The African American Heritage of Florida

 

Edited by David R. Colburn and Jane L. Landers

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Africans participated in all the Spanish explorations and settlements in Florida, as they did throughout the Spanish Americas. In Florida they helped establish St. Augustine and the free black community of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose. Africans and African Americans fought in the many conflicts that wracked Florida, including the three Seminole Wars and the Civil War.

Despite the oppressions of slavery and segregation, black Floridians struggled to establish their own communities, combat racism and economic deprivation, and negotiate the terms of their labor. Against overwhelming odds, they helped develop communities like Jacksonville, Tampa, and Miami, and they served as the critical labor force for the state's citrus, agricultural, and timber industries.
For centuries, however, their heritage has been ignored. These twelve essays examine the rich and substantial African American heritage of Florida, documenting African American contributions to the state's history from the colonial era to the late twentieth century.


Contents
Introduction, by David Colburn

Traditions of African American Freedom and Community in Spanish Colonial Florida, by Jane Landers

African Religious Retentions in Florida, by Robert L. Hall

"Yellow Silk Ferret Tied Round Their Wrists": African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784, by Daniel Schafer

A Troublesome Property: Master-Slave Relations in Florida, 1821-1865, by Larry Rivers

Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835, by George Klos

Freedom Was as Close as the River: African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida, by Daniel Schafer

LaVilla, Florida, 1866-1887: Reconstruction Dreams and the Formation of a Black Community, by Patricia Kenney

Black Violence in the New South: Patterns of Conflict in Late-Nineteenth-Century Tampa, by Jeffrey Adler

No Longer Denied: Black Women in Florida, 1920-1950, by Maxine Jones

Under a Double Burden: Florida's Black Feeble-Minded, 1920-1957, by Steven Noll

Groveland: Florida's Little Scottsboro, by Steven Lawson, David Colburn, and Darryl Paulson

The Pattern of Race Relations in Miami since the 1920s, by Raymond Mohl

David Colburn is professor of history and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. He is the author of Racial Crisis and Community Conflict: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980 (UPF, 1991), coauthor of Florida's Gubernatorial Politics in the Twentieth Century (UPF, 1981), and coauthor of Government in the Sunshine State. (UPF, 1999)


Jane Landers is assistant professor of history and a member of the faculty of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Florida, The World Around Us, and several major articles, including "Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Colonial Florida," published in the American Historical Review.

1985. 402pp. 6 X 9. 46 b&w photographs, notes, index.


ISBN 0-8130-1412-3  Paper, $19.95s


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"An important and gripping story. . . . All future renderings of Florida history will have to be cast in the light thrown by these scholarly chapters."--Michael Gannon, University of Florida Distinguished Service Professor


"These carefully researched, cogently argued essays offer vivid and much-needed insights into the complicated story of race relations in Florida, in particular, the experience of Florida's African-Americans."--William H. Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History, Duke University



"A remarkable set of scholarly essays [that] make a significant contribution to Florida's state history and to African American history in general. . . . They convey to general readers and students alike the active and dynamic role played by African Americans in American history."--Daniel H. Usner, Jr., Cornell University