Gadsden County became Florida's fifth county in 1823, two years after the territory was formally acquired from Spain. Named for James Gadsden, the aide-de-camp to Andrew Jackson, Gadsden County has attracted people for centuries. From prehistoric Indian settlements and Spanish explorers to land acquisitions of the Forbes Purchase, the county has long been a magnet. Its mystique includes the "Coca-Cola Legend," shade tobacco, and ties to two popular books about the South: Gone with the Wind and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Long before Gadsden County was established in 1823, this area of Florida was the scene of international tensions as nations collided in monumental efforts to establish footholds on the North American continent. In this volume, writer and historian Dale Cox explores the little known early history of Gadsden County, Florida. From early clashes between the Spanish and the original Native American inhabitants of Florida to the rise of the American nation, War of 1812 and opening act of the Civil War in Florida, The Early History of Gadsden COunty opens the door to a story that reads more like adventure than history.
In this book, Tameka Hobbs investigates the history of racial violence and lynchings in Florida, focusing especially on a string of brutal lynchings that occurred during the 1940s. She argues that these lynchings created difficult diplomatic moments during both World War II and the Cold War period and that they forced the U.S. government to become more active in prosecuting racial violence.--Publisher description.
In the 1860's a Northern newspaper referred to Florida as the "smallest tadpole in the dirty pool of secession." Political power in the state was held largely by wealthy white planters. In early 1861, Florida was a rural frontier state that had joined the Union just fifteen years before. Its population of 140,000 was by far the smallest of any of the states that formed the Confederacy. Nearly 63,000 of the population were African Americans, most of whom were slaves working in an agricultural-based economy. The majority of the white population was relatively poor and rural, with a smaller number of tradespeople and their families living in small towns. This work of historical fiction tells the story of one Florida family in the 1860s.
A ground-breaking study revealing the magnitude and impact of African American leadership in Florida during the post-Civil War era. This work also includes an extensive biographical directory of more than 600 officeholders, an appendix of officials by political subdivision, and more.
On July 4, 1845, the piercing sound of a steamboat's whistle along the banks of the Coosa River served as an exotic, technological proclamation for the beginning of a new era in Northeast Alabama. The landing of Captain James Lafferty's steamboat, the Coosa, marked the genesis of a new town and the realization of a shared vision of Gabriel Hughes, Joseph Hughes, and John S. Moragne. From that moment on, hundreds upon hundreds of pioneering men and women immigrated to Gadsden in the latter part of the nineteenth century pursuing the American dream of land and opportunity. Gadsden: City of Champions, with over 100 black-and-white illustrations, presents a comprehensive history of Gadsden's astonishing development and details the various stages of the city's evolution, from a neutral playing field between rival Cherokee and Creek tribes, to a wilderness stagecoach stop, to a humble village, to a major riverboat port, into a modern industrial city. Amid streetcars, opera houses, bustling mills, and unpaved streets, readers meet local figures, such as Colonel R.B. Kyle, Captain James M. Elliott Jr., Judge John H. Disque, Emma Sansom, and John W. Wisdom, and a host of colorful CHaracters-riverboat pilots, theater managers, mill workers, Pulltight saloonkeepers, and bootleggers-against an epic backdrop of war, Reconstruction, depression, fire, and prosperity.
A Floridian historian traces the founding of Tampa back to 1824 as Fort Brooke, and draws on previously unpublished material on its history up to antebellum days including the Seminole Wars, hurricanes, and dreams of being a railroad town.
