. They en-
joyed a simple though not abundant life. Those who viewed slavery from
a distance never understood its hidden virtues, which attached many
slaves to their masters with loyal devotion.
The Negro contributed much to the advance of ante-bellum Florida
-a fact that has too often been overlooked by the white man who gives
undue credit to the plantation owner, and by the Negro who avoids the
subject because of the stigma attached to slavery. The ancestors of a
large percentage of white Americans were also slaves, though their period
of individual slavery was of limited duration. These white slaves or in-
dentured servants pushed back the American frontier and have been
honored for it. The Negro likewise deserves citation for his work, for his
ancestors felled the trees, built the houses, and cultivated the land which
transformed Florida from a wilderness into a civilization. Agriculture
and commerce, lumbering and naval stores, highways and railroads,
canals and ferries were a result of their productive activity. On the plan-
tation and in the town skilled Negro artisans, slave and free, designed
or made the better manufactured articles. Their labor was a part of
nearly every material advance.
In spite of the incubus of slavery, Florida made creditable headway
in the ante-bellum years. Stagecoaches and wagons carried an increasing
load of passengers and freight over nominally improved, though rough,
roads. The seaport towns of Pensacola, St. Marks, Apalachicola, Jack-
sonville, and Fernandina received and transshipped the products of the
farms and lumber mills. The need for better transportation centered the
speculative spotlight on railroads. David Levy Yulee, who had reassumed
an old family name, was the leading promoter, builder, and operator of
the period. Back in the 1840's he had emphasized the economic advan-
tage that Florida would gain from the 500,000 acres of public land which
the United States would give the state on entering the Union. In 1850
the Federal Government ceded Florida all swamp and overflowed lands
within the state, and in 1855 the Internal Improvement Act established

FIVE FLAGS

44

Az. > JL

THE JUVENILE BAND

~r ~F)
~- 5
C ~DI ~;~Th~eS~.
it~'-` ~~~-
~r~.s~, ~C *.

A NEGRO HUT

DESERTED NEGRO CABINS, KINGSLEY
PLANTATION

PICKING COTTON

FROM Harper's Magazine, NOVEMBER, 1878

OLD FLORIDA NEGRO SCENES

71

a board of trustees for internal improvements and vested in it the author-
ity to use the state lands to develop transportation routes. An all-state
system of railroads was projected. Private companies were encouraged
by lavish grants of improvement bonds in the amount of $10,000 a mile
for actually constructed railroads and $100,000 for the larger bridges.
By 1860 one could travel from Jacksonville to Lake City, to Tallahassee,
and to St. Marks, or from Fernandina to Cedar Keys by rail.
The bettered, but still inadequate, means of transportation facilitated
the economic development of the state. Pensacola increased her leader-
ship as the lumbering center, but at points from Escambia Bay to Cedar
Keys trees fell and sawmills cut the lumber that formed a large part of
Florida's exports. Other trees, tapped for rosin, were the source of the
growing naval stores industry. Year by year new farms swelled the flow
of cotton to the nearby ports. In Alachua County cattle ranchers multi-
plied to bring into prominence an agricultural enterprise that predated
the transfer of Florida to the United States. All over the state, agriculture
and the extractive industries were growing in value and importance.
Men, women, and children moved into Florida to work the land and
build the towns. A population estimated at 66,500 in 1845 increased over
100 per cent within fifteen years. The white inhabitants were almost
entirely native-born citizens of the United States, although less than 50
per cent were natives of Florida. Negroes accounted for nearly 45 per
cent of the total population of 140,424. This enlarged population justi-
fied the creation of twelve new counties, but there was a net increase of
only eleven, for St. Lucie County was divided and the name temporarily
disappeared. Pensacola, Key West, and Jacksonville grew into towns of
more than 2,000 inhabitants. At the crossroads, by harbors, and near
forts families settled areas upon which cities would one day stand.
Facilities for the education of children increased more rapidly than
the population of the state. Free public schools had their beginning in
the territorial years, but the results had been unsatisfactory. In 1849,
5 per cent of all land sales were added to a school fund that hitherto
had received only the income from the sale of section sixteen in every
township. This additional state aid, together with the school tax of some
counties and towns, gave the public school the funds for needed expan-
sion. At this time, David S. Walker, the registrar of public lands, became
in effect the state school superintendent. Leadership and financial sup-
port were responsible for almost one hundred free schools, which were
operating for short terms by 1860. Private schools outnumbered the pub-
lic schools in this year, but their enrollment was little more than half
that of the free schools. Tutors gave instruction to the genteel on the
plantation and often to the more capable children of the yeoman farmer.
Even advanced educational institutions were not forgotten. The legisla-
ture of 1851 made provision for the establishment of two seminaries-

FIVE FLAGS

46

,% *r gl~II a,
: ; ~ .Ps :~" al
~' ,;c~.
I .
"Irr
;.L?.~~ :a.. 4~r: ;~. -r
..ba
.P .@ ~
6: Y
.1
Blr ,
.d~':~q~k:'* ~
i X~'
J.':..cn :It "' '
'k
'0~ '...". ~7*ILg~
'u ~.. ~; . "~'':-~-~; t
-~~ ~~~ i~
~A~:~.:r ix.~w* I
-.1..
r;
c-;.e r: 1
~
r'l r ~: ~ ..
.r ,6
I
r
:.r~: + .
''
1~ *
i.
,~
r ups~" 1
..
'"' ''''"X '''
~.s,
;8
s:c~c~:,;'
a

-'Tn~; .~
Ei'd~ I
~6h'

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
TALLAHASSEE

Built during the
Territorial Period

one east and one west of the Suwannee. In 1853 one was located at

Ocala and four years later the other was opened at Tallahassee. From

these beginnings the University of Florida and the Florida State Uni-

versity eventually developed into institutions of recognized merit.

The church advanced along with the school. The Catholic and Episco-

pal churches traced their origins to the Spanish and British periods, but

only the Catholic Church could boast of a more or less continuous

existence. Although both of these denominations served a number of

communicants, they found their most productive field in the urban com-

munity and, as a result, failed to capitalize on their early advantage. In

agrarian Florida the evangelical Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians

gained ascendancy during the territorial period. By the time Florida

entered the Union each of these denominations could boast of inde-

pendent church organizations. Ministers, who worked the land on week

days and preached on Sundays, and courageous circuit riders brought

the church to rural Florida. Revivals and camp meetings not only cared

for spiritual needs but also gave farm families opportunities for social

STATEHOOD

47

gatherings. Country and town churches were organized in the state and
those previously established grew in strength and usefulness.
Notwithstanding the substantial cultural and economic growth of
Florida within the United States before 1861, the political leaders gave
increasing attention to their conception of states' rights. The first state
flag of Florida with its motto, "Let us alone," and parts of Governor
Moseley's inaugural address of 1845 foretold the clash of ideas between
the agrarian South and the industrial North. Business men wanted a
more powerful central government which would function in the interest
of industry. Northern abolitionists and less radical anti-slave leaders
demanded either the complete abolition of slavery or its limitation to
existing boundaries. The Southerners protested against all these ideas.
Their fundamental objection was not to the increase of Federal power
but to the planned use of that increased power, for they proposed and
advocated measures which, if enacted, would have enlarged Federal
authority. The bills they introduced in the Congress, however, called for
additional Federal power which would be used to benefit the South.
Northerners likewise planned action and hoped to establish an interpreta-
tion of the Federal Constitution which would be advantageous to the
North. Northerners possessed the political power to accomplish their
aims. This fearful truth impressed Southerners as they saw the North
move more and more toward a unity of purpose.
Under the circumstances the Floridian fell back on states' rights, a
political device that had the sanction of historical precedent. He pro-
tested the Northerner's changed interpretation of the Constitution, he
declared that the central government was only the agent of sovereign
states, and he proclaimed the constitutional right of secession. He became
the defender of the Constitution of the United States as written by the
fathers, and accused the Northerner of changing and breaking a docu-
ment that should be kept inviolate.
Acceptance of the Northerner's program, the Floridians believed,
would add to the North's material advantage over the South. The Florida
agrarian, with his hostility to industrialism and his conviction that the
farmer was the main producer of wealth, believed that the people of the
North lived on the product of Southern labor. The enrichment of the
North, Floridians contended, had been brought about by governmental
grants to Northern business. These grants, as the South became more
and more a minority section of the United States, would increase ten-
fold, until in the end the North would hold the entire South in economic
bondage. Secession and the formation of an independent confederacy
of the Southern states were the ostensible remedy for the South. By such
action alone could the economic domination of the North be thrown off,
the institution of slavery be made secure, and the social structure of the
South be kept intact.

FIVE FLAGS

48

Floridians reached these conclusions after years of thought and po-
litical agitation. In 1850 Governor Thomas Brown, a Whig, refused to
appoint delegates from Florida to a proposed Southern convention at
Nashville, Tennessee. Radical Democrats, however, called conventions
over the state and sent four men to Nashville. When the Compromise
of 1850 brought hope of sectional peace, Floridians endorsed it by re-
electing Cabell to the United States House of Representatives and re-
placing the radical Senator Yulee with the politically unknown Stephen
Russell Mallory.
The Compromise of 1850, unfortunately, did not end sectional dis-
putes. The publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin,
the debates in Congress on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and the rise of the
Republican party revivified controversy and strengthened the Southern
radicals. David Yulee returned to the Senate in 1855. Political crisis
followed political crisis. As one ebbed another took its place; and the
phenomenal strength of the Republican party in 1856, the Dred Scott
decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and John Brown's raid on Har-
per's Ferry kept sectional animosities at fever pitch.
By 1860 Southerners were declaring that the election of a Republican
to the presidency would bring secession. In that year the Democrats
split their vote among three candidates for the presidency, but the Re-
publicans gave unified support to their candidate, Abraham Lincoln.
When the election gave him a majority of the electoral votes, though
his popular vote was almost a million less than the combined total of his
opponents, the state of South Carolina seceded from the Union. Florida
along with Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas called
state conventions to consider secession.
The Florida convention met in Tallahassee on January 3, 1861.
There was no question about the necessity for secession, but some mem-
bers of the convention wished to delay until the other Southern states
acted, or desired to submit an ordinance of secession to voters for popu-
lar approval. Though radical agents from other states addressed the con-
vention, their advice was not necessary, for the radical members of the
convention acted quickly. On January 10 the convention adopted the
ordinance of secession by a vote of 62 to 7.
That night a torchlight procession paraded the streets of Tallahassee.
Before the Capital Hotel an enthusiastic crowd roared its approval of
the speech of Governor-elect John Milton. On the following afternoon
the members of the convention proceeded to the east portico of the capi-
tol where, in the presence of the state legislature, the supreme court, the
cabinet, and a host of onlookers they signed the ordinance of secession.
The secretary of state, Fred L. Villepigue, affixed the great seal of the
state to the document and proclaimed Florida an "independent nation."

STATEHOOD

49

FROM Harper's Weekly, 1862

DESTRUCTION OF A CONFEDERATE SALT FACTORY AT ST. JOSEPH'S BAY

CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER

VII

HE PEOPLE OF FLORIDA had moved along with the people
in other parts of the South. All classes of society and all indi-
viduals, whether they had favored or objected to dissolution of
the Union, either conformed or were made to conform to the new order.
There could be no turning back after secession. Representatives from
Florida participated in the formation of the Southern Confederacy and
the state took her place by the side of the other Southern states.

Floridians hoped that secession and the formation of the Confederacy
could be accomplished in peace, but they took a warlike attitude toward
the acquisition of Federal property within the state. By order of Gov-
ernor Madison Perry, state troops seized the Federal arsenal at Chatta-
hoochee on January 5, 1861, and Fort Marion at St. Augustine two days
later. At Pensacola the Federal forces withdrew from the two mainland
forts, McRee and Barrancas, to Fort Pickens, which was located on Santa
Rosa Island and commanded the entrance to Pensacola Bay. When the
Pensacola navy yard was surrendered on January 12 to a combined
force of Florida and Alabama troops, the United States held only Fort
Taylor at Key West, Fort Jefferson on Garden Key, and Fort Pickens.
The forces at Pensacola were eager to attack Pickens, but Jefferson Davis,
Stephen R. Mallory, and other Southern leaders, fearing that bloodshed
might bring immediate war, urged delay. No attempt was made to cap-
ture the fort until after reinforcements had been moved in by order of
President Lincoln, and by that time the opportunity to take the position
by quick assault had passed. The three forts-Jefferson, Pickens, and
Taylor-were held by the United States during the entire course of the
Civil War.
In the meantime the swift pace of events, the firing on Fort Sumter,
the calls for troops by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, the se-
cession of four additional Southern states, and their union with the
Confederacy brought war between two determined antagonists. With open
conflict, the center of interest shifted from Florida to the battlefields of
Virginia and the Mississippi Valley. Except for relatively unimportant
engagements the Florida civilian saw little of the war. This was not true,
however, of the volunteers and men of draft age. Approximately fifteen
thousand Floridians served in the Confederate army, and others enrolled
for local defense in the state forces. Almost thirteen hundred white
Floridians volunteered for service in the armies of the United States, and
additional hundreds of Negroes either volunteered or were induced to
enter the Federal army as substitutes for Northerners who secured ex-
emption by paying the Negroes to take their places.
Florida's contribution in manpower, though large in proportion to
her population, was of less importance than the combined total of her
material and geographic aid. The location of the state and the protected
harbors along her coast benefited both the United States and the Con-
federacy. The Federal navy, which controlled the Florida Keys and Fort
Pickens, possessed supply bases and points from which warships could CIVIL WAR
sail in search of Confederate blockade runners. The conquest of Fer-
nandina, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Tampa, Cedar Keys, and Apalachi- 1
cola enabled the United States to tighten her general blockade of the J5 1L
South. At the same time the numerous bays and inlets, the shallow waters,
and the protected rivers offered haven to Confederate vessels, which

IA
.-Ilt-., ^i' j^^ ^BB ^^BI`
CNEERTE B'T-c....F..-BARRN'M P--S.OL HARBOR
CONFEDERATE BATTERY, FORT BARRANCAS, PENSACOLA HARBOR

landed their cargoes on the Florida shore. An adequate system of trans-
portation would have increased the value of Florida, but no doubt would
have brought larger Federal forces into the state, with disastrous results
to the people of Florida.
The most important contributions of the state to the Confederacy
were foodstuffs. In an age when refrigeration was almost unknown and
in a time when the army's need was tremendous, salt became a potent
commodity of war. Along the bays and inlets from the Choctawhatchee
to Tampa, men boiled sea water in large kettles and sheet-iron boilers to
produce thousands of bushels of salt. Salt-making, which centered around
St. Andrews Bay, became so important that men employed in it were
exempted from military service. At its height the industry, which was
operated by private individuals and by the Confederate government,
employed nearly five thousand workers. The total investment in kettles,
boilers, furnaces, warehouses, sacks, wagons, and mules may have reached
ten million dollars, for expeditions sent from the Federal fleet had de-
stroyed six million dollars' worth of equipment by the end of 1864. As
soon as the Federal forces had withdrawn, the salt-makers returned to
reconstruct their furnaces and restore production. Repeated forays by
the enemy severely diminished the amount of salt produced but never
completely destroyed this war-created industry.
The agricultural products of Florida were of even greater importance

FIVE FLAGS

52

)= .,^ '",, 11. .

FROM Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 1862
FEDERAL SHIPPING ROSIN, TURPENTINE, AND COTTON FROM FERNANDINA

than salt. Cotton and tobacco paid for most of the articles which came
through the blockade, but the Confederacy had a surplus of these staples
and urged farmers to plant grain and vegetables. In 1861 an act of the
Florida legislature limited every farm laborer to an acre of cotton or one
quarter of an acre of tobacco. Planters and small farmers needed no law
to force them into doing what was obviously necessary. They produced
corn, peas, potatoes, sugar, syrup, oranges, lemons, beef, pork, and fish,
which were moved from farms and harbors to state and Confederate
warehouses. From the first, Florida was an important food producer for
the South, and the relative value of her supplies grew as military reverses
contracted the area of the Confederacy. By 1864 General John K. Jackson
estimated that Florida could supply enough meat to feed 250,000 men
for six months, and in the same year, Alachua, Marion, and nearby coun-
ties were shipping almost 25,000 beef cattle and 10,000 hogs to army
depots.
Backyard tanneries, country smithies, neighborhood grist mills, and
plantation handlooms were the source of manufactured goods. A farmer
who could turn all his cotton into cloth was exempted from any limitation CIVIL WAR
of production. Only a few took advantage of this privilege, for machinery
and labor were scarce. With the exception of Monticello, where a shoe 5L
factory, a wool card factory, and the state's only cloth mill were located,
there was no manufacturing center worthy of mention.
The value of farm and home production within Florida brought the

FROM Harper's Magazine, 1866 BATTLE OF OLUSTEE

FIVE FLAGS

54

importance of the state to Federal attention. In the first years of the
war the United States occupied Pensacola, Cedar Keys, Fernandina,
Jacksonville, and St. Augustine. The Confederacy made little effort to
hold these distant points and the Federals gained footholds from which
they moved to check blockade-running and destroy salt-works. After
1863, the United States gave more thought to the conquest of interior
Florida, and the Confederacy offered stiff resistance, for the very life
of the South depended to a large extent on the retention of this bread-
basket area. In February, 1864, Federal transports brought an army
which reoccupied Jacksonville and, in the following days, pushed on to
the railroad junction at Baldwin. In the meantime the Confederate forces
gathered at Lake City, and on February 20 the contestants met at Olustee,
a few miles east of Lake City. The Confederate victory was decisive-
1,861 men of a total 5,500 in the Federal army were killed, wounded, or
missing after the battle. A smaller Confederate force defeated a larger
Northern army composed of Negro as well as white troops, a fact which
made the victory all the more satisfying.
The bloody battle of Olustee saved the rich agricultural areas of the
state, but the Confederates were unable to push the enemy from the east
coast. From Jacksonville, Fernandina, and St. Augustine Federal raiders
moved to Palatka, New Smyrna, and Gainesville to destroy provisions
and fight the seemingly ubiquitous Captain J. J. Dickison and his men.
In the west a Federal army moved from Pensacola to Marianna, but was
unable to gain more than temporary control of the town. In February,
1865, an expedition marched from Cedar Keys up the Florida Railroad
only to be defeated by the forces of Captain Dickison. In March the

FROM Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 1862 ST. AUGUSTINE DURING THE WAR

United States planned the capture of Tallahassee, but at Natural Bridge
some children, old men, and a few disciplined troops repelled the Federal
forces and saved the capital.
Throughout the war the people of Florida-in towns, in country
hamlets, and on farms-shared the hardships of war. Necessities were
scarce and prices high. Women, in the absence of their men, labored on
farms and managed the estates. Helping them were loyal Negro slaves,
who continued in their accustomed way to produce crop after crop and
who gave little trouble to the white population, which in the past had
often feared a slave insurrection. In spite of their additional wartime
duties, Florida women rolled bandages, supplied passing troops with re-
freshments, and spent long hours in nursing the wounded. By work they
sought escape from the fear that pressed them, and by service they at-
tempted to shorten the interminable years of conflict. They faced the
misfortunes of war with a courage that equaled and often surpassed that
of the soldier.
Despite personal sacrifice and heroic action the South was conquered
by the superior power of the North. On May 10, 1865, Federal forces
under the command of General Edward McCook entered Tallahassee
without opposition. The capital of Florida, unconquered in war, received
the troops of occupation long after the surrender of Robert E. Lee and
the destruction of the Confederacy. Governor John Milton, who had
worked with tireless energy to protect his people from the enemy and
from overzealous Confederate agents, was not among those who witnessed CIVIL WAR
the occupation of Tallahassee. Four years of conflict and disappointment
had taken away his will to live-thoughts of a defeated South were more
than his burdened mind could bear. When he ended his own life on
April 1, 1865, Abraham K. Allison, president of the state senate, suc-
ceeded him as governor.

* o- : -'oo.
';''j^

~ -=C--BL
Z~ .~,:~"~~.~'~-"~d.~~" -.lpa~J~~a~6~
~oc
a~ -~
.7ti~-
~ab~~ 1
~Ulk3~e~e~Pls~"~B~sB~b~L1~6 ~Cl~lU~fs~L~8~;~-8~B~- Bs~i iT~iT~1~F 4
L3 __C~
-a gX r "9~.:;
LB*W
I ~:~ .,~I

L

i- -i~~
I ,
~t~
jd' c:
LL r r
Q" ;~.~*-~'4 ~II ~~o

?4.W ;r ~
--~s "~n,. r "
..r
z p~X~.~ ; I
*~
;r
~ 'b .YC....~
rcpa J-'
!;l~t~J ~kc~~h~l
~r; ~=
\ ~i~Y1
~ i ~C~~T ~
. ~a~S .~;a
~ `\~~L~rC*
~i r
ai;"T~, i ,; 7.
\5 I~--~C~
p
~'~~iep`~-~
~~c ii i~/-L~
4' ~~;5 a

FROM DICKISON, Dickison and His Men

FIVE FLAGS

56

SKIRMISH NEAR CEDAR KEYS

Allison accepted defeat in good faith and prepared to restore a loyal
Florida to her place in the United States. He appointed five commission-
ers to meet with President Andrew Johnson in Washington, called a
special session of the state legislature, and set June 7 as the date for the
election of a governor. General McCook, on orders from his superior,
cancelled the plans of Governor Allison. On May 24, 1865, martial law
was proclaimed in Florida, and Negro or mixed garrisons were placed in
the towns of the state.
Florida was in turmoil. "The world is upside down," wrote a repre-
sentative of the old aristocracy. Negroes, informed of their freedom and
not quite certain of its meaning, flocked to the towns. Some apologetically
left their plantation owners and others ran with wild elation to embrace
freedom. Many Negroes remained at work, but laborers were scarce and
crops went untended in the fields. White along with black was confused,
and their confusion brought idleness at a time when Florida needed
labor to rebuild her shattered economic structure.
Confidence in the future was slowly restored. The appointment of
William Marvin, a native of the North but a resident and respected citizen
of Florida, as provisional governor gave hope to those who desired stable
government. A convention, which met in October, 1865, repealed the
ordinance of secession, abolished slavery, and framed a new state con-
stitution. The suffrage was granted to white males only, but Negroes were
given limited rights before the courts. In November, David S. Walker,
a former Whig and unionist, was elected governor. After his inauguration
on January 17, 1866, the state legislature enacted laws to restore order

*-~ _a -.
s..~;~d~;~~L -f
;t ~qlR-
~.
,... r.
r..
~Z''~.s 'I r j

BATTLE OF GAINESVILLE. An artist's conception of what in reality was only a skirmish.

among the Negroes. These laws, known as the "black code," provided
harsh and differential treatment for the freedmen. Floridians, having
admitted the fallacy of secession and abolished slavery, restored the old
order as nearly as possible and believed their state qualified to resume
her position within the Union.
Floridians had not counted on the political power of Northern radi-
cals. Senators and representatives from Florida and the other Southern
states were denied admission to Congress, while congressional committees
investigated conditions within the South. Conflicting reports were heard,
with the unfavorable accounts receiving more emphasis than the good.
Northern newspapers publicized disorders in the South, the ill-treatment
of freedmen, and the views of still rebellious Southern men. Throughout
1866 the Southern states were denied representation in Congress. During
this time the Freedman's Bureau, an agency of the Federal Government,
gave rations to thousands of destitute whites and blacks in Florida and
furnished them agricultural supplies for future crops. Agents of the bu-
reau supervised labor contracts, worked to secure justice for the Negro,
and attempted to educate the freedman in his rights and duties. When
President Johnson rejected a bill which renewed and enlarged the Freed-
man's Bureau, the Northern radicals passed the act over his veto.
CIVIL WAR
This radical victory was the first of many to come. In the ensuing IVIL WAR
months the cleavage between the radical Republicans and President John-
son grew wider and wider. The elections of 1866 gave the radicals com-
plete control of both houses of Congress. Reassured by this evidence of
Northern support they passed, in 1867, a series of acts for the recon-

struction of the Southern states. Florida became a part of the third
military district under the control of a military governor, who could
retain or replace the existing civil authorities. The suffrage was given the
Negro and denied those who had voluntarily served the Confederacy.
The constitution of 1865 was invalidated and elections for naming dele-
gates to a constitutional convention were set for November. All over
Florida the freedmen were organized into secret leagues and brotherhoods
for political action by Northern carpetbaggers and Florida scalawags, who
directed the political thinking of the Negro. At least seventeen Negroes,
fifteen Northern Republicans, and ten Florida scalawags, out of a total
of forty-five delegates, were elected to the convention.
"Bottom rail's on top, now!" the jubilant freedmen proclaimed, but
in Florida the bottom rail was never really on top. The Republicans,
divided as they were into radical and conservative factions, were unable
to overthrow completely the old order. The convention, which assembled
at Tallahassee on January 20, 1868, framed an excellent state constitu-
tion. In the following May a general election resulted in a Republican
victory, and Harrison Reed, a native of Massachusetts and a Federal
postal agent, became governor of the state. On July 4, 1868, civil authority
replaced military rule and martial law gave way to Republican control.
For over eight years the Republicans ruled the state of Florida. These
were years of political strife with Democrats fighting Republicans and
radical Republicans engaging their more conservative colleagues. The
Ku Klux Klan and other white brotherhoods fought the politically active
Union League and secret Negro societies. Governor Reed was soon hated
by the radical Republicans of his party. His veto of a bill to compel
hotels and railroads to give equal treatment to blacks and whites aroused
the Negroes, and other vetoes angered those who had planned remunera-
tive financial schemes for themselves. Reed was impeached twice, but
never convicted by the state senate. In 1873 Ossian B. Hart, the first
native of Florida to be elected to the governorship of his state, replaced
Reed, and a Maine Republican, Marcellus L. Stearns, became lieutenant
governor. Because of illness Hart served only until June of that year,
and Stearns fell heir to the governorship. By this time the resurgent
Democrats had the strength to contest Republican control, a fact which
quieted the warring elements within the Republican party.
The election of 1874 encouraged the Democratic party in Florida.
Republican representatives to Congress won by slim margins, member-
ship in the state senate was equally divided between the two parties, and
the Democrats were a minority of only three in the state house of
representatives. In 1875 Charles W. Jones, a Democrat, was elected to
the United States Senate. The end of Republican rule was near.
Democrats and Republicans determined to fight in the critical election
of 1876-the former to gain control, the latter to bolster their declining

FIVE FLAGS

58

strength. Marcellus L. Stearns received the Republican nomination for
governor and George F. Drew, a native of New Hampshire but an old
resident of Florida, led the Democrats. Leaders of both parties directed
the campaign with much activity and little scruple. The Democrats
checked the Negro political organizations by violence and threat of
violence. Every white man was urged to vote and Negroes were threatened
with loss of their jobs unless they cast a Democratic ballot. In an age
when the state did not furnish a printed ballot, thousands of numbered
ballots were handed Negroes with the order "vote it." Officials of the
Florida Railroad were accused of this practice and though David L.
Yulee, president of the railroad, denied the charge, he declared his com-
pany had a right to influence its employees. The Republicans answered
the Democrats in kind and prepared to obviate by fraud the political
advantage which their opponents might gain by intimidation.
The Democrats, however, were not amateurs in political trickery. In
spite of Republican control at the polling precincts, careful planning
resulted in many a Democratic victory. According to one story, the
Democrats stationed a confederate in a back room of the voting place
with a supply of ballots and a ballot box almost identical to the official
one. As each voter cast his ballot, the Democratic inspector yelled
"Check!" and the back-room worker dropped a prepared ballot into his
box. The Democrats had made sure no lamp would be available, and in
the darkness after the voting had ended, the fraudulent ballot box was
substituted for the legal one. When the Republican inspectors finally
secured a light and counted the ballots, they found that the precinct was
unanimously Democratic. In most of the state's precincts, however, the
election was conducted with a fairness that precluded fraud and intimi-
dation at the polling places.
Although the election returns as announced by precincts gave small
majorities to Drew and the Democratic presidential electors, leaders of
both parties claimed the victory. If in the national election the four elec-
toral votes of Florida were counted for the Republicans, Rutherford B.
Hayes would be the next President of the United States. In the end this
was the case, and Samuel J. Tilden was defeated by one electoral vote-
185 to 184. Stearns was declared the victor in the gubernatorial contest,
but George F. Drew, undaunted by his apparent loss of the governorship,
appealed to the state supreme court which was dominated by Republican
justices. The court ordered a recount with the result that Drew was de-
clared the winner by a majority of 195 out of the 48,163 ballots cast. CIVIL WAR
On January 7, 1877, the inauguration day of Governor-elect Drew,
men armed with shotguns and rifles were stationed in buildings around 59
the Capitol Square. The crowd was tense with suppressed excitement,
but the ceremonies were concluded without disturbance. Governor Drew,
as a Northern man by birth and a Union man on principle, asked the

~ske~ss~ ~,.~i~lb~k~~-g's~~~
*
,-t~_;~,-:~~:~";~,. rrrrrrr~~
.-nS ~~~ 1
"` ~; ~p~+~F
;CtL~ -~I~_ 1Pb; .r,
.~v ~_6~-*:~~2~:-- ILI- ~1
.Irrrd~ gi IQ IDpp. ~,PD
-~s ~ ~B~p~
~fp~8ar~,~"~': "'' "
---- -- 11CLr --
rrz~ _,, I--
'~
"1 -:~""~f~d~'~
- "~ - -
.OL~D~IPi --~Z1; o~L ~- ;
~d~^e li~~ --II1-
'ia~6L~O -~4rh4~~. -n DI La
pP~- '%
ss~, ~--
--r4 -rMI ~

FROM Scribner's Magazine, 1874

FIVE FLAGS

60

^^^'st^: --i?-
I.TT^,, C"-''"'~ i _'''^ ^^^ 'f y^^
JAKONIL DUIGREOSRUTO

people to let old animosities die, assured the Negro that his rights would
be protected, and pleaded for the unity of all Floridians. With the in-
auguration of Drew the Reconstruction era came to a close.
Reconstruction in both its military and political phases was a sad
experience for Florida. The political wrangling, the violence, the fraud,
and the mutual suspicion of the era could not be erased from the memo-
ries of Floridians. Northern radicals had attempted to reconstruct the
state by enfranchising the ignorant and barring old leaders from political
activity. Upon the vote of the lower classes, Negro and white, the radicals
hoped to construct a new state government and a wider democracy. They
failed, and in failing, drew the whites of all classes into a unity that
made Florida a member of the Solid South.
The radicals of the North did not foresee the ultimate result of their
work. They, in fact, expected the opposite-the creation of a Solid South
which would always be in the Republican column. This was not their only
purpose in the attempted reconstruction of the South. Many Northern
radicals were sincerely interested in bettering the economic and political
status of those who had held an inferior place in the ante-bellum years.
Negroes and "poor whites" were to be elevated and given greater oppor-
tunities. Hundreds of Northerners came south with this ideal in mind.
Hundreds of others, it is true, came to humble the proud and fill their
own pockets with gold, but for almost every Northern carpetbagger of
this type, there was a Southern scalawag of equal depravity. Finally, the
radical Republicans desired reconstruction as a punishment for the people
of the South who, in Northern opinion, were responsible for the long
years of war. This Northern desire for revenge, though explainable in
terms of human reaction, was never viewed with understanding or
thought justifiable by the conquered South.
The emotional duress created by Reconstruction made it impossible
for generations of Northern and Southern people to appraise the era
with fairness. Reconstruction was neither completely good nor complete-
ly bad. In Florida bribery and fraud permeated the state government.
Republican governors openly condemned members of their own party

and a Republican legislature attempted to expel one governor for accept-
ing bribes. Political bosses made a practice of selling offices to the highest
bidders. The legislature granted franchises for internal improvements,
sold public lands for a fraction of their value, and delivered millions
of dollars' worth of state bonds to scheming promoters. State officials
accepted offices and took stock in the companies which they developed
with the public funds, they increased the tax rate and allowed dishonest
collectors to retain a large part of the returns, and they made large
appropriations and multiplied the state debt almost 900 per cent. The
people of Florida received an inadequate return for the money expended
by corrupt officials.
Although the record of the Republican administration was tinged
with fraud and corruption, the Reconstruction period was an era of
worth-while political advancement. In some respects the state constitu-
tion of 1868 was the best Florida had had or would have in a hundred
years of statehood. The criminal code, the legal protection given to
laborers, and the recognition of the rights of women and children re-
flected a legislative philosophy which was superior to ante-bellum po-
litical thought. More than ever before concern was expressed for the
interest of the individual citizen. The services of the state were enlarged
and the conception of public welfare broadened. Public schools received
financial aid, and the number of pupils in the schools increased rapidly.
The old stigma attached to the public school-that the free school was
for the poor and lowly-was largely replaced by a general belief in the
necessity of democratic and equal educational opportunity for all classes.
Above all, democracy achieved a broader foundation-the idea that all
men had the right to participate in a government of the people.
The Reconstruction years also brought noteworthy material gains. In
spite of war and political unrest, the population of Florida grew to
269,493, an increase of almost 90 per cent from 1860 to 1880. Soldiers
who had come to conquer or to hold the land stayed or returned to build
homes and work the soil. Political adventurers and well-intentioned,
though misguided, reformers often became good citizens of the state.
Northern individuals of note, among them Harriet Beecher Stowe, built
winter homes on river banks or near protected harbors where they could
enjoy the sunshine and the warmth of the country. Northern capital
aided in the restoration of railroads, backed the lumber industry, and
financed orange groves. The total valuation of all property declined dur-
ing the period, but the economic basis was laid for a future increase that
would surpass the most optimistic predictions. CIVIL WAR
Although the Republicans had ideas of undeniable merit, their at- 61
tempt to build a state government upon the votes of ignorant Negroes
and the poorer class of white people had failed. Those who engineered
the political revolution of 1876 condemned Reconstruction and, in their

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AND FAMILY
IAT MANDARIN ON THE ST. JOHNS RIVER

desire to erase the bad, destroyed much that was good. Bitter memories
of "Negro rule" unified the whites, gave power to conservative leaders,
and denied the Negro many of his legal rights. In years to come, however,
a more liberal generation was to rediscover the valid political philosophy
of Reconstruction. Old laws were to be renewed and new ones enacted
which would increase the services of the state to her citizens, and make
Florida a better place in which to live.

FIVE FLAGS

62

FIRST TRAIN INTO MIAMI, APRIL 22, 1896

PUSHING BACK THE FRONTIER

FTER CENTURIES of intermittent and limited growth under
European control and over half a century of more rapid de-
velopment as a part of the United States, most of Florida was
still frontier country. In 1880 the agricultural region which bordered
on Georgia and extended down past Cedar Keys and over to the St. Johns
River supported a population that numbered from six to forty-five in-
habitants per square mile. Within this area, however, large tracts of
land lay untouched, and many of the people lived in either a frontier
society or one not far removed from frontier ways. Below Cape Canaveral
on the east coast and Charlotte Harbor on the west coast, there were less
than two inhabitants per square mile. Some Indians and a small number
of white people made up the population of this unconquered region.
There was no urban community in all of Florida with a population
of ten thousand. The so-called cities of the interior were small agricul-
tural towns; and even the more important coastal cities of Key West,
Jacksonville, Pensacola, St. Augustine, Fernandina, and Cedar Keys were
not imposing centers of trade or industry. Key West was the largest city,

CHAPTER

VIII

71'W

8uisuwpcv~rr~ u~ Jac,~ioxsvItLzr

but Jacksonville, because of its location and its transportation facilities,
was becoming the most important city of the state. Inside Jacksonville
horse-car lines connected the principal hotels and business establishments
with the railroad stations and steamship landings. The city streets were
sandy roads and unpaved thoroughfares, and although little effort had
been made by the residents to cover yards and public places with grass,
the live-oak shaded streets gave Jacksonville an appealing beauty. Half
a dozen well-equipped livery stables supplied visitors with carriages and
buggies, and boats for river trips or sight-seeing excursions were plenti-
ful. Such hotels as the St. James, the Everett, the Carleton, the Windsor,
and the Duval could accommodate from one hundred to three hundred
guests at prices ranging from three to five dollars a day for room and
board.
This was Florida in 1880-a few cities on the coasts, a developed agri-
cultural area, and an almost uninhabited region in the south. Within
forty years, changes were to come with such rapidity as to make the
Florida of 1880 seem insignificant in comparison with that of 1920. The
population jumped from approximately a quarter of a million to almost
a million. Six cities grew to have more than ten thousand inhabitants,
and Jacksonville was approaching a hundred thousand. Some of the

FIVE FLAGS

64

EXCURSION TRAIN IN THE 1880'S ON THE JACKSONVILLE, ST. AUGUSTINE, AND HALIFAX RIVER RAILWAY

older sections of the state declined in population and others grew rapidly,
but along the southern coasts, east and west, frontier settlements became
towns and towns became cities. By 1920 Tampa was a city of over fifty
thousand people and Miami had a population of nearly thirty thousand.
When the coastal areas had been settled, the adventurous moved from
east and west and north to conquer Florida's last frontier around Lake
Okeechobee.
The natural increase of the native population accounted for much of
the state's phenomenal growth, but the migration of people from other
regions of the United States into Florida was of greater significance. Im-
mediately after the Civil War the aged and ill found the Florida climate
both pleasant and helpful. By 1880 guide books portrayed Florida as a
winter playground for the hale and hearty and a land of opportunity
for the ambitious. Though the invalid was not forgotten, more and more
emphasis was placed on the advantages which the state offered the tourist
and the settler; and in 1882 seventeen thousand visitors entered Jack-
sonville by railroads and steamship lines in response to the advertisements
of the day. EXPANSION
From Jacksonville the tourists traveled by river and rail routes to
view the attractions of Florida. Palace steamers with elaborate salons 6
and staterooms sailed up the St. Johns and down (for the river flows
north) past Magnolia with its large hotel and the nearby Green Cove
Springs to Tocoi, the western terminus of the railway leading to St.

9:.
"
:
i r
:
~, s :' ' :i;;.

STEAMBOAT ON THE ST. JOHNS RIVER

Augustine. Those desiring to visit the oldest city in the United States
exchanged their staterooms for car seats and after a forty-five minute
ride reached the city. The others continued up the St. Johns to Palatka,
the largest town on the river. Here the Ocklawaha River steamship lines
of Hart and Captain Bouknight offered round-trip excursions to Silver
Springs for twelve dollars or to Leesburg and the headwaters of the river
for twenty dollars. From Palatka the steamer proceeded on to DeLand's
Landing and to Sanford and Enterprise on Lake Monroe. Small vessels
continued from Enterprise to Salt Lake where the St. Johns and Indian
River Railroad began its line to Titusville. At Titusville boats steamed
north through the famous Indian River orange region to New Smyrna
and Daytona, and a stagecoach brought the traveler from Daytona to
Volusia on the St. Johns.
Steamboats received a deserved patronage, but the delight of leisurely
river travel soon gave way to the speedier transportation of the railroads.
By 1882 the tourists had a choice of many routes leading from Jackson-
ville. One extended to Tallahassee and the Apalachicola River, another
to Callahan and northern points, and a third to Fernandina. The Florida

FIVE FLAGS

66

-'^fc^
K -M02 IAL io.
f7 ok
lit

STEAMBOATS ON THE OCKLAWAHA RIVER

Transit Railroad reached from Fernandina to Cedar Keys, the most im-
portant peninsula port. This western terminus of the railroad was noted
for its oysters, which were expressed to all parts of the state and as far
north as Louisville. Large quantities of cedar were shipped from the
port, and factories, where women worked for twelve to eighteen dollars
a month, produced cedar penholders and pencils. From Cedar Keys
steamboats ran north up the Suwannee River, west to New Orleans, and
south to Havana. At Waldo the Peninsular Railroad led south to Ocala,
connected with the river boats at Silver Springs, and ended at Wildwood.
There were other railroads, and some under construction in the central
part of the peninsula were reaching toward Tampa Bay.
Transportation was the key for opening the potentialities of Florida.
Many men knew this, but most of those interested in railroads demanded
that the state encourage construction by land grants. Before the Civil
War, the trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund had used state lands
as a reserve to guarantee the payment of railroad bonds; and though the
bankrupt railroads of Florida were sold after the war, there remained
unsatisfied bondholders with valid claims against the Internal Improve-
ment Fund. Since there was no cash in the fund to pay these bondholders,
they had a legal claim on all the state lands of Florida. Before incon-
testable titles could be given for state lands, these creditors would have EXPANSION
to be satisfied. Attempts made in the 1870's to repay them by selling
millions of acres of land for twenty-five and thirty cents per acre had
been unsuccessful, and by 1881 the bondholders had appealed to the 6
United States Circuit Court for an order to force the sale of all lands
held by the Internal Improvement Fund.

1897

1911

1921

BUILDING A CITY-

1897

-MIAMI, 1897-1940

Later in the same year Governor William D. Bloxham concluded an
agreement with Hamilton Disston, a Philadelphia capitalist. Disston and
his associates purchased four million acres at a price of twenty-five cents
per acre. These Philadelphia promoters sold some of their land for as
much as five dollars per acre, and perhaps made a profit on the entire
transaction. Though there was much to criticize in the Disston sale, it
enabled Florida to meet the demands of determined creditors and to
forestall the possibility of a forced sale of all the public land at ruinous
prices. Land grants could now be made to foster internal improvements,
and within a few years railroad building was in a boom period.
There were three great railroad builders in the 1880's. William D.
Chipley, general manager of the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad, super-
vised the building of a road from Pensacola to the Apalachicola River.
In the spring of 1883 the entire line of 161 miles was completed and for
the first time rail service connected Pensacola, Milton, De Funiak Springs,
and Marianna with the rest of Florida.
Henry B. Plant, a shrewd, money-seeking, Connecticut Yankee, did
for the central and west peninsular regions of Florida what Chipley
accomplished for the section west of the Apalachicola. In 1881 Plant
had a number of railroads in Georgia. These roads, bought at low prices
during Reconstruction, were extended into northern Florida- and from
there down the heart of the peninsula. From Jacksonville his line
paralleled the St. Johns to Sanford and swung west to reach Tampa in
1884; other lines fanned out from Live Oak, Gainesville, and Palatka
to Tarpon Springs, St. Petersburg, and Punta Gorda. Henry B. Plant
made money, but more important, he opened the peninsula from Jack-
sonville to Tampa.
Two years after the first train entered Tampa, Henry M. Flagler be-
gan a Florida east coast railroad. Year by year short lines were added to
his holdings until by 1890 his railroad was completed to Daytona. Below
this point there was no railroad, but Flagler's engineers quickly solved
the problems of construction. West Palm Beach was reached in 1894,
and two years later there was a through route from Jacksonville to Miami.
Flagler was not yet satisfied. By 1904 he had decided to extend his rail-
road to Key West, and in January, 1912, the Florida East Coast Railroad
ran its first train into the city. Flagler's death the following year did not
end the expansion of the railroad; a branch line from Maytown to
Okeechobee City was constructed and extensions were planned which
would tap the eastern part of the Everglades.
Both Plant and Flagler built magnificent hotels for tourists. The
Tampa Bay Hotel, the Ponce de Leon, the Royal Poinciana, and others
catered to the most discriminating pleasure-seekers. The thousands of
tourists of the early 1880's grew to hundreds of thousands and then to
millions.

FIVE FLAGS

70

Along with the pleasure-seekers came settlers. Mile by mile the
frontier was pushed back as the railroads brought farmers and trades-
men, laborers and professional men. Decade after decade South Florida,
east and west, grew more populous and more wealthy as branch railroad
lines opened additional territory for settlement. In 1924 a new route
that soon linked Miami to Jacksonville was run through central Florida
to West Palm Beach, and other connections gave the southern east coast
direct rail communications with the west coast. Though most of the early
roads lost their identities as they became parts of the great Atlantic Coast
Line, Louisville and Nashville, or Seaboard Air Line systems, the Florida
East Coast Railroad retained its name and continued to expand or to
better its facilities by laying double tracks from Jacksonville to Miami.
The coming of the railroads transformed the swamps and the sand
dunes of South Florida into a thriving agricultural and commercial land.
Tampa, the terminus of the Plant railroad and steamship lines, quickly
supplanted Cedar Keys as the leading port on the west coast. Many own-
ers of Key West cigar factories, seeking to escape their employees' de-
mands for higher pay and better working conditions, established factories
in Tampa. The Spanish-American War brought thousands of soldiers and
advertised the locality to hundreds of cities and towns over the United
States. St. Petersburg across the Bay, Tarpon Springs and Clearwater to
the north, and Sarasota and Fort Myers to the south became thriving
settlements. On the east coast Fort Pierce, Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale,
Miami, and Miami Beach came into existence. Orlando became the largest
city in south-central Florida, and DeLand, Sanford, Kissimmee, Lake-
land, and Bartow grew rapidly.
When drainage made the Everglades habitable, towns rose in the
Lake Okeechobee region. Disston and others secured a legislative charter
for a company which would drain the lands along the Caloosahatchee
River and in the Lake Okeechobee area. Little was accomplished, how-
ever, until the administration of Governor Napoleon B. Broward in 1905.
Though his predecessor, William S. Jennings, had untangled the legal
snarls which clouded land titles in the Everglades, Broward made drainage
his cardinal policy. In 1905 the Everglades Drainage District was created
by the state legislature and in the following year Broward had the satis-
faction of seeing the first dredge begin operations west of Fort Lauder-
dale. Within twenty years, thousands of acres of land were reclaimed,
and such towns as Canal Point, Pahokee, Belle Glade, South Bay, Clew-
iston, Moore Haven, and Lakeport served a rich agricultural area.
Year by year the wealth of Florida grew as railroads and drainage
opened new lands to farmers and business men. By 1920 the 54,005 farms
of the state were valued at over $330,000,000 and produced an income of
over $80,000,000. Though vegetable crops produced the largest income,
oranges brought more than any other single agricultural product. Nearly

EXPANSION

71

6,000,000 boxes of oranges and over 3,000,000 of grapefruit came from
the groves of Florida. Irish potatoes alone were valued at almost the
combined total of cotton and tobacco. Domestic animals on the farms
had a total value of over $33,000,000 and meat products accounted for
an income of $8,000,000. By 1920 Florida had achieved so remarkable
a diversification in agriculture that the failure of one crop would no
longer throw a majority of the farmers into financial distress.
A survey of agricultural Florida made in 1920 illustrates both the
continued leadership of old, established counties and the important de-
velopments of the new. Alachua and Jackson retained their headship as
producers of domestic animals, but De Soto was pressing Jackson for
second place and was second only to Jackson in the growing of grain.
St. Johns and Seminole were the chief truck gardening centers; Manatee
and Dade were third and fourth. After 1880 orange culture boomed in
the north-central part of the peninsula, but in the winter of 1894-95
repeated cold waves practically destroyed the orange industry. Late in
December low temperatures killed the orange leaves and ruined the un-
gathered fruit. During the warm weather that followed, healing sap filled
the branches and twigs-buds appeared as nature worked to restore life
in the leafless trees. Then in February winter struck again. It was 11
degrees above zero at Tallahassee; snow fell at Tampa. Orange trees
were killed to the ground and the total damage to groves was over fifty

NEAR LAKELAND

FIVE FLAGS

72

ORANGE GROVE

million dollars. In southern Florida, however, the trees withstood the
cold and the citrus growers moved south. By 1920 Polk County was first
in the production of fruits; Orange and De Soto were second and third.
Nothing more clearly illustrates the geographical shift of agriculture
southward than this story of the orange.
Although its growth had been tremendous, agriculture failed to keep
pace with industry. The census of 1920 listed 82,986 persons engaged in
2,582 manufacturing establishments. Goods valued at $213,326,811, of
which $120,646,587 represented a value added by manufacturing, were
produced. Lumber and timber products, cigars and cigarettes, turpentine
and rosin, shipbuilding, and fertilizers accounted for more than 60 per
cent of the total value of all manufactured articles. Fossil deposits of
hard rock and pebble phosphate, accidently discovered in the late 1880's,
became the basis for a flourishing industry which in 1919 grossed an in-
come of $6,678,888 out of a total of almost $9,000,000 from mines and
quarries.
Industrial trends in Florida followed the pattern of those in the other
states. Manufacturing was concentrated in the cities and in the large
business enterprises. Tampa, the most important industrial center of the
state, together with Jacksonville and Pensacola, manufactured more than
40 per cent of Florida's total production. Smaller companies found it
increasingly difficult to compete with the industrial giants, for only com-

ORANGE CLUSTERS

EXPANSION

73

FROM BARBOUR, Florida for Tourists,
Invalids, and Settlers

A PAIR OF "CRACKERS" OF 1880

panies with an annual production valued at over a million dollars showed
a percentage increase and the total relative volume of business done by
small companies declined sharply.
Agricultural and industrial development of Florida prefaced a broad
cultural advancement. By 1920 there were more than 17,000 profession-
al men and women in the state. Churches, representing practically every
denomination, employed over 2,000 clergymen. The presence of nearly
1,000 musicians and teachers of music was illustrative of the Floridian's
growing appreciation of music; and 1,126 lawyers and 1,379 physicians
served the legal and physical needs of the people. Authors, editors, and
reporters provided the reading public with books, pamphlets, and news-
papers. The 193 newspapers had an aggregate circulation per issue of
446,969.
Interest in newspapers reflected the expansion of the public school
system and the diminution of illiteracy. The constitution of 1885 pro-
vided definite state funds for the schools and fixed the distribution of
these funds to the counties in proportion to the total number of school-
age children. Constitutional law allowed no county to levy less than a
three-mill school tax and demanded the election of county school su-
perintendents and local school boards. A state board of education, con-

FIVE FLAGS

74

FIRST STREETCAR LINE, PALATKA

sisting of the governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and the
state superintendent of public instruction, formulated educational policy
and coordinated school affairs. This reorganization of the public school
administration and constitutional provision for local taxes was the object
of bitter attack. John Temple Graves, editor of the Jacksonville Daily
Herald, declared that the "school crank" (W. N. Sheats, then superin-
tendent of the schools in Alachua County and author of nearly all of the
constitutional provisions on education) was endeavoring "to confiscate
the property of the State to educate Negroes."
The constitutional provisions of 1885 were cumbersome, but in later
years successful attacks by friends of the schools simplified the educa-
tional structure. The people gave more financial support to the schools
with each passing decade, and the per capital expenditure of less than one
dollar in 1884 increased by 1920 to more than seven dollars. Better phys-
ical plants, an enlarged course of study, and more competent teachers
enhanced the work of the public schools. The school term was increased
to an average length of 133 days and compulsory attendance laws were
enacted. By 1920 less than 10 per cent of the people were illiterate and
almost one fourth of the school children continued beyond the fifth
grade.
State institutions of higher education devoted to the training of public
school teachers, the giving of instruction in agriculture and the mechani-

EXPANSION

75

ENTRANCE TO FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, TALLAHASSEE

cal arts, and the teaching of the classics were established. In the middle
1880's the East Florida Seminary, then located at Gainesville, and the
West Florida Seminary at Tallahassee approached collegiate standards.
Other colleges were organized at Lake City, at De Funiak Springs, at
Bartow, at St. Petersburg, and at Kissimmee. In 1887 the State Nor-
mal College at Tallahassee provided for the education of Negroes. The
accomplishments of these small colleges were noteworthy, but there was
considerable duplication of effort and the cost of maintenance was dis-
proportionate to the results obtained. Educational leaders recognized the
defects in the system and urged the adoption of a policy which would
establish a few specialized colleges. In 1905 the Buckman Act merged
the seven white institutions into two, the University of Florida at Gaines-
ville and Florida State College for Women at Tallahassee. The State
Normal College, which was later renamed the Florida Agricultural and
Mechanical College for Negroes, remained at Tallahassee. The remark-
able advancement of these institutions has demonstrated the wisdom of
this far-sighted consolidation.
The concern of religious organizations for the education of their
members led to the chartering of a number of colleges. In 1885 leaders
of the Congregational Church initiated the founding of Rollins College
at Winter Park, though the College later became non-sectarian. John B.
Stetson University at DeLand was controlled after 1887 by the Baptists,

FIVE FLAGS

76

1C
O-T~
r "Q
~
r. u:
r..-
- ~~~isir

.,~
I. ."~C
,Irw-
~c '"
-""~x~an~r~'~'' ,..I
-CI
~ L.~9;-~b~.~ 'C' III~~d-XIIC li~l~L~l
~,.~--rbl"*"

AUDITORIUM, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, GAINESVILLE

and her graduates, especially those from her College of Law, rose to po-
sitions of leadership and reflected credit upon the institution. The Bap-
tists also sponsored the Florida Normal and Industrial Institute for
Negroes at St. Augustine. Methodists supported Florida Southern College,
located at Lakeland after 1921, and two schools for Negroes, Bethune-
Cookman at Daytona Beach and Edward Waters at Jacksonville. In their
early years the educational standards of these institutions were rather
low, but in time they developed into excellent colleges.
For almost two generations the graduates of these state and religious
colleges experienced considerable difficulty in rising to political pre-emi-
nence within the state. Among the thousands of those people who migrated
annually to Florida were men of character and ability who had had the
advantage of better schooling and professional training in the states
of their birth. Floridians recognized these leaders and elected them to
high offices. Some native Floridians left their own state to attend well-
known colleges and universities; others studied law in the offices of
outstanding lawyers, but as the schools and colleges of Florida grew in
stature and service, an increasing number of their alumni became the
leaders in the state.
In the decades following Reconstruction the political leaders of the
Democratic party worked to counteract the legislation of the Republican
regime. Since the Reconstruction government of Florida had never gone

EXPANSION

77

RAILWAY STATION
AT ST. PETERSBURG, 1889

COLONELS ROOSEVELT
AND WOOD NEAR TAMPA

to such excesses as had similar governments in most of the Southern states,
the task confronting the Democrats was less difficult than in some other
parts of the South. As there was widespread dissatisfaction with the free
spending and heavy taxation policy of the Florida Republicans, the entire
Democratic program reflected a desire for economy in governmental ex-
penditures. Taxes and appropriations were slashed. By the close of
Governor Bloxham's first administration the state's floating debt had
been paid or funded and the reduction of the debts contracted by the
Reconstruction government had been initiated.
Vivid recollection of the Negro's social and political ascendancy under
Republican rule resulted in acts to enforce racial segregation. Negroes
were defined as persons of one-eighth or more Negro blood and marriages
between white and colored people were prohibited. An act of 1887 ordered
railroads to provide separate cars for white and colored passengers; and
in later years other laws, which extended this original act, were applied

FIVE FLAGS

78

r ... ..: ... :
y '

SOLDIERS AT PORT TAMPA,
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

ORLANDO, 1883

to all means of public transportation. Segregation was effected in the
schools, hotels, and amusement houses.
Successful legal and extra-legal actions eliminated the Negro from
politics. Immediately after Reconstruction, trickery, fraud, and intimida-
tion, along with the use of the white's economic power and the growing
indifference on the part of the Negro, greatly reduced the colored vote.
In 1889 a poll tax became a requisite for voting. Six years later the
Australian or secret ballot, which necessitated some knowledge on the
part of the voter to mark his ballot correctly, worked to the disadvantage
of the Negro, for the ignorant white voter was helped in marking his
ballot. In the meantime the primary was replacing the convention as the
means of nominating candidates for local offices. In 1897 the first primary
law regulated county primaries and four years later was extended to state-
wide primaries. Since the party could determine the composition of its
membership, the Negro was denied admittance to the party; and since

EXPANSION

79

.g~ _~_*
t- --- '"" -ISSBS~

-~--,~-a~srsbj,. .~ ..
a .~

Illt
,~

LEE HALL, FLORIDA AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL UNIVERSITY, TALLAHASSEE

the Democratic primaries became, in effect, actual elections, the Negro
vote was eliminated. By these means the Democrats of Florida kept the
state in the Solid South from 1876 to 1928. The white citizens of Florida
successfully destroyed the Negro's political power without recourse to
the extensive educational requirements for voting and the consequent
"Grandfather Clauses" of the other Southern states, which were enacted
to enfranchise the ignorant white people despite their inability to meet
the educational tests.
One explanation why Florida did not resort to such methods lay in
the quick replacement of her Reconstruction constitution. Shortly after
the Democratic restoration in 1877 there arose a demand for a new
constitution. Though it contained many excellent provisions, the con-
stitution of 1868 had the disadvantages of being a Reconstruction docu-
ment and of giving too extensive powers to the governor. Under it he
appointed both state and local officials. This satisfied political leaders in
counties with a large colored population, but the white people of the
other counties demanded a more democratic system. In 1884 the people
voted to call a convention, and in the following year the constitutional
convention, held in Tallahassee, wrote a new constitution for Florida.
Although based on the old, this new organic law reduced the salaries of
state officials and provided for the election of cabinet members, supreme
court justices, and most local office holders. The provisions which allowed

FIVE FLAGS

80

the governor to appoint circuit court judges and county commissioners
naturally pleased the white Democrats of the counties where Negroes
were numerically strong.
The Democratic majorities of the post-Reconstruction era continued
the old Republican practice of encouraging business. In doing this Florida
followed the trend of the national Democratic and Republican programs,
for after the Civil War both political parties catered to big business.
Aided by governmental grants, beneficial laws, and few regulations, the
economic power of big business increased to undreamed of proportions;
trusts and corporations used their economic power for political ends;
monopolies multiplied. When the consumer and the small producer found
themselves at the mercy of these industrial giants, more and more people
voiced their discontent with an economic system that seemed to make the
rich richer and the poor poorer. In 1890 representatives of national farm
and labor alliances assembled at Ocala, Florida, and formulated a na-
tional people's platform. Though the radical demands of this convention
frightened the conservatives of that age, there were men in the Demo-
cratic party of Florida who believed in many of the principles of the
"Ocala Demands." In 1891 the Populists organized as a national party
and won many victories in Western and Southern states.
In Florida the Populists never achieved political control of the state.
Their principles either were or became those of a number of able Demo-
crats who rose to political leadership. Senator Wilkinson Call and Repre-
sentative Stephen Russell Mallory were typical of such leaders, but
Napoleon Bonaparte Broward became the great champion of the common
man. A native of Duval County, Broward possessed an inquisitive mind
and a flair for politics. Captain Broward, the river steamboat owner and
Duval County sheriff, gained a national reputation as the owner and
operator of the Three Friends, a ship engaged in supplying arms and
munitions to rebellious Cuban patriots before the Spanish-American War.
Somewhat to his own surprise and his enemies' chagrin he was elected
governor in 1904.
Broward served one term as governor, was defeated in his first at-
tempt for the United States Senate, and died before he occupied the
senatorship which he won in 1910. Neither his short term of service nor
the enumeration of his definite accomplishments fully indicate his con-
tributions as a political leader. In the "Broward Era" an almost indefin-
able spirit of intelligent progressiveness dominated the politics of Florida.
Such a spirit had manifested itself in earlier years in the creation of the EXPANSION
Florida State Board of Health after the terrible yellow fever epidemic
of 1888, in the establishment of the Railroad Commission in 1897, and
in the regulatory measures and progressive tone of the administration of 1
Governor William Sherman Jennings. Under Broward's leadership exist-
ing laws were broadened and strengthened and new ones were added.

The Railroad Commission became a body with real power to exercise
regulatory control over all transportation and communication companies.
State fish and game laws, the drainage of the Everglades, and the pro-
tection of forests emphasized his zeal for the conservation and planned
utilization of natural resources. An improved public school system and
the consolidation of the state institutions of higher learning reflected the
interest of this self-educated man who desired to open the way and ease
the path for the coming generations. Broward favored increased salaries
in the hope of making political office attractive to able men, and demanded
additional taxes on corporations and relief for the overtaxed farmer.
Many of Broward's recommendations became the goals of succeeding
administrations. Compulsory education, state aid for the public schools,
the regulation of child labor, paved highways, the inspection of foods and
drugs, advertising to attract tourists and settlers, and other ideas came
from the constructive imagination of this far-sighted governor. He moved
far beyond the vision of his contemporaries and their descendants to
advocate the benefits of state insurance. Neither his colleagues nor their
sons succeeded in following his call for an equitable reapportionment of
representation in the state legislature. At times even he could find no
solution for the problems which troubled him and his state. Broward had
faults and he made mistakes, but he and his followers deserve the place
of honor in which they are established.
Others before Broward advocated the reapportionment of representa-
tion in the state legislature. The constitution of 1885 did this in a way,
and later acts, passed after the "Broward Era," have given added repre-
sentatives to the more populous areas. Even before the inauguration of
Governor Broward, the rapid development of East and South Florida
brought a demand for the removal of the capital to a central geographic
location. In 1900 nearly 52 per cent of the voters cast ballots in favor
of keeping the capital at Tallahassee; the other 48 per cent preferred
Jacksonville, Ocala, or St. Augustine. Though many citizens favored
Tallahassee because of the expense involved in the construction of gov-
ernmental buildings at some other city, others were influenced by the
distinctive charm of Tallahassee and by the hospitality of her people.
Sidney Lanier caught this spirit when he wrote, "The repute of these
people for hospitality was a matter of national renown before the war-
and even the dreadful reverses of that cataclysm appear to have spent
their force in vain against this feature of Tallahassee manners; for much
FIVE FLAGS testimony since the war . goes to show that this exists unimpaired."
Tallahassee linked the best traditions of plantation Florida to the rising
82 industrial state of the twentieth century.
The force of Broward's personality survived his administration and
his life. The administrations of Albert W. Gilchrist and Park Trammell
continued the progressive tone set by Broward, and in spite of his cam-

GOVERNOR'S MANSION BUILT DURING BROWARD'S ADMINISTRATION

paign innovations, the evangelical Baptist minister, Sidney J. Catts,
followed much of Broward's liberalism.
Catts was a political phenomenon. The writings of Tom Watson of
Georgia and the activities of secret organizations in Florida revived a
latent anti-Catholic feeling, which Catts exploited in his race for the
governorship. He also spoke to hundreds of small gatherings, made
friends with the common man, and promised to establish a more nearly
perfect democracy. While he brought a religious emotionalism to politics
that amused the established politician, he made the common man feel
important. Scoffers underestimated his political power until shortly be-
fore the 1916 Democratic primary. Then it was too late. He won, or
believed he had won, the nomination. When a recount of the ballots
gave it to William V. Knott, Catts bolted the Democratic party and ran
for governor as the candidate of the Prohibition party. In the general
election he defeated his opponent by about ten thousand votes.
In spite of the fears and forebodings of politicians, Florida continued
to progress under the administration of Governor Catts. He reintroduced
the "spoils system," dismissed hundreds of office holders, and made
others feel the insecurity of their positions. There was just cause for the
removal of many and, though Catts resorted to a vicious political system,
he did rid the state of inept office holders. Sidney J. Catts was inexperi-

EXPANSION

83

COURTESY LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISH

WORLD WAR I MEMORIAL, MEMORIAL PARK, JACKSONVILLE

enced in government and like many outsiders believed government was
a conspiracy of wealthy and powerful men against the masses. As he
came to understand government and to know the men who labored in
it, he grew more conservative. Perhaps he planned to control education
and gain the political mastery of the state institutions, but he never did,
for most of his political appointees were excellent men who acted with
independence. The compulsory school attendance law, the creation of
the Florida Farm Colony for the feeble-minded, the better regulation of
insurance companies, the provision for aid to mothers with dependent
children, and the attempt to check the ravages caused by fires in the
Everglades were laudable acts of his administration.
Within a few months after the inauguration of Catts, the United
States entered the First World War. Thousands of Floridians volunteered
for service and other thousands were drafted. But only a few Floridians
ever knew the hardships of war-it was too distant. In the state as a
whole, the people saw only the training camps of the army and navy
and could complain of little other than the rise in prices and the tempo-
rary scarcity of some desired commodities. Established commercial ties
were broken, but the influx of tourists, now denied their European
tours, high prices received for agricultural products, and opportunities
for employment at high wages brought prosperity to Florida.
The war advertised Florida to the nation. Men forgot politics and
social needs as a vision of growth and wealth grew more distinct. Old
issues faded as a new era of unsurpassed advancement began.

FIVE FLAGS

84

~:' 3
.I:'.:?
i
,..... -,
'-
:::i
rd*.:
'r .;.. .e
^r
o, 1.~V~y7hl~
..':','. """ ;'j~pg~ ~
-. .~_`~:~ ''l~:ki$~- (C~9~p-
-I-~

NC COMPANY