[edit]
Main article: History of Florida
The first inhabitants, the Paleo-Indians entered Florida at least 14,000 years ago. By the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a historical record, major groups of people living in Florida included the Apalachee of the Florida Panhandle, the Timucua of northern and central Florida, the Ais of the central Atlantic coast, the Mayaimi of the Lake Okeechobee area, the Tequesta of southeastern Florida, and the Calusa of southwest Florida.
European arrival[edit]
Main articles: New Spain, Spanish Florida, French and Indian War, Treaty of Paris (1763), West Florida, East Florida, Indian Reserve (1763), American Revolutionary War, Gulf Coast campaign, Treaty of Paris (1783), and Spanish West Florida
A map of Florida, likely based on the expeditions of Hernando de Soto (1539–1543)
The design of Castillo de San Marcos reflects the colors and shapes of the Cross of Burgundy and the subsequent Flag of Florida.
East Florida and West Florida during the British period of 1763 to 1783
Florida was the first region of what is now the contiguous United States to be visited and settled by Europeans. The first recorded European explorers to reach Florida were Spaniards led by Juan Ponce de León, who sighted the peninsula on April 2, 1513, and came ashore the next day to seek information and take possession of this new land. Differing theories state he named the region La Florida in recognition of the region's abundant flora or La Pascua Florida a Spanish name for the Easter season in which it was thought they first landed. The story that he was searching for the Fountain of Youth is apocryphal and appeared only long after his death.
In May 1539, Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida, searching for a deep harbor to land. He described a thick wall of red mangroves spread mile after mile, some reaching as high as 70 feet (21 m), with intertwined and elevated roots making landing difficult. Europeans introduced Christianity, cattle, horses, sheep, the Spanish language, and more to Florida. During the 1520s, an estimated 700,000 Native Americans lived in Florida, but by 1700, the number decreased to only around 2,000 people.
In the 1500s, Spain established several settlements in Florida, like in 1559 when Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a settlement at present-day Pensacola, making it one of the first settlements in Florida. It was mostly abandoned by 1561. In 1564–1565, there was a French settlement at Fort Caroline, in present Duval County, which was destroyed by the Spanish. Today a reconstructed version of the fort stands in its location within Jacksonville, constructed in the mid-1960s.
In 1565, the settlement of St. Augustine (San Agustín) was established under the leadership of admiral and governor Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, creating what would become the oldest continuously occupied European settlements in the continental U.S. and establishing the first generation of Floridanos and the Government of Florida. The marriage between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville, and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian, occurred in 1565 in St. Augustine. It is the first recorded Christian marriage in the continental United States.
Some Floridanos married or had unions with Pensacola, Creek, or African women, both slave and free, and their descendants created a mixed-race population of mestizos and mulattoes. The Spanish encouraged slaves from the Thirteen Colonies to come to Florida as a refuge, promising freedom in exchange for conversion to Catholicism. King Charles II of Spain issued a royal proclamation freeing all slaves who fled to Florida and accepted conversion and baptism. Most went to the area around St. Augustine, but escaped slaves also reached Pensacola. St. Augustine had mustered an all-black militia unit defending Florida as early as 1683.
The region was frequently coveted and attacked, with English colonists and buccaneers launching several attacks on St. Augustine in the 17th and 18th centuries. Spain built the Castillo de San Marcos in 1672 and Fort Matanzas in 1742 to defend Florida's capital city from attacks, and to maintain its strategic position in the defense of the Captaincy General of Cuba and the Spanish West Indies. Established in 1738 by governor Manuel de Montiano, Fort Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (near St. Augustine) became the first legally sanctioned, free Black settlement in North America, where escaped slaves gained freedom in exchange for militia service.
In 1763, as part of the Treaty of Paris ending the Seven Years' War, Spain traded Florida with Britain in exchange for Havana, Cuba, which the British had taken previously; in compensation Spain received Louisiana from France, and many residents, along with much of the remaining Indigenous population, departed for Cuba. The British built the King's Road from St. Augustine to the Georgia line, crossing the St. Johns River at Wacca Pilatka, later known as 'Cow Ford', which is now the core of Downtown Jacksonville. They split Las Floridas into East Florida and West Florida, a division later kept by Spain, and used land grants to attract settlers, establishing English-speaking communities in what are now Duval, Baker, St. Johns, and Nassau counties. The British promoted the cultivation of sugarcane, indigo, and fruit; expanded lumber exports; and introduced common law, including trial by jury, habeas corpus, and county government. Neither East nor West Florida sent delegates to draft the Declaration of Independence, and the Floridas remained a Loyalist stronghold during the American Revolution.
In 1783, Spain regained both East and West Florida after Britain's defeat in the Revolutionary War and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles, and continued the provincial divisions until 1821.
Statehood and Indian removal[edit]
See also: Republic of East Florida, Seminole Wars, Adams–Onís Treaty, Florida Territory, Admission to the Union, and List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union
A portrait of a Cracker cowboy by Frederic Remington (1861–1909)Americans of English and Scots Irish descent began moving into northern Florida from the backwoods of Georgia and South Carolina. Despite Spanish territorial restrictions, authorities lacked the resources to effectively police the region, allowing settlers from the United States to continually immigrate into Florida unchecked. These migrants intermingled with remaining British loyalists, ultimately forming the population known as Florida Crackers.
The American settlers established a permanent foothold in the area. The British settlers who had remained also resented Spanish governance, leading to a rebellion in 1810 and the establishment for ninety days of the so-called Free and Independent Republic of West Florida on September 23. After meetings beginning in June, rebels overcame the garrison at Baton Rouge in present-day Louisiana and unfurled the flag of the new republic: a single white star on a blue field. This flag would later become known as the "Bonnie Blue Flag".
In 1810, parts of West Florida were annexed by the proclamation of President James Madison, who claimed the region as part of the Louisiana Purchase. These parts were incorporated into the newly formed Territory of Orleans. The U.S. annexed the Mobile District of West Florida to the Mississippi Territory in 1812. Spain continued to dispute the area, though the United States gradually increased the area it occupied. In 1812, a group of settlers from Georgia, with de facto support from the U.S. federal government, attempted to overthrow the Floridan government in the province of East Florida. The settlers hoped to convince Floridians to join their cause and proclaim independence from Spain, but the settlers lost their tenuous support from the federal government and abandoned their cause by 1813.
Traditionally, historians argued that Seminoles based in East Florida began raiding Georgia settlements and offering havens for runaway slaves. 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. The United States now effectively controlled East Florida. Control was necessary according to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams 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."
A U.S. Marine boat searching the Everglades for Seminoles (hiding in foreground) during the Second Seminole War, which lasted from 1835 to 1842
More recent historians describe that after U.S. independence, settlers in Georgia increased pressure on Seminole lands, and skirmishes near the border led to the First Seminole War (1816–1819). The United States purchased Florida from Spain by the Adams-Onis Treaty (1819) and took possession in 1821. The Seminole were moved out of their rich farmland in northern Florida and confined to a large reservation in the interior of the Florida peninsula by the Treaty of Moultrie Creek (1823). Passage of the Indian Removal Act (1830) led to the Treaty of Payne's Landing (1832), which called for the relocation of all Seminole to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
Some resisted, leading to the Second Seminole War, the bloodiest war against Native Americans in United States history. By 1842, most Seminoles and Black Seminoles, facing starvation, were removed to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Perhaps fewer than 200 Seminoles remained in Florida after the Third Seminole War (1855–1858), having taken refuge in the Everglades, from where they never surrendered to the US. They fostered a resurgence in traditional customs and a culture of staunch independence.
Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or troops due to the devastation caused by the Peninsular War. Madrid, therefore, decided to cede the territory to the United States through the Adams–Onís Treaty, which took effect in 1821. President James Monroe was authorized on March 3, 1821, to take possession of East Florida and West Florida for the United States and provide for initial governance. On behalf of the U.S. government, Andrew Jackson, whom Jacksonville is named after, served as a military commissioner with the powers of governor of the newly acquired territory for a brief period. On March 30, 1822, the U.S. Congress merged East Florida and part of West Florida into the Florida Territory.
By the early 1800s, Indian removal was a significant issue throughout the southeastern U.S. and also in Florida. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act and as settlement increased, pressure grew on the U.S. government to remove the Indians from Florida. Seminoles offered sanctuary to black people, who became known as the Black Seminoles; clashes between whites and Indians grew with the influx of new settlers. In 1832, the Treaty of Payne's Landing promised to the Seminoles lands west of the Mississippi River if they agreed to leave Florida. Many Seminoles left at this time.
Some Seminoles remained, and the U.S. Army arrived in Florida, leading to the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Following the war, approximately 3,000 Seminole and 800 Black Seminole were removed to Indian Territory. A few hundred Seminole remained in Florida in the Everglades.
The Historic Call-Collins House, the Grove, built by slaves in the 1840s, is an antebellum plantation house in Tallahassee.An 1840 advertisement in the Pensacola Gazette offering a $10 ($330 in 2022) reward for the return of a fugitive slave.
On March 3, 1845, only one day before the end of President John Tyler's term in office, Florida became the 27th state, admitted as a slave state and no longer a sanctuary for runaway slaves. Initially its population grew slowly.
As European settlers continued to encroach on Seminole lands, the United States intervened to move the remaining Seminoles to the West. The Third Seminole War (1855–1858) resulted in the forced removal of most of the remaining Seminoles, although hundreds of Seminole Indians remained in the Everglades.
The first settlements and towns in South Florida were founded much later than those in the northern part of the state. The first permanent European settlers arrived in the early 19th century. People came from the Bahamas to South Florida and the Keys to hunt for treasure from the ships that ran aground on the treacherous Great Florida Reef. Some accepted Spanish land offers along the Miami River. At about the same time, the Seminole Indians arrived, along with a group of runaway slaves. The area was affected by the Second Seminole War, during which Major William S. Harney led several raids against the Indians. Most non-Indian residents were soldiers stationed at Fort Dallas. It was the most devastating Indian war in American history, causing almost a total loss of population in Miami.
After the Second Seminole War ended in 1842, William English re-established a plantation started by his uncle on the Miami River. He charted the "Village of Miami" on the south bank of the Miami River and sold several plots of land. In 1844, Miami became the county seat, and six years later a census reported there were ninety-six residents in the area. The Third Seminole War was not as destructive as the second, but it slowed the settlement of southeast Florida. At the end of the war, a few of the soldiers stayed.
Civil War and Reconstruction[edit]
Main article: Florida in the American Civil War
See also: American Civil War and Reconstruction eraThe Battle of Olustee during the American Civil War in 1864
American settlers began to establish cotton plantations in north Florida, which required numerous laborers, which they supplied by buying slaves in the domestic market. By 1860, Florida had only 140,424 people, of whom 44% were enslaved. There were fewer than 1,000 free African Americans before the American Civil War.
On January 10, 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". The ordinance declared Florida's secession from the Union, allowing it to become one of the founding members of the Confederate States.
The Confederacy received little military help from Florida; the 15,000 troops it offered were generally sent elsewhere. Instead of troops and manufactured goods, Florida did provide salt and, more importantly, beef to feed the Confederate armies. This was particularly important after 1864, when the Confederacy lost control of the Mississippi River, thereby losing access to Texas beef. The largest engagements in the state were the Battle of Olustee, on February 20, 1864, and the Battle of Natural Bridge, on March 6, 1865. Both were Confederate victories. The war ended in 1865.
Following the American Civil War, Florida's congressional representation was restored on June 25, 1868, albeit forcefully after Reconstruction and the installation of unelected government officials under the final authority of federal military commanders. After the Reconstruction period ended in 1876, white Democrats regained power in the state legislature. In 1885, they created a new constitution, followed by statutes through 1889 that disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites.
In the pre-automobile era, railroads played a key role in the state's development, particularly in coastal areas. In 1883, the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad connected Pensacola and the rest of the Panhandle to the rest of the state. In 1884, the South Florida Railroad (later absorbed by Atlantic Coast Line Railroad) opened full service to Tampa. In 1894, the Florida East Coast Railway reached West Palm Beach; in 1896 it reached Biscayne Bay near Miami. Numerous other railroads were built all over the interior of the state.
20th century[edit]
Vacationers at the newly opened Don Cesar Hotel in St. Pete Beach, Florida, in 1928
Florida's economy has been based primarily upon agricultural products such as citrus fruits, strawberries, nuts, sugarcane and cattle. The boll weevil devastated cotton crops during the early 20th century.
Until the mid-20th century, Florida was the least-populous state in the Southern United States. In 1900, its population was only 528,542, of whom nearly 44% were African American, the same proportion as before the Civil War. Forty thousand blacks, roughly one-fifth of their 1900 population levels in Florida, left the state in the Great Migration. They left due to lynchings and racial violence and for better opportunities in the North and the West. Disfranchisement for most African Americans in the state persisted until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s gained federal legislation in 1965 to enforce protection of their constitutional suffrage.
White segregationists (foreground) trying to prevent black people from swimming at a "white only" beach in St. Augustine during the 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests
In response to racial segregation in Florida, a number of protests occurred in Florida during the 1950s and 1960s as part of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1956–1957, students at Florida A&M University organized a bus boycott in Tallahassee to mimic the Montgomery bus boycott and succeeded in integrating the city's buses. Students also held sit-ins in 1960 in protest of segregated seating at local lunch counters, and, in 1964, an incident at a St. Augustine motel pool, in which the owner poured acid into the water during a demonstration, influenced the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Economic prosperity in the 1920s stimulated tourism to Florida and related development of hotels and resort communities. Combined with its sudden elevation in profile was the Florida land boom of the 1920s, which brought a brief period of intense land development. In 1925, the Seaboard Air Line broke the FEC's southeast Florida monopoly and extended its freight and passenger service to West Palm Beach; two years later, it extended passenger service to Miami. Devastating hurricanes in 1926 and 1928, followed by the Great Depression, brought that period to a halt. Florida's economy did not fully recover until the military buildup for World War II.[citation needed]
Miami's Freedom Tower, built in 1925, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
In 1939, Florida was described as "still very largely an empty State." Subsequently, the growing availability of air conditioning, the climate, and a low cost of living made the state a haven. Migration from the Rust Belt and the Northeast sharply increased Florida's population after 1945.[citation needed]
In the 1960s, many refugees from Cuba, fleeing Fidel Castro's communist regime, arrived in Miami at the Freedom Tower, where the federal government used the facility to process, document and provide medical and dental services for the newcomers. As a result, the Freedom Tower was also called the "Ellis Island of the South". In recent decades, more migrants have come for the jobs in a developing economy.
21st century[edit]
Walt Disney World opened on October 1, 1971, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee.
With a population of 21.5 million, according to the 2020 census, Florida is the most populous state in the southeastern United States and the third-most populous in the United States. The population of Florida has boomed in recent years with the state being the recipient of the largest number of out-of-state movers in the country as of 2019. Florida's growth has been widespread, as cities throughout the state have continued to see population growth.
In 2012, the killing of Trayvon Martin, a young black man, by George Zimmerman in Sanford drew national attention to Florida's stand-your-ground laws, and sparked African American activism, including the Black Lives Matter movement.
After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in September 2017, a large population of Puerto Ricans began moving to Florida to escape the widespread destruction. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans arrived in Florida after Maria dissipated, with nearly half of them arriving in Orlando and large populations also moving to Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach.
Memorials to the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting left on the fence of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016
A handful of high-profile mass shootings have occurred in Florida in the 21st century. In June 2016, a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando. It is the deadliest incident in the history of violence against LGBT people in the United States, as well as the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks in 2001, and it was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history until the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. In February 2018, 17 people were killed in a school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, leading to new gun control regulations at both the state and federal level.
On June 24, 2021, a condominium in Surfside, Florida, near Miami collapsed, killing at least 97 people. The Surfside collapse is tied with the Knickerbocker Theatre collapse as the third-deadliest structural engineering failure in United States history, behind the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse and the collapse of the Pemberton Mill.
