Drain. Frustrate. Embarrass. Confuse. A folkloric look at La Florida v Empire
The tenacious subtropical swamp environs of the Floridian peninsula have long played a key role in the region’s historical resistance to imperial, authoritarian and undemocratic rule.
Florida, meaning Fiorita or The Flowered One, has dealt with many
invaders, conflicts, resistances, rebellions, and challengers-
At least from the moment Chicxulub, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs
crashed into the nearby Yucatan peninsula and set off
the mega-tsunami that smashed into her shores.
Indeed, the name I use for this Peninsula of Flowers
comes from one such recent period of paradigm-shifting shocks.
Florida fell under the subjection of the Spanish, the British, the Spanish again,
then the Americans, but she never went down without a fight.
Nor did she ever go down in a way that one may consider “tamed.”
Rather, La Florida found ways to long remain a thorn in the side
of the Empire ruling over her, regardless of who they were.
Sometimes she accomplished this
by draining the imperial nation’s coffers.
Other times by offering refuge and sheltering resistances
against things like land theft, oppression and slavery.
And invariably she did this
by going about her business of being a subtropical swamp.
Here’s a collection of frasi (short sayings)
describing various Empires’ attempts to control La Florida.
The Spanish
“From the very beginning Florida received a bad reputation…”
Even “the Jesuits, energetic and always in pursuit of souls and land,
gave up Florida as a bad risk….”
In fact, by the start of the 17th century,
there was in the Spanish ranks an “anti-Florida movement”
likely due to the fact that “the whole structure of Florida
was in a continuous state of confusion…”
Or as one Governor of Cuba put it:
It “is hard to get anyone to go to St. Augustine
because of the horror with which Florida is painted.
Only hoodlums and the mischievous go there from Cuba.”
For two hundred years, Spain had with La Florida
“a policy of bankruptcy” and “tide of failure,”
which ended with them quite happily giving up the Peninsula to the British
in return for control of La Havana at the end of the Anglo-Spanish War.
The British
Convinced that Spanish failures were due to their own laziness,
the British soon discovered they too had trouble
dominating this land that is half-water.
In fact, “they struggled to give away most of Florida…”
Of the settlers that were living here, a curious cultural pattern
and possible ancestral link to today’s Florida Man
was noted by one British surveyor who observed that:
“The manners and way of life of the white people in Florida
differ very greatly from those in other provinces of America.”
This, of course, is not to imply that Florida Man
is strictly white or European-descended.
Our regional icon can manifest in individuals from any of Florida’s
vast and ever-increasing number of cultural corners.
However, it feels historically fair to note that local whites
have contributed, perhaps heavily, to his character.
But I digress…
Florida’s approach, it seems, to undermining foreign rule
was to hassle the British by finding ways to upend
the imperial preference for demure, ordered daily living.
She accomplished this through her climate, which, to this day,
happily houses “insects, vermin, and reptiles”
and includes hurricanes and tropical storms,
the likes of which the British had never seen.
In fact, one “violent tempest” caused so much terror
it sent a whole camp into “an uproar…
“…women and children were running screaming…
men were all in confusion.”
In the end, it was Florida’s newly gained geo-political positioning
as “a crossroads in the international Atlantic world” that did the British in.
Alongside the “constant threat of warfare” from other Imperial states
materialized a new threat- the American Revolution-
during which Spain took the opportunity to seize
the westernmost part of Florida known as the Panhandle today.
At the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which made peace
and split land among the Imperials but not the Indigenous,
La Florida went back to the Spanish,
which triggered in her British colonies
“anything but the orderly and prompt evacuation
which the peacemakers envisioned.”
There was “confusion in the colony” and troops in a “near-mutiny.”
One St Augustine resident detailed the traitors’ plans:
“To burn the barracks, plunder the Town & take
Possession of the Fort, to arm all the [Black folks],
… and to put every white Man to Death that opposed
them keeping the Country to themselves….”
The American
Even prior to American governance, Florida agitated
her new colonial neighbor in two distinct ways:
First, by being under Spanish rule, which created
“a large foreign appendage on the southeast border”
And second, by offering Black people a refuge from slavery
where they could form their own defensive militias,
the existence of which haunted
Southern plantation-owners to her North
with “the very idea” that Black people had “guns in their hands.”
When the Americans bought La Florida from the Spanish,
they, like the Imperials before them, did not consult with the Seminoles
nor respected for very long their right to their homeland
and here again we see the Peninsula of Flowers bucking forced rule.
In what would become
the U.S.’s longest war against an Indigenous people,
the Peninsula of Flowers took her aim at American arrogance.
When describing the government’s efforts to remove the Seminoles,
“embarrassed” is a word one sees over and over again.
“Drained” is another.
“Frustrated” a third.
For example, the press began “to ask embarrassing questions”
and there was “a drain… on the nation’s defense establishment.”
American leaders were
“fed up,” “frustrated,” and “tired of Florida.”
Over the course of more than 40 years, 3 wars and much immense
suffering, sacrifice and injustice of which I cannot adequately speak,
the combination of Seminole determination and their homeland’s capacity
to drain, frustrate, embarrass, and confuse outside aggressors resulted in:
“Perhaps 150 Seminoles [who] did not go west…
and the approximately 2,500 Seminoles who now reside in Florida
are descendants of these tenacious warriors and their wives.”
*
If there is any lesson to be learned
about the attempt to dominate the Peninsula of Flowers,
I believe it can be found in the words
of one Spanish General who gave this fair warning:
“The king who takes control of La Florida
will not control it for very long
because the land always finds a way
to govern itself.”
*
*
*
Quote References & Resources
Arnade, Charles W. “The Failure of Spanish Florida.” The Americas, vol. 16, no. 3, Cambridge University Press, 1960, pp. 271–81, https://doi.org/10.2307/979524.
- “a policy of bankruptcy” (p. 271)
- “is hard to get anyone to go to St. Augustine because of the horror with which Florida is painted. Only hoodlums and the mischievous go there from Cuba.” (p. 273)
- “From the very beginning Florida received a bad reputation…” (p. 271)
- “The Jesuits, energetic and always in pursuit of souls and land,
gave up Florida as a bad risk….” (p. 271) - “The whole structure of Florida was in a continuous state of confusion…” (p. 279)
- “tide of failure” (p. 271)
Bauer, Deborah L. “‘… In a Strange Place…’: The Experiences of British Women during the Colonization of East & West Florida.” The Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 89, no. 2, Florida Historical Society, 2010, pp. 145–85, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29765165.
- “A crossroads in the international Atlantic world” (p.179)
- “Anti-Florida movement” (p.179)
- “An uproar…women and children were running screaming…
men were all in confusion.” (p. 160) - “Insects, vermin, and reptiles” (161)
- “constant threat of warfare” (p. 179)
- “Violent tempest” (p. 160)
- “The manners and way of life of the white people in Florida
differ very greatly from those in other provinces of America” (p.157)
“Florida Men on Florida Man.” https://www.fmofm.com, Episode 75, May 2020.
- “The king who takes control of La Florida will not control it for very long
because the land always finds a way to govern itself.” - “They struggled to give away most of Florida…”
Missall, John and Mary Lou. “The Seminole Wars: America’s Longest Indian Conflict.” University Press of Florida, 2004.
- “a drain… on the nation’s defense establishment” (page number lost)
- “a large foreign appendage on the southeast border” (p. 18)
- “fed up” (page number lost)
- “frustrated and hopeless” (p.197)
- “Perhaps 150 Seminoles [who] did not go west…The approximately 2,500 Seminoles who now reside in Florida are descendants of these tenacious warriors and their wives.” (p. 221)
- with “the very idea” that Black people had “guns in their hands" (page number lost)
- “tired of Florida” (p. 178)
- “to ask embarrassing questions” (page number lost)
Troxler, Carole Watterson. “Loyalist Refugees and the British Evacuation of East Florida, 1783–1785.” The Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 1, Florida Historical Society, 1981, pp. 1–28, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30148549.
- “Anything but the orderly and prompt evacuation which the peacemakers envisioned.” (p. 2)
- “Confusion in the colony” (p. 7)
- “laziness,”
- “Near-mutiny”
- “To burn the barracks, plunder the Town & take Possession of the Fort, to arm all the Negroes and to put every white Man to Death that opposed them keeping the County to themselves….” (p. 7)
