“ A State a Week”
The State of Florida
History
Archaeological research indicates that Florida was first inhabited by Paleo-Indians, the first human inhabitants
of the Americas, perhaps as early as 14 thousand years ago. The region was continuously inhabited through
the Archaic period (to about 2000 BC). After about 500 BC the previously relatively uniform Archaic culture
began to coalesce into distinctive local cultures. By the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a
historical
record,
major Native
American groups
included
the Apalachee (of
the Florida
Panhandle),
the Timucua (of northern and central Florida), the Ais (of the central Atlantic coast), the Tocobaga (of
the Tampa Bay area), the Calusa (of southwest Florida) and the Tequesta (of the southeastern coast).
Florida was the first part of what is now the continental United States to be visited by Europeans. The earliest
known European explorers came with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León, who spotted the
peninsula on April 2, 1513. According to his chroniclers, Ponce de León named the region La Florida ("flowery
land") because it was then the Easter Season, known in Spanish as Pascua Florida (roughly "Flowery Easter"),
and because the vegetation was in bloom. It is possible Juan Ponce de León was not the first European to
reach Florida, however; reportedly, at least one indigenous tribesman whom he encountered in Florida in 1513
spoke Spanish. From 1513 onward, the land became known as "La Florida", although after 1630 and
throughout the 18th century, Tegesta (after the Tequesta tribe) was an alternate name of choice for the Florida
peninsula following publication of a map by the Dutch cartographer Hessel Gerritsz in Joannes de
Laet's History of the New World.
The five flags of Florida from the right, Spain (1565–1763), the Kingdom of
Great Britain, Spain (1784–1821), the Confederacy, and the United States.
France (flag not shown) also controlled part of Florida.
Over the following century, both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida with varying
degrees of success. In 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a colony at present-day Pensacola,
one of the first European attempts at settlement in the continental United States. It was abandoned by 1561
due to hurricanes, famine and warring tribes, and the area was not re-inhabited until the 1690s. French
Protestant Huguenots founded Fort Caroline in modern-day Jacksonville in 1564. The following year, the
Spanish colony of St. Augustine (San Agustín) was established, and forces from there conquered Fort Caroline
that same year. The Spanish maintained tenuous control over the region by converting the local tribes, briefly
with Jesuits and later with Franciscan friars.
Bernard Picart copper plate engraving of Florida Indians, Circa 1721
"Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de tous les Peuples du
Monde"
The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English colonies to the north and French
colonies
to
the
west.
The
English
weakened
Spanish
power
in
the
area
by
supplying
their Creek andYamasee allies with firearms and urging them to raid the Timucuan and Apalachee client-tribes
of the Spanish. The English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several
times, while the citizens hid behind the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos.
Florida was attracting a large number of Africans and African Americans from British-occupied North America
who sought freedom from slavery. Once in Florida, the Spanish Crown converted them to Roman Catholicism
and gave them freedom. Those ex-slaves settled in a community north of St. Augustine, called Gracia Real de
Santa Teresa de Mose, the first freedom settlement of its kind in what became the United States. Many of
those slaves were also welcomed by Creek and Seminole Native Americans who had established settlements
there at the invitation of the Spanish government.
Great Britain gained control of Florida and other territory diplomatically in 1763 through the Peace of Paris. The
British divided their new acquisitions into East Florida, with its capital at St. Augustine, and West Florida, with
its capital at Pensacola. Britain tried to develop the Floridas through the importation of immigrants for labor, but
this project ultimately failed. Spain received both Floridas after Britain's defeat by the American colonies and
the subsequent Treaty of Versailles in 1783, continuing the division into East and West Florida. They offered
land grants to anyone who settled in the colonies, and many Americans moved to them.
After
settler
attacks
on
Indian
towns, Seminole Indians
based
in East
Florida began
raiding Georgia settlements, purportedly at the behest of the Spanish. The United States Army led increasingly
frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminole Indians
by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. Following the war, the United States
effectively controlled East Florida. In 1819, by terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain ceded Florida to the
United States in exchange for the American renunciation of any claims on Texas that they might have from
the Louisiana Purchase and $5 million.
In 1830, the Indian Removal Act was passed and as settlement increased, pressure grew on the United States
government to remove the Indians from their lands in Florida. To the chagrin of Georgia landowners, the
Seminoles harbored and integrated runaway blacks, known as the Black Seminoles, and clashes between
whites and Indians grew with the influx of new settlers. In 1832, the United States government signed
the Treaty of Payne's Landing with some of the Seminole chiefs, promising them lands west of the Mississippi
River if they agreed to leave Florida voluntarily. Many of the Seminoles left at this time, while those who
remained prepared to defend their claims to the land. The U.S. Army arrived in 1835 to enforce the treaty
under pressure from white settlers, and the Second Seminole War began at the end of the year with the Dade
Massacre, when Seminoles ambushed and killed or mortally wounded all but one in a group of 110 Army
troops, plus Major Dade and seven officers, marching from Fort Brooke (Tampa) to reinforce Fort
King (Ocala). Between 900 and 1,500 Seminole Indian warriors employed guerrilla tactics against United
States Army troops for seven years until 1842. The U.S. government is estimated to have spent between $20
million and $40 million on the war, at the time an astronomical sum.
St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States,
established in 1565 by Spain.
On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state of the United States of America, although initially its
population grew slowly. White settlers continued to encroach on lands used by the Seminoles, and the United
States government resolved to make another effort to move the remaining Seminoles to the West. The Third
Seminole War lasted from 1855 to 1858, and resulted in the removal of most of the remaining Seminoles. Even
after three bloody wars, the U.S. Army failed to force all of the Seminole Indians in Florida to the West. Though
most of the Seminoles were forcibly exiled to Creek lands west of the Mississippi, hundreds, including
Seminole leader Aripeka (Sam Jones), remained in the Everglades and refused to leave the native homeland
of their ancestors. Their descendants remain there to this day.
The Battle of Olustee during theAmerican Civil War in 1864
White settlers began to establish cotton plantations in Florida, which required numerous laborers. By 1860
Florida had only 140,424 people, of whom 44% were enslaved. There were fewer than 1000 free African
Americans before the Civil War.
Winter in Florida, 1893
On January 10, 1861, before the start of the American Civil War, Florida declared its secession from the Union;
ten days later, the state became a founding member of the Confederate States of America. The war ended in
1865. On June 25, 1868, Florida's congressional representation was restored. After Reconstruction, white
Democrats succeeded in regaining power in the state legislature. In 1885 they created a new constitution,
followed by statutes through 1889 that effectively disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites over the
next several years. Provisions included poll taxes, literacy tests, and residency requirements. Disfranchisement
for most African Americans in the state persisted until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s gained federal
legislation to protect their suffrage.
Soldiers and crowds in Downtown Miami 20 minutes after surrender during
World War II
Until the mid-20th century, Florida was the least populous Southern state. In 1900 its population was only
528,542, of whom nearly 44% were African America. The boll weevil devastated cotton crops, and early 20th
century lynchings and racial violence caused a record number of African Americans to leave the state in
the Great Migration to northern and midwestern industrial cities. Forty thousand blacks, roughly one-fifth of
their 1900 population, left for better opportunities. National economic prosperity in the 1920s stimulated tourism
to Florida. Combined with its sudden elevation in profile was the Florida land boom of the 1920s, which brought
a brief period of intense land development. Devastating hurricanes in 1926 and 1928, followed by the stock
market crash and Great Depression, brought that period to a halt.
Florida's economy did not fully recover until the buildup for World War II. The climate, tempered by the growing
availability of air conditioning, and low cost of living made the state a haven. Migration from the Rust Belt and
the Northeast sharply increased the population after the war. In recent decades, more migrants have come for
the jobs in a developing economy. With a population of more than 18 million according to the 2010 census,
Florida is the most populous state in the Southeastern United States, the second most populous state in the
South behind Texas, and the fourth most populous in the United States.