AMH 3421-12AA Florida to 1845 (1865)

Syllabus

AMH 3421-12AA
Florida to 1865, Fall 2015
T, 4 (10:40-11:30)/R, 4-5 (10:40-12:35) Keene-Flint 105
Professor Jack E. Davis
Ofc. Keene-Flint 235
273-3398
davisjac@ufl.edu
Ofc. Hrs.: T, 11:45-12:45/R-12:40-1:40

The first humans arrived in the place that we call Florida around 13,000-12,000 B.P. (before present), when the region was arid and wind-swept, 10,000 years before the great ice melts lifted the seas to form the Florida peninsula. Beginning with the geological formation of Florida, our study will move through the pre-colonial era of native inhabitants, the explorations and settlements of the Spanish and French, the period of British occupation, the reestablishment and demise of Spanish rule, and finally the development of a U.S. territory and state, when political boundaries gave Florida its current legally constituted shape.

Surveying the political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological developments of early Florida enlarges our knowledge of early American history. One can argue, for example, that the history of few other places better illustrates the geopolitical struggles of the era, when European colonial powers jockeyed in position to establish a foothold in the New World. At the same time, Florida was the meeting place of multiple cultures. The relationships that those cultures negotiated reveal a complexity that scholars continue to try to understand.

The readings for the course were chosen with the intent of introducing students to both Florida history and to a broad community of scholars working within the field. Their works represent the many sub-narratives that constitute the larger narrative of Florida history. We will explore in these works and in class–which will include both lecture and discussion–the common themes that weave together the larger narrative. More significantly, the course readings also spotlight the historical agency of many of the cultural and social groups that have been a part of the Florida experience. Critically analyzing Floridas past from the perspective of these groups is of utmost importance to us.

Course Objectives:

Expanding ones knowledge of Florida history and its place in the larger American experience.
Introducing the student to scholarship in Florida history.
Promoting critical thinking about the dynamics of race, gender, and class in American society.
Illuminating the links between human history and natural conditions.
Advancing the students experience in the reading, researching, and writing tasks of the historian.
Improving the students cognitive and communication skills.

Course Requirements:

Museum exercise 10%
Take-home essays (2 X 20%) 40%
Archive research and paper 25%
Internet research and paper 25%

(Please see the last section of the syllabus for a description of the course requirements.)

Course Grading Scale (see UF grading scale at end of syllabus):

A+=100
A=95
A-=90
B+=88
B=85
B-=80
C+=77
C=75
C-=70
D=65

Assignments not completed earn a 0

Plagiarized assignment (see plagiarism section below) earn a 0

Assignments not turned in before or by stated due date will not be accepted. All assignments must be made available in hard copy. Emailed assignments cannot be accepted.

Required Texts:

Michael Gannon, Florida: A Short History (University Press of Florida, 2003).
Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999).
Daniel L. Schafer, Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner (University Press of Florida, 2003)
Additional readings from the Florida Historical Quarterly articles, which are available through the Florida Heritage database on PALMM; others are on reserve at Library West.

Week I (Aug 25 & 27): Beginnings

Lecture & Discussion: Course introduction
Lecture & Discussion: Floridas natural endowment

Readings:

Gannon, Florida, xi-xiii.
Randolph J. Widmer, The Evolution of the Calusa : A Nonagricultural Chiefdom on the Southwest Florida Coast (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988), 189-223 (on reserve).

Week II (Sept 1 & 3): When the Old World was the Only World

(Writing Mechanics Exercise Due)

“South Florida: People and Environments” exhibit, Florida Museum of Natural History visit and exercise (see instructions below).
Class Discussion: The Glades culture

Readings:

Gannon, Florida, 1-3.
Jerald T. Milanich, “Original Inhabitants,” in Michael Gannon, ed., The New History of Florida (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), 1-15.
“De Orbe Novo Decades, “The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca,” and “The Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando de Soto,” in Maurice OSullivan and Jack C. Lane, The Florida Reader: Visions of Paradise (Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1991), 22-33.

Week III (Sept 8 & 10): The Meeting of Two Worlds

(Museum Exercise Due)

Lecture & Discussion: French and Spanish explorations
Lecture & Discussion: Early Settlements

Readings:

Gannon, Florida, 3-10.
Stephen Edward Reilly, “A Marriage of Experience: Calusa Indians and Their Relations with Pedro Menendez de Aviles in Southwest Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly 59 (April 1981): 395-421.
Eugene Lyon, “Pedro Menendezs Strategic Plan for the Florida Peninsula,” Florida Historical Quarterly 57 (July 1988): 1-14.
Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida, 7-14.

Week IV (Sept 15 & 17): The First Spanish Foothold

Lecture & Discussion: The role of the Spanish missions
Lecture & Discussion: The Afro-Caribbean presence in early Florida

Readings:

Gannon, Florida, 10-18.
Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida, 14-28.

Week V (Sept 22 & 24): Imperial Rivalries in Florida

Lecture & Discussion: Spanish, French, and English
Lecture & Discussion: The British Occupation

Readings:

Gannon, Florida, 18-24
Paul E. Hoffman, “The Chicora Legend and Franco-Spanish Rivalry in La Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly 62 (April 1984): 419-38.
Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida, 29-60.

Week VI (Sept 29 & Oct 1): Spanish Redux

Lecture & Discussion: Establishing a new province
Lecture & Discussion: Land grants, economy, and the Anglo population

Readings:

Gannon, Florida, 24-27.
James Gregory Cusick, “Spanish East Florida in the Atlantic Economy of the Late Eighteenth Century,” in Colonial Plantations and Economy in Florida, 168-88.

Week VII (Oct 6 & 8): Black Life in Spanish Florida

Lecture & Discussion: Free blacks and black women
Lecture & Discussion: Enslaved blacks

Readings:

Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida, 83-182.
Schafer, Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, chapters 1-4.

Week VIII (Oct 13 & 15): Contemplating Florida Landscapes: First-Person Observations

Lecture & Discussion: William Bartram and John James Audubon in Florida
Lecture & Discussion: Envisioning Paradise

Readings:

William Bartram, Travels of William Bartram (1791) (excerpt); John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography (1834) (excerpt) in The Florida Reader, 51-57, 71-76.

Week IX (Oct 20 & 22): From Atlantic World Province to U.S. Territory

(1st Take-Home Essay Due.)

Lecture & Discussion: U.S. acquisition and designs
Lecture & Discussion: Territorial politics

Readings:

Gannon, Florida, 27-40.
Frank L. Snyder, “Nancy Hynes Duval: Floridas First Lady, 1822-1834,” Florida Historical Quarterly 72 (Summer 1994).
Anya Jabour, “The Privations and Hardships of a New Country: Southern Women and Southern Hospitality on the Florida Frontier,” Florida Historical Quarterly 75 (Winter 1997): 259-74.

Week X (Oct 27 & 29): Floridas New Indians

Lecture & Discussion: Seminoles and Miccosukees
Lecture & Discussion: The African-Indian matrix

Readings:

Brent R. Weisman, “The Plantation System of the Seminole Indians and Black Seminoles During the Colonial Era,” in Colonial Plantations and Economy in Florida, 136-49.

Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida, 229-48.

Week XI (Nov 3 & 5): The Longest War Ever

(Archive Exercise Due)

Lecture & Discussion: The Seminole wars
Lecture & Discussion: Red, white, and black

Readings:

Canter Brown Jr., “The Florida Crisis of 1826-1827 and the Second Seminole War,” Florida Historical Quarterly 73 (April 1995): 419-42.
George Klos, “Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835,” Florida Historical Quarterly 68 (July 1989): 55-78.

Week XII (Nov 10 & 12): The Ascendancy of Middle Florida and statehood

Lecture & Discussion: Creating a Deep South landscapeLife and Labor
Lecture & Discussion: Statehood

Readings:

Stephanie D. Moussalli, Floridas Frontier Constitution: The Statehood, Banking, and Slavery Controversies, Florida Historical Quarterly 74 (Spring 1996).
William Warren Rogers Jr., “As to the People: Thomas and Laura Randalls Observations on Life and Labor in Early Middle Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly 75 (Spring 1997): 441-57.
Edward E. Baptist, “The Migration of Planters to Antebellum Florida: Kinship and Power,” The Journal of Southern History 62 (August 1996): 527-55. (available through JSTOR)

Week XIII (Nov 17 & 19): Florida in Black and White

(Internet Exercise Due)

Lecture & Discussion: The original he-coon: cracker culture
Lecture & Discussion: Life and labor in antebellum Florida

Readings:

James M. Denham, The Florida Cracker Before the Civil War as Seen Through Travelers Accounts, Florida Historical Quarterly 72 (April 1994): 453-68.
Schafer, Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, chapters 5-9.

Week XIV (Nov 24 & Thanksgiving Holiday): Civil War and Reconstruction

Lecture & Discussion: Joining in disunion, and Floridas role in war
Lecture & Discussion: Reconstruction and Floridas Black Codes

Readings:

Gannon, Florida, 40-53.

Week XV (Dec 1 & Dec 3): Civil War and Reconstruction continued

Tracy J. Revels, Grander in Her Daughters: Floridas Women During the Civil War, Florida Historical Quarterly 77 (Winter 1999): 261-84.
Patricia L. Kenney, La Villa, Florida, 1866-1887: Reconstruction Dreams and the Formation of a Black Community, in The African American Heritage of Florida (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995) David R. Colburn and Jane L. Landers, eds., 185-203 (course packet).

Week XVI (Dec 8): The Last Hurray

(2nd Take-Home Essay Due.)

Course Requirements Descriptions:

All written work for the course must be typed or computer generated and in 12-point double-spaced print. Your work must also be presented in third-person language.

Writing-Mechanics Exercise should be downloaded from my web. Circle the correct answer and bring to class on due date.

Take-Home Essays will represent responses to a list of essay questions provided on my web site at least one week prior to the due date of the assignment. The questions will be drawn from the assigned readings and the course lectures, and you will be expected to use the course readings and your class notes as sources to answer the questions. Each answer must be presented in essay format, using formal, academic language and style (i.e., complete sentences, tightly constructed paragraphs, no colloquialisms). Do not, in other words, provide answers in lists or bullets. Those exams that address each question in a rigorous and organized manner are more likely to earn a decent grade. These grades will be dependent in part on your compliance with the rules in the “Writing Mechanics” exercise.

Museum Exercise

“South Florida: People and Environments”

Following your trip to the Florida Museum of Natural History, write a page or two addressing the following questions. Your assignment must be typed or computer generated, and your responses presented in a narrative and not in bullet form answers.

What were the origins of the early people of south Florida and when did they live here?
How was their culture related to the environment?
How were these people of south Florida different from other peoples of a sedentary culture?
What ultimately happened to the indigenous people of south Florida?

Please note that your ability to comply with the rules in the “Writing Mechanics” exercise will be factored into your grade.

Archive Exercise

Visit the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History and read the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century newspaper articles set aside for this class. Write a five-page paper identifying the theme that emerges from these newspaper articles.

What events unfold from the articles?
How do the social relationships described in the articles evolve?
What implications do they have for larger events in American history?
What implications do they have for the relationship between the U.S. and foreign countries?

You may have to incorporate additional research to flesh out the larger context and to identify biographical figures in the articles. Ensure that you cite any sources–including the articles–from which you quote.

Remember that your grade will be based in part on your compliance with the rules in the “Writing Mechanics” exercise.

Internet Exercise

This exercise requires that you write a five-page paper using original-source letters or a memoir on an Internet site. The letters or memoir must not have been published in a book, such as Travels of William Bartram, and they must be related to Florida during the time period that we are studying. Letters can be those of a particular individual or of several individuals writing about the same place, experience, or event. The letters of soldiers who fought in the Seminole Wars offer an example of the latter. One excellent site for sources that meet the stated criteria is the Florida Heritage Collection at http://susdl.fcla.edu/fh/ . Once you have found your source or sources, write a paper analyzing a theme or themes described in the original material. For example, you might find that several military soldiers wrote home about the hardship of dealing with the Florida environment or the travails of Indian fighting. Or you may want to focus on their common and differing perceptions of Indians. Ensure that you identify the individual or individuals who left behind the written observations and that you place their observations within the proper historical context.

Again, following the rules of the “Writing Mechanics” exercise is imperative to doing work of full potential.

Other Business:

Plagiarism:

Keep in mind that your written assignments must represent original work. You cannot copy the words, phrases, arguments, ideas, and conclusions of someone else or of another source (including Internet sources) without giving proper credit to the person or source by using quotation marks and a footnote. Do not cobble together paragraphs or passages of separate texts and then try to claim that you have done original and legitimate work. You must write with your own ideas and in your own words. If you copy the words of someone else without putting those words in quotation marks, REGARDLESS OF CITING THE SOURCE, you are plagiarizing. Plagiarism is theft, and it is academic dishonesty. Plagiarism is grounds for an automatic failing grade in the course, a grade that is final and that cannot be made up. If you have any questions about how you are citing or using sources, come to me for the answers. Please also review the universitys honesty policy at: http://www.dso.ufl.edu/studentguide/studentrights.php

Classroom Assistance:

Please do not hesitate to contact the instructor during the semester if you have any individual concerns or issues that need to be discussed. Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office { http://www.dso.ufl.edu/drp/}. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide that documentation to the instructor when requesting accommodation.

UF Grading Scale

This is the universitys grading scale, which gives the 4.0 ranking for the letter grade you earn in the class based on the courses numeric scale cited above.

A = 4.0
A- = 3.67
B+ = 3.33
B = 3.0
B- = 2.67
C+ = 2.33
C = 2.0
C- = 1.67
D+ = 1.33
D = 1.0
D- = 0.67
E = 0.0
E1 = 0.0 Stopped attending or participating prior to end of class
I (incomplete) = 0.0

Note: A grade of C− is not a qualifying grade for major, minor, Gen Ed, or College Basic distribution credit. For further information on UF’s Grading Policy, see:

http://www.registrar.ufl.edu/catalog/policies/regulationgrades.html

http://www.isis.ufl.edu/minusgrades.html

Course Evaluation:

Students are expected to provide feedback on the quality of instruction in this course. These evaluations are conducted online at https://evaluations.ufl.edu. Evaluations are typically open during the last two or three weeks of the semester, but students will be given specific times when they are open. Summary results of these assessments are available to students at https://evaluations.ufl.edu/results.

Alpata: A Journal of History

Keep in mind that the undergraduate- and graduate-student members of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society at the University of Florida publish an academic journal each spring. In the fall, the journal editors will be sending out a call for submissions (articles and book reviews) to the journal.

Take-Home Essay # 1

To complete the essay, you are required to discuss (using third-person language only) in five DOUBLE-SPACED pages the history of Florida to the end of the British occupation in 1783. This means that you need to put a lot of thought not only into the content of the paper but also into the presentation of your response. Your essay should be written in a single seamless narrative, without rephrasing the questions and without listing answers in bullets.

To be successful at this task will require an economy of words and tightly constructed sentences and paragraphs. You should write in clear and concise language that conveys only information relevant to the questions. In other words, avoid becoming bogged down in minutia but provide the information necessary to show that you have a comprehensive understanding of the history. Write, in other words, as if you are explaining this history to a stranger, not to me. When you respond to the questions, always think in terms of historical significance and in terms of Europeans, Africans, and Indians–their relations with one another and their contributions to the history of Florida.

(Remember also to follow the rules in the Writing Mechanics Exercise. Retrieve it from your class notebook and put it on your desk next to your computer before your begin.)

Staple the loose pages. I cannot accept dog-eared assignments.

Describe the physical and cultural landscape in Florida before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century. (Youve already talked about the Calusas unique sedentary life in the museum exercise, so you wont need to do that again. But do tell us who and what had lived and was living in Florida before and at the time of Spanish contact and what kind of physical environment the Spanish encountered.)
Discuss the adelantado period–including successes and failures–in Spanish Florida from the time of Juan Ponce de Leon to Pedro Menendez de Aviles.
Discuss the rise and fall–including the motivating forces behind the rise and the reason for the fall–of the mission period in Florida from 1567 to 1705.
Discuss the period of international rivalries in Florida–between the Spanish, French, and English–leading up to the French and Indian War (dont forget about the role blacks played in international conflict.).
Finally, conclude with a summary of the British occupational period.

Take-Home Essay #2

After the U.S. acquired the Floridas from Spain in 1821, the new territory faced many challenges in moving toward expanded white settlement, statehood, and stability as a slave state. First, it had to deal with the transition from a Spanish-held territory to a U.S.-held territory. Settlers came from many places, representing different groups, and possessed often common but also particular ambitions. Drawing on the course readings and lectures only, discuss the challenges Floridians (Floridians does not mean whites only) and the state faced up through the Civil War and whether and how the people of Florida overcame them. Do this in no more than 5 pages–double-spaced and 10- or 12-point font (in default margin settings).

Think in terms of economy, politics, and demographics (who settled in Florida, how many, and where).
Think also about the circumstances (in Florida and elsewhere) that brought American and native settlers to Florida and what they were trying to create in this new southern frontier.
Think also of enslaved blacks, free blacks, and of Seminoles (and why they came to Florida).
Tell us also where women fit in the settlement equation.
Special note: you will lose ten points for writing-mechanics violations. Keep your writing-mechanics nearby for a reference.)

Note: Consult only your class notes and assigned readings. You do not need to cite these readings unless you quote (and refrain from long quotes). If you do quote from one of those readings, put the last name of the author and the page number in parenthesis at the end of the sentence in which the quote appears. No bibliography is required.

Example: The labor of white mistresses and their female slaves was chiefly responsible for establishing Aan atmosphere of southern gentility@ (Jabour, 260).

Or you can forgo the parenthetical citation and write: The labor of white mistresses and their female slaves, according to Anya Jabour, was chiefly responsible for establishing Aan atmosphere of southern gentility@