COVER This building was constructed on the corner of King and Aviles (formerly hos- pital) streets sometime between 1888 and 1893. First named Lynn’s Hotel, then the Algonquin, the Chatauqua in 1910, and later the Bay View. Demolished in 1964, the Florida Heritage House was erected on the site. Now it is a maritime museum. Photograph is from the St. Augustine Historical Society archives. THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT 1990 by the Florida Historical Society, Tampa, Florida. The Florida Historical Quarterly (ISSN 0015-4113) is published quarterly by the Florida Historical Society, Uni- versity of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, and is printed by E. O. Painter Printing Co., DeLeon Springs, Florida. Second-class postage paid at Tampa and DeLeon Springs, Florida. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Florida Historical Society, P. O. Box 290197, Tampa, FL 33687. THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Samuel Proctor, Editor Everett W. Caudle, Editorial Assistant EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD David R. Colburn University of Florida Herbert J. Doherty University of Florida Michael V. Gannon University of Florida John K. Mahon University of Florida (Emeritus) Joe M. Richardson Florida State University Jerrell H. Shofner University of Central Florida Charlton W. Tebeau University of Miami (Emeritus) Correspondence concerning contributions, books for review, and all editorial matters should be addressed to the Editor, Florida Historical Quarterly, Box 14045, University Station, Gainesville, Florida 32604-2045. The Quarterly is interested in articles and documents pertaining to the history of Florida. Sources, style, footnote form, original- ity of material and interpretation, clarity of thought, and in- terest of readers are considered. All copy, including footnotes, should be double-spaced. Footnotes are to be numbered con- secutively in the text and assembled at the end of the article. Particular attention should be given to following the footnote style of the Quarterly. The author should submit an original and retain a carbon for security. Authors with access to IBM Word- star or Wordperfect programs are asked to submit both a hardcopy and a diskette. The Florida Historical Society and the Editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly accept no responsibility for statements made or opinions held by authors. The Quarterly reviews books dealing with all aspects of Florida history. Books to be reviewed should be sent to the Editor together with price and information on how they can be ordered. Table of Contents “WHERE ARE NOW THE HOPES I CHERISHED?" THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROBERT MEACHAM Canter Brown, Jr. 1 ON THE EDGE: BLACKS AND HISPANICS IN METROPOLITAN MIAMI SINCE 1959 Raymond A. Mohl 37 CARE AND CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED: FLORIDA FARM COLONY, 1920-1945 Steven Noll 57 FLORIDA HISTORY IN PERIODICALS . 81 BOOK REVIEWS . 89 BOOK NOTES . 123 HISTORY NEWS . 129 BOOK REVIEWS A GUIDE TO THE HISTORY OF FLORIDA, edited by Paul S. George reviewed by Jacqueline K. Fretwell BLACKS AND SOCIAL CHANGE: IMPACT OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN SOUTHERN COMMUNITIES, by James Button reviewed by Steven F. Lawson TWELVE ON THE RIVER ST. JOHNS, by Charles E. Bennett reviewed by Thomas Graham MARKLAND, by Jean Parker Waterbury reviewed by Albert Manucy THE SOUTHEASTERN CEREMONIAL COMPLEX: ARTIFACTS AND ANALYSIS, edited by Patricia Galloway reviewed by John W. Griffin THE MATERIAL BASIS OF THE POSTBELLUM TENANT PLANTATION: HIS- TORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA PIEDMONT, by Charles Orser, Jr. reviewed by Theresa A. Singleton THE SOUTHERN FRONTIERS, 1607-1860: THE AGRICULTURAL EVOLUTION OF THE COLONIAL AND ANTEBELLUM SOUTH, by John Solomon Otto reviewed by John Hebron Moore SECRET AND SACRED: THE DIARIES OF JAMES HENRY HAMMOND, A SOUTH- ERN SLAVEHOLDER, edited by Carol Bleser reviewed by Shirley Leckie THE PAPERS OF JEFFERSON DAVIS, VOLUME 6, 1856-1860, edited by Lynda Lasswell Crist and Mary Seaton Dix reviewed by Bertram Wyatt-Brown ANDREW JOHNSON: A BIOGRAPHY, by Hans L. Trefousse ANDREW JOHNSON AND THE NEGRO, by David Warren Bowen reviewed by Richard N. Current POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN A SOUTHERN CITY: NEW ORLEANS IN THE PRO- GRESSIVE ERA, 1896-1902, by Edward F. Haas reviewed by Jeffrey S. Adler BOOKER T. WASHINGTON IN PERSPECTIVE: ESSAYS OF LOUIS R. HARLAN, edited by Raymond W. Smock reviewed by Linda O. McMurry PLAIN FOLK IN THE NEW SOUTH: SOCIAL CHANGE AND CULTURAL PERSIS- TENCE, 1880-1915, by I. A. Newby reviewed by Edward N. Akin THE EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN CULTURE, edited by Numan V. Bartley reviewed by William Warren Rogers CONVERSATIONS WITH SHELBY FOOTE, edited by William C. Carter reviewed by Willard B. Gatewood, Jr. AFRO-AMERICAN WRITING TODAY: AN ANNIVERSARY ISSUE OF THE SOUTH- ERN REVIEW, edited by James Olney reviewed by Jim Haskins DOCUMENTING AMERICA, 1935-1943, edited by Carl Fleischhauer and Beverly W. Brannan reviewed by Robert E. Snyder GEORGIA GOVERNORS IN AN AGE OF CHANGE: FROM ELLIS ARNALL TO GEORGE BUSBEE, edited by Harold P. Henderson and Gary L. Roberts reviewed by Ronald H. Bayor “WHERE ARE NOW THE HOPES I CHERISHED?” THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROBERT MEACHAM by C ANTER B ROWN , J R . “ LTOGETHER this convention is the stormiest we have A ever attended, and from its dissentions we judge the [Republican] party is badly split. If the Democrats and Conser- vatives of Florida don’t take such advantage of it as will insure them success, then we say they deserve ‘to be bound hand and foot,’ and ever be under the heel and ground to powder by their former slaves. Such a mess of ‘rag, tag, and bobtail’ buncomb and bombast, ignorance and corruption we have never seen. It is a disgrace to the civilization of the age.“1 Such words, written by an indignant resident of Jacksonville in April 1872, call to mind the concept to which many Floridians still cling of Reconstruction politics and the actions of black lead- ers during that period. That the foundations of that perspective are grounded more firmly in myth than in reality seldom is considered. Rarely heard are such voices as that of reporter Solon Robinson who, in January 1868, described the eighteen black members of the Florida Constitutional Convention in these words: “[I]n spite of all the whips and prisons, there were a few slaves who learned to read and write, as now is evidenced in this Convention. I do not see that one of the 18—and I believe 15 or 16 of them were formerly slaves—is destitute of this desir- able accomplishment. Independent of that, their genial de- meanor and address shows them possessed of all the attributes of gentlemen—‘niggers,’ the Rebels call them—but eloquent speakers.“2 Canter Brown, Jr., is a doctoral candidate, University of Florida. The au- thor wishes to express his appreciation to Leland Hawes, David Coles, Mary Ann Cleveland, Elizabeth Alexander, Tom Hambright, Mildred P. Coulter, E. A. Hammond, Vernon Peeples, and James D. Marshall, Jr., for their assistance. 1. Savannah Daily Republican, April 12, 1872. 2. New York Daily Tribune, February 5, 1868. [1] 2 F LORIDA H ISTORICAL Q UARTERLY Among the men of whom Robinson wrote was an individual who exercised a continuing and positive influence on local and state politics throughout the Reconstruction era and for years thereafter. He helped organize the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Florida; he failed to be elected to the United States Congress and to the presidency of the Florida Senate by only the slightest of margins; he chaired important legislative com- mittees and rightly could claim to be one of the founders of Florida’s public education system; and through it all, he was known as a decent man who believed in spending much of his energies in building schools and churches. He was a man to be reckoned with, and his name was Robert Meacham. “I was born in Gadsden County, Florida,” Meacham recalled in 1871. Unsure of the exact date, he believed he entered the world in the spring of 1835. When asked if he had been slave or free, he was at a loss on how to respond. “I do not know how to answer that exactly,” he said, “for my father was my master and always told me that I was free.“3 Fortunately for Meacham, his father, a physician, cared for his son.4 “I drove a carriage once,” he remembered, “and superintended around my old boss—my father. Until I was eighteen years old, I never did anything more than to stay about him and ride in the buggy with him.“5 3. Meacham was described late in life as having “light hair,” “white skin,” and “regular features.” “Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire Into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States,” House Report No. 22, pt. 13, 42d Cong., 2d sess., 101, 105, 108; Tampa Morning Tribune, February 14, 1896. 4. The identification of Meacham’s father is an interesting but unanswered question. It is tempting to look for the answer to Gadsden County planter Banks Meacham who was a physician, was involved in education as a trustee of Quincy’s male and female academies, owned slaves of the same age and sex as Robert, and was the only slaveowner named Meacham present in Gadsden County at the time of Robert’s birth. Banks Meacham appears to have died in January 1865 and, as such, could still have left Robert (as Robert later testified) as a slave to his wife’s sister. The elder Meacham was one of Florida’s leading Whigs, an influential leader of the statehood move- ment, and a delegate to Florida’s 1838 Constitutional Convention. If he were Robert’s father, it is interesting to note that his slave son carried on the family tradition of political involvement and, in doing so, was instru- mental in bringing Florida back into the Union through his participation in 1868 in a second constitutional convention.