The next few “in-between Life of Paul” posts, I’m going to focus on Florida History – not a complete history of the state, but just a few points to familiarize you (especially non-Floridians) with some of the key points. Then after that I’ll be doing a series of posts about the History Museum at which I currently work.

If you’d like to see a historical timeline, you can view one on the Florida Memory website. Florida Memory also has a nice archive of historical photos, records, and such that makes for interesting browsing. Like all of North America, the Florida peninsula was inhabited by indigenous peoples. The first Europeans to arrive were the Spaniards and then the French about 50 years later. St. Augustine was established in 1565, making it the first permanent European settlement in North America.

The French and Indian War (Seven Years War) led to the transfer of the Florida colonies from Spain to England in 1763. It was also at this time that the native populations in Florida began to coalesce into the people group called the Seminoles.

Florida remained loyal to England during the Revolutionary War. The end of that war resulted in the return of Florida back to Spain. But about 40 years later, Florida became a U.S. territory, in 1821. Andrew Jackson was its first appointed governor, and he was largely responsible for the clashes with the Seminoles which became known as the First, Second, and Third Seminole wars leading up to the years of the Civil War (but the Seminoles see them as one continuous conflict). These conflicts were never truly resolved and the Seminoles still consider themselves unconquered, having never signed any treaty with the U.S. They have a very interesting history which can be viewed on the Seminole Tribe of Florida website.

Florida became a state in 1845 but then joined the Confederacy in 1861. There were some Civil War skirmishes in Northern Florida, but Florida served largely as a supply line for the Confederate army. After the Civil War, Florida began to see more settlers and industries move in. I’ll talk more about these in future posts, but just to name a few – turpentine camps, agriculture, railroad development, logging, cattle ranching, and tourism.

I was surprised by the relative lateness of the settling of Florida. I worked three years for the California Trail Interpretive Center, which told the story of the mass migration to California from 1841 to 1869. Florida’s growth actually post-dated this westward migration, so in essence, even though it was the site of the earliest settlement in America, Florida was a later frontier than much of the west.

There is a popular historical fiction novel that is highly respected and recommended in Florida. Titled A Land Remembered, it was published in 1984 by Patrick Smith. It is the account of three generations of the McIvey family (again, fictional but with historical content interwoven into the story) as they settle in Florida from Georgia in 1858. It follows their struggle to eke out an existence in the wilderness and eventually building a cattle and citrus empire that mimics the story of quite a few of the Florida pioneers. It follows the family all the way to the urban sprawl of the Miami area in the 1970s.

The book opens near the end of the story, so Chapter 1 introduces people and references that you don’t really learn about until much later in the book. The book is read a lot in schools here and the student edition places Chapter 1 chronologically near the end of the book to make it less confusing. The book can be purchased, but you can also read a copy of it with a free account on The Internet Archive.

The late Patrick Smith wrote several other fictional books about Florida history including some stories that depict the Seminole life and struggles. You can see more about his other books at alandremembered.com.

My other Florida history posts will focus on the museum here in central Florida where I’ll tell a little more detail about some of the people, events, and places here.