The News-Leader is running a series throughout the year on the history of Fernandina and Nassau County in celebration of the 200th anniversary of both. In previous articles in the series, we explored how the British model of plantations based on slave labor was introduced to the area during colonial times. We offered a brief overview of a few of the plantations that once existed on Amelia Island and on mainland Nassau County.
Annexation as a U.S. territory in 1821 opened the floodgates for American plantation owners to relocate to Florida and, by 1840, plantations using slave labor to cultivate cotton, sugar and indigo for sale abroad became a primary economic force. In constant fear of a slave uprising, American planters succeeded in legislating harsh, punitive new laws toward slaves and free Blacks.
Plantations flourished in Middle Florida, along the rivers and coastline of the Florida Panhandle. However, the prosperity generated in the “Plantation Belt” did not extend to northeastern Florida. St. Augustine, with its exotic blend of ethnicities, including people from Minorca and Greece, remained the most populated town in East Florida. Much of the rest of the area remained a frontier.
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Upon annexation as a U.S. territory, sparsely populated Florida was divided into two large counties, Escambia to the west of the Suwannee River and St. Johns to the east. The 1,200 people living south of the St. Marys River had to travel by wagon or horseback via The Kings Road or sail to St. Augustine to tend to legal affairs. As more counties evolved, the county seat changed from St. Augustine to Jacksonville.
In 1824, Nassau County was carved out of then Duval County. During the British occupation the Nassau River and Nassau Sound had already been named after the Duchy of Nassau in western Germany, likely because of its association with William III, Prince of Orange, and King of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1689 to 1702. Both Nassau County and the port of Nassau in the Bahamas derived their names from this same source.
Fernandina was designated the county seat at the time. However, despite its incorporation in 1825, the town failed to thrive. The port of Fernandina had been in decline since U.S. forces put an end to piracy and smuggling. In his book “The East Coast of Florida, Vol. I,” author Ellwood C. Nance described Fernandina as consisting of one small store, a four-room boarding house and a few houses. Just one ship a year visited the harbor. Mail came from “prosperous” St. Marys. Even as late as 1844, a U.S. Naval officer passing by “the little town” of Fernandina described it in his diary as in state of “dilapidation and decay.” He estimated it to have 50 to 60 inhabitants at the time and remarked its only grace was a pretty grove of orange trees surrounding the town.
Soon Nassau County commissioners were tasked by the legislature to search for a new county seat that was more centrally located. They chose a site near where John D. Braddock and his wife, Martha, had established a plantation in 1807 named Sand Hill. The site was apparently also near the summer home of another wealthy landowner who called his estate Evergreen. Both names are used in the literature interchangeably to describe the location where a log cabin courthouse was erected. A canal was dug to float timber to the building site that became known as Court House Ditch.
A visitor to the court in 1843, Bishop Henry Whipple wrote in his diary, “The County Seat was located about 12 miles out in the pine woods. There were about 150 people gathered for the meeting of the Court. The Court House was a rude log and rough board building with half of the windows with glass and the rest with wooden shutters. The Jury Room was a pole enclosure without a roof. This arrangement probably made for prompt action by a jury since sitting in a pole enclosure under a good hot Florida sun would not encourage long deliberation.” Whipple made some other observations about the administration of justice at the time. Manslaughter, bigamy and “false packing of cotton” all came under the same heading. Punishment for murder was two years in jail or payment of a $1,000 fine.
The county seat later moved to Callahan. Fernandina would not become the county seat again until after the Civil War in 1866.
Nassau County had the distinction of creating the first Protestant Church in Florida. Upon annexation to the U.S. in 1821, the Pigeon Creek Baptist Church was formed near Boulogne. It had 12 members, one of whom was a Black man. Previously, under Spanish rule, the only form of public worship allowed had been the Catholic church.
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Although no battles in a succession of three Seminole Wars took place on Nassau County soil, the campaign to drive Native Americans out of Florida was a topic of much interest in local newspapers of the time.
General Andrew Jackson had invaded northern Florida, then a Spanish territory, under the guise of finding runaway American slaves living among the Seminoles. That invasion would later become known as the First Seminole War of 1817-18. President James Monroe sent troops into Fernandina in December 1817 to drive pirates and smugglers from the port. Within a week, General Gaines arrived in Fernandina under the orders of Jackson. American troops remained in Pensacola and Fernandina, thereafter, without resistance from Spain, until Florida was annexed as a U.S. territory in 1821. Most of the destruction of Native American villages during that campaign occurred along the Suwannee River and in the Panhandle.
As mentioned in earlier articles, the Seminoles were not one tribe but many. They included tribes that had migrated south from Georgia during the previous century and spoke a variety of Muskogean languages. Runaway Black slaves and free Blacks who lived in harmony among the Seminoles became known as Black Seminoles. Most Black Seminoles lived separately from the Native Americans in their own villages but adopted the same dress, ate the same foods and lived in similar houses. They worked the land together and shared the harvest. Many adopted native customs and some intermarried. Many joined the Seminoles as warriors and translators. Black Seminoles would be known for their bravery and tenacity during the three Seminole wars.
Following the First Seminole War and the transfer of Florida from Spain to the U.S., then territorial governor William Duval and diplomat James Gadsden met just south of St. Augustine with several Seminole leaders to negotiate the Treaty of Moultrie Creek in 1823. The treaty obligated the Seminoles to a four million-acre reservation in Central Florida with promises from the U.S. government to provide monies and supplies for the relocation. A few Seminole villages were also allowed to remain along the Apalachicola River. White settlers were allowed to construct roads through the reservation and were be allowed to capture and enslave any Blacks among them. Some Black Seminoles fled to the Bahamas and Mexico. Neither side fully observed the treaty.
Andrew Jackson had quickly resigned his position as military territorial governor and set his sights on the presidency. He was elected president in 1828. Two years later, in 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the resettlement of all Native Americans to lands west of the Mississippi River. Seminoles were given three years to give up their lands and move to present-day Oklahoma. Part of the tribe signed a treaty in 1832 and moved. Other Seminoles refused and went into hiding in the Everglades.
Thus began the Second Seminole War of 1835-42. It would evolve into the most costly of all battles with Native Americans, exceeding $20 million. It was also considered the fiercest. More than 1,500 soldiers were killed, along with countless white civilians. The Seminoles proved to be skilled guerilla fighters. Less than 3,000 Seminoles under the leadership of multiple chiefs battled four generals and 30,000 troops for seven years.
The Second Brigade Florida Militia, which included men from Nassau and Duval counties, was called to duty in 1836 to fight in the Second Seminole War after a band of Seminoles ambushed and killed more than 100 soldiers marching from Tampa to Ocala.
During the Second Seminole War, the New York Herald reported on June 8, 1841, an attack on Nassau County settlers near what is now Bryceville. William Barber was brutally murdered by Indians at his homestead, but his wife and two young children managed to escape while the Indians were plundering their home. While fleeing on route to Jacksonville, the survivors met four men who reported that another settler, Daniel Green, had also been murdered the same day by the same group of Indians.
Historians confirm the U.S. government used deceit and treachery in trying to put an end to the “Indian conflict,” tactics that would prove detrimental in all future dealings with Native Americans. The Seminole Chief Osceola was captured only when U.S. troops tricked him with a flag of truce, then captured and imprisoned him. Although no peace treaty was ever signed, an end to the hostilities was declared in 1842. More than 3,000 Seminoles had been relocated to Oklahoma.
A Third Seminole War broke out in 1855 between white settlers fighting over land with the remaining Seminoles. Military patrols and rewards for the capture of Seminoles reduced the Native American population to 200; 300 individuals who went into hiding in the swamps and were not seen for the next two decades. Descendants of those who eluded capture call themselves the “Unconquered People.”
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By 1840, Florida had become an agrarian society. The entire population of East Florida, east of the Suwannee River, including the whole southern peninsula of the state, was reported to be 15,000. Most of the wealth and political power remained with the elite plantation owners in Middle Florida. With the exception of a small group of townsfolk like shop keepers, merchants, artisans and builders, the majority of white Floridians were small subsistence farmers. Ironically, once Native Americans were out of the way and the interior of the state opened up for more settlement, newcomers found the sandy soil less fertile than along the coasts and rivers where plantations thrived.
These subsistence farmers became known as Crackers. The origin of the name is a subject of speculation. However, these frontiersmen tended to live in relative isolation. Even into the 1850s, wilderness could still be found on the mainland. They built log cabins for themselves and their families and, with good fortune, later a two-story rough-hewn lumber house with a veranda. Kitchens were separate buildings linked to the main house by a covered breezeway. Vegetable gardens, chicken coops and pig pens typically surrounded the house. Crackers who raised cattle and horses were the first cowboys in America.
Social events consisted of community gatherings to raise a house, shuck corn, clear land or roll logs into place for fences and buildings. Once a month, families made trips to the county seat to market their goods or get supplies, often in convoys of wagons with neighbors. These monthly trips were also a source of entertainment, and they brought their banjos and fiddles for making music.
Florida Crackers were poor but proud. “It was freedom to control their destiny rather than the possibility of become rich that was their source of pride,” observed one source. They valued self-sufficiency, family life and strong religious faith. Since most did not have a church to attend, circuit preachers ministered to their needs. By 1846, there were 33 Methodist ministers riding the circuit on horseback throughout the state visiting frontier families.
Crackers tended to be politically unsophisticated. They felt, and rightfully so, that the elite planters with all the wealth and power did not have their best interests in mind. Yet it would be these small farmers who would determine whether Florida entered the Union as one state or two.
Next in our series we explore political divisions as Florida approaches statehood and the resurrection of Fernandina with the coming of the railroad.
pbushnell@fbnewsleader.com
Simple structures with front verandas, Florida Cracker houses became part of the vernacular architecture of Florida. Shown is a pioneer home preserved at the Forest Capital Museum State Park in Perry. Submitted
During The Seminole Wars, escaped slaves who had found refuge among the Native American peoples became known as Black Seminoles and joined the battles as warriors. Above, John Cavallo (Gopher John) was a Black Seminole who served as an interpreter and advisor to the Seminole chiefs during the Second Seminole War. This image is from the State Archives of Florida.
William III, also known as William of Orange, was King of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1689 to 1702. He was a descendant of the Duchy of Nassau in Germany. Nassau River, Nassau Sound and Nassau County derived their names from the British king’s lineage. The portrait is by Godfrey Kneller, circa 1690.
Nassau County was carved out of Duval County in 1824. As shown in this map, the county had different boundaries than it does today. The population of the county at the time was described by one writer as “1,200 pioneers.” Submitted