The celebration honoring the Declaration of Independence’s semiquincentennial is a chance to broaden the historical narrative to include the history of the 27th U.S. state.
US Infantryman at Loxahatchee Battlefield as told by Dowling Watford
Brief points local history: Second Seminole War’s largest battle was in Palm Beach County
- Florida’s strategic importance to the British during the American Revolution is often overlooked.
- The America250 celebration offers a chance to broaden the historical narrative to include Florida’s complex history, including indigenous peoples.
- Florida’s history includes Spanish, French, and British influences, as well as a significant presence of free Black people and escaped slaves before becoming a U.S. territory.
- Efforts are underway to tell a more complete story of Florida, including the Seminole Wars and the contributions of Black Seminoles.
- The political climate surrounding historical education presents challenges to presenting a comprehensive view of the past.
Between the shots fired around the world outside of Boston and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Florida’s strategic importance to the British crown preoccupied George Washington.
The commander of the Continental Army was well aware that British loyalists who fled the unrest in the 13 colonies careening toward rebellion had resettled in St. Augustine and other parts of East and West Florida, also part of the British empire. The English monarchy and aristocracy placed a premium on the Floridas, given their strategic role in protecting the British sugar trade in the Caribbean.
“From an American perspective, George Washington knew how important Florida was,” said Ben Brotemarkle, executive director of the Florida Historical Society.
Nonetheless, Brotemarkle and the historical society understand that “Florida is excluded a lot when talking about the American Revolution” owing to the focus on the 13 original colonies, where revolutionary battles and political decision-making took place.
But the America250 celebration honoring the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence and the establishment of the country, Brotemarkle and others have said, is a chance to broaden the historical narrative.
“I’m optimistic that the complete history of our state and our nation will continue to be told,” he said. “It’s essential that we tell the complete history of all the people of our state. The America250 celebration is a good way to do that.”
Florida and America250: A complex history, and political moment
Doing so is a tall order, given the complexity of Florida history. Just think of this: It will be decades before Florida records more time as a U.S. state and territory than as a Spanish outpost.
The Spanish landed in Northeast Florida 107 years before the Mayflower arrived on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts Bay. The city of St. Augustine was established 42 years before the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia.
And that doesn’t cover the thousands of years of indigenous people who have lived in what is present day Florida.
“We have a long history of many different cultures living in Florida that have impacted where we are today,” said Brotemarkle. “And that’s not even mentioning, of course which we must, the indigenous people. People have been living in what is now Florida for 15,000 years. There were dozens of sophisticated tribal societies here when Europeans first made contact in 1513. We can’t forget about them.”
Then there is the political climate when it comes to historical research and education.
Florida is a hub of the counter-reaction to the embrace of social history, a broad field of historical study of the past that is concerned with the lives of common people, social structures, institutions and culture. It moves beyond traditional narratives of political leaders and military battles, to document and record the experiences of all Americans.
Social history gained prominence roughly 60 years ago, partly spurred by the civil rights and indigenous peoples movements. But in the past decade, under the guise of “anti-woke” campaigns against political correctness, efforts to teach popular aspects of social history — such as critical race theory — were banned in Florida three years ago.
“We believe in education, not indoctrination,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis at the time. “We believe an important component of freedom in the state of Florida is the freedom from having oppressive ideologies imposed upon you without your consent.”
Loxahatchee battlefield: Telling the ‘story of us’
The backlash will not deter efforts like those of the Loxahatchee Battlefield Preservationists to tell what they say is a “complete” story.
The organization’s secretary, Laurie Corry, said the Second Seminole War battle that took place in northern Palm Beach County 187 years ago is as much a part of U.S. history as other military engagements during the era of Manifest Destiny. It is why she believes in participating in the annual reenactment of the conflict.
“I feel like we highlight living history and we are bringing history alive. And bringing us back the story of us, the story of America, who we are,” she said. “Incorporating those missing 263 years in a complete story.”
Steve Carr, an advocate for preservation of the site, said the “complete story” of the battle also includes understanding the overall context. In 1838, this part of Florida lacked apparent strategic value — no railroads, no mass agriculture, no natural resources such as oil or gold deposits.
“There’s nothing here to fight for,” he said. “Just money. Man, they needed slaves.”
Carr said that is understood by looking at the overall historical setting in antebellum America. The ending of the international slave trade to America coupled with the expulsion of indigenous people from southern territory opened up large swaths of fertile land for crops and plantations. That drove a high demand for slave labor.
“You sit down and you think in these war rooms they’re thinking all this stuff out,” he said. “The problem was it never made it into the history books.”
A hole in the history books for pre- and post-1776 in Florida
Matt Griffin, a Loxahatchee battle reenactor, had firsthand experience with that missing history as a middle school student.
“I distinctly remember opening my social studies book, and the Seminole wars, there’s three wars, there’s a lot of history that goes with that, and it was like three paragraphs,” he said. “Then you turn the page and now we’re in the Civil War. Just glossed over, like, 50 years of history, really, and context. You just turn the page and, I guess, OK, nothing happened between those other dates.”
By then, however, Griffin had been well steeped in early 19th century history. He had been inspired by his grandfather and great uncle, John Griffin, who amassed a collection of western memorabilia — including lunchboxes and comic books about the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy. During Sunday dinners, John Griffin regaled his great nephew with stories about Black cowboys, the Wild West and the Buffalo Soldiers.
The Griffins then ventured to Seminole war reenactments, which Matt Griffin joined by the time he was 10, followed by his great uncle. Today, Griffin not only continues with the reenactments but also speaks about the history of that time to schools and civic group gatherings.
“What happened here is just so pivotal not just to Southern history and also U.S. history,” he said. “This segment of Florida history is important. Although it may not get the recognition that other events or time periods in American history get, or even in Florida history, it played a crucial part in our day-to-day developments.”
Chicago-native Derek Hankerson, president of the Loxahatchee Battlefield Preservationists, said he had a similar experience, noting that despite the broader history education he received, “there was a lot I still had to figure out myself.”
What he learned on his own was both the rich story of Florida in the 263 years before 1776, and how that narrative interacted with the Great Power rivalries.
“England, Spain and France were playing a chess game with this peninsula known as Florida,” he said. “These red and black patriots were part of that story.”
Hankerson, became connected with the Second Seminole War in part through his family’s own noteworthy history, which dates back to 18th-century Florida. His ancestors worked with the Florida Freedmen’s Bureau and War Department after the Civil War out of Tallahassee to assist freed slaves.
Hankerson’s great-great grandfather, the Rev. J. P. Hankerson, served as president of the Florida General Baptist Convention that helped establish a historical Black college and university. His great grandfather, the Rev. J. H. Hankerson, was appointed in 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson to serve as the first Black postmaster in St. Johns County.
His family in St. Augustine lives close to Treaty Park in the area where accords were signed, and broken, leading to the Second Seminole War.Â
His own family’s past points to history as an interconnected continuum, not separate and isolated chapters.
“That is the humbling part about it all,” he said. “No one was able to connect the dots for me. I really had to figure it out, and now that I figured it out it makes far more sense … I was provided this wonderful gift.”
Today, Florida offers uncomfortable, partial history
Throughout its colonial era, but especially in the second Spanish period from the end of the American Revolution to 1821, historians have noted that Florida was a magnet for free Black people and escaped slaves.
Carr said he understands the nature of the battle presents a complicated view from the standpoint of his own years of service in the U.S. Army.
“I am very pro-military,” he said, but the details of the Loxahatchee battle and Seminole wars led him to soul-searching he did not initially expect.
Those details include the heroism of the Seminole and Black Seminole fighters and the sacrifice of the so-called Hungryland woman who accepted her own death so indigenous people could escape an Army siege. And then he reflected on how the Army blasted round after round cannon fire into a cypress hammock inhabited by women and children.
“Those kids getting hammered. Picture that in your heart,” Carr said. “When we heard this my whole idea of this war, and who profited by it, and who lost by it, all changed. It just touched my heart from a human basis.”
The missing historical links are what Hankerson said drive his passion to preserve the battlefield and share the history.
“I can’t control your feelings, but these are the facts that happened in Florida pre-United States of America,” said Hankerson. “These are the facts. And we have 263 years of missing facts and hence why people are confused. We’re just telling this holistic story going back 5,000 years and these facts include red, Black and blue patriots.”
A path for navigating political mood toward America’s 250th anniversary
Brotemarkle understands the fraught political environment.
“It is a challenging time because there are political voices trying to mold how we look at history,” he said. “But all we can do is to look at the complete history of Florida and try to tell the story of all of Florida’s people.
He said the Florida Historical Society will do “everything we can to make sure” the record reflects the history “that goes way back before 1776.”
The organization is planning a broad panel discussion next May, in Daytona Beach to coincide with that city’s 150th anniversary, titled “Florida and America250,” to explain what was happening here in that period in historical perspective and context.
“People who are concerned about history and culture, and preserving it, need to make it their mission and try to tell that complete story,” he said.
Rather than dwell on the polarization, Brotemarkle said the more fruitful course is to focus on what a fascinating and compelling history the “complete” Florida story presents. Consider, he said, that indigenous people have been in the area for close to 15,000 years.
Take into account, too, that during the more recent history — if 500 years is considered modern — various peoples and cultures, from Spanish to French to British, have been present.
America did not spring up all of a sudden on July 4, 1776, “out of nowhere,” Brotemarkle said, and the events of that summer 249 years ago were the culmination of a series of historical pivots and developments. The Florida we know, he said, is the product of “many things that occurred” long before 1776 that “impact our culture and our history still today.”
Brotemarkle noted that “Florida has a rich and diverse multicultural history. We were, arguably, the most diverse state in the Union and still are.”
Post-statehood, he added, included the state’s secession during the Civil War, then Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, the introduction of mass agriculture followed by the population booms of the 20th century fueled by the presence of U.S. military bases during the world wars.
In a span of less than a century, Florida went from the site of just one railroad line to serving as the launch pad for America’s moon missions.
“We have this rich history from indigenous people as far back as human history goes in this country all the way up to what are the hopes for the future,” he said. “We have kind of the bookends of the modern era here in Florida. There’s so much history here and we are going to be celebrating it all.”
Whether the state is successful in celebrating and honoring its own past as well as America’s 250th birthday depends on viewing the past “from as many angles as possible” and that we “represent all of the people that played an important role” in both Florida and U.S. history, Brotemarkle said.
“Anniversaries like America250 are a good opportunity to reflect on what happened before and after,” he said.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. He has a doctorate in U.S. history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com.
