History of slavery in Florida

Slavery in Florida began under Spanish rule and continued under American and later Confederate rule. It was abolished in 1865, when the American federal government regained control in 1865. Slavery continues in Florida as human trafficking.

Spanish Florida

The peninsula of modern-day Florida was under the control of the Spanish until the mid 1700s when it was briefly owned by the British, only to be returned to Spain a few years later. Prior to the colony being turned over to the British, there was a period in the early 1700s during which Spanish Florida was a hotbed for the raiding natives from the northern Carolina and Georgia areas. Though they were left alone for the most part by one of the original raising groups, the Westos - who are said to be descendent of the Erie People, Spanish Florida was heavily targeted by the later raiding groups the Yamasee and the Creek. These raids in which villages were destroyed and natives were either captured or killed drove the natives to the hands of the Spanish who attempted to protect them as best they could from the invaders. However, they strength of the Spanish dwindled and as the raids continued the Spanish and Natives were forced to retreat further and further back into the peninsula. The raids were also so frequent that there were barely any natives left to capture and so the Yamasee and Creek began bringing less and less slaves to the Carolina colonies to effectively continue the trade. The retreat of the Spanish was only ended when the Yamasee and Creek entered what would later be known as the Yamasee War with the Carolina colony.^[1]

Since the beginning of the 18th century, Spanish Florida attracted numerous African slaves who escaped from British slavery in the Thirteen Colonies. Once the slaves reached Florida, the Spanish freed them if they converted to Roman Catholicism. Most settled in a community called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first settlement of free slaves in North America.

The former slaves also found refuge among the Creek and Seminole, Native Americans who had established settlements in Florida at the invitation of the Spanish government. In 1771, Governor John Moultrie wrote to the English Board of Trade, "It has been a practice for a good while past, for negroes to run away from their Masters, and get into the Indian towns, from whence it proved very difficult to get them back."^[2] When British government officials pressured the Native Americans to return the fugitive slaves, they replied that they had "merely given hungry people food, and invited the slaveholders to catch the runaways themselves."^[2]

After the American Revolution, slaves from the State of Georgia and the Low Country escaped to Florida. The U.S. Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. The United States afterwards effectively controlled East Florida. According to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the US had to take action there because Florida had become "a derelict open to the occupancy of every enemy, civilized or savage, of the United States, and serving no other earthly purpose than as a post of annoyance to them.".^[3] Spain requested British intervention, but London declined to assist Spain in the negotiations. Some of President James Monroe's cabinet demanded Jackson's immediate dismissal, but Adams realized that it put the U.S. in a favorable diplomatic position. Adams negotiated very favorable terms.^[4]

As Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons, the Crown decided to cede the territory to the United States. It accomplished this through the Adams–Onís Treaty in 1820.

Florida under American rule

Florida became an organized territory of the United States on March 30, 1822 and allowed slavery. The free blacks and Indian slaves, Black Seminoles, living near St. Augustine, fled to Havana, Cuba to avoid coming under US control. Some Seminole also abandoned their settlements and moved further south.^[5] Hundreds of Black Seminoles and fugitive slaves escaped in the early nineteenth century from Cape Florida to The Bahamas, where they settled on Andros Island.^[6]

American settlers began to establish cotton plantations in northern Florida, which required numerous laborers, which they supplied by buying slaves in the domestic market. On March 3, 1845, Florida became a slave state of the United States of America. Almost half the state's population were enslaved African Americans working on large cotton and sugar plantations, between the Apalachicola and Suwannee rivers in the north central part of the state.^[7] Like the people who owned them, many slaves had come from the coastal areas of Georgia and the Carolinas. They were part of the Gullah-Gee Chee culture of the Lowcountry. Others were enslaved African Americans from the Upper South who had been sold to traders taking slaves to the Deep South. By 1860, Florida had 140,424 people, of whom 44% were enslaved and fewer than 1,000 free people of color.^[8] Their labor accounted for 85 percent of the state's cotton production.

In January 1861, nearly all delegates in the Florida Legislature approved an ordinance of secession, declaring Florida to be "a sovereign and independent nation" — an apparent reassertion to the preamble in Florida's Constitution of 1838, in which Florida agreed with Congress to be a "Free and Independent State." According to historian William C. Davis, "protection of slavery" was "the explicit reason" for Florida's declaring of secession, as well as the creation of the Confederacy itself.^[9]

Confederate authorities used slaves as teamsters to transport supplies and as laborers in salt works and fisheries. Many Florida slaves working in these coastal industries escaped to the relative safety of Union-controlled enclaves during the American Civil War. Beginning in 1862, Union military activity in East and West Florida encouraged slaves in plantation areas to flee their owners in search of freedom. Some worked on Union ships and, beginning in 1863, more than a thousand enlisted as soldiers and sailors in the United States Colored Troops of the military.^[10]

Escaped and freed slaves provided Union commanders with valuable intelligence about Confederate troop movements. They also passed back news of Union advances to the men and women who remained enslaved in Confederate-controlled Florida. Planter fears of slave uprisings increased as the war went on.^[11]

In May 1865, Federal control was re-established, slavery abolished.

Human trafficking

After California and New York, Florida has the most human trafficking cases in the United States.^[12] Florida has had cases of sex trafficking, domestic servitude, and forced labor.^[13]

Florida has a large agricultural economy and a large immigrant population, which has made it a prime environment for forced labor,^[13] particularly in the tomato industry. Concerted efforts have led to the freeing of thousands of slaves in recent years.^[14] The National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported receiving 1,518 calls and emails in 2015 about human trafficking in Florida.^[15]

See also

• Indian_slave_trade_in_the_American_Southeast#Slavery_in_Florida

References