COVER In 1894, a group of northerners founded the South’s oldest Spiritualist community at Cassadaga in Volusia County. This photograph shows some of Cassadaga’s winter residents in 1904. Photograph courtesy of the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association, Cassadaga. The Historical Quarterly FLORIDA HISTORICAL Volume LXXVII, Number 1 Summer 1998 The Florida Historical Quarterly (ISSN 0015-4113) is published quarterly by the Flor- ida Historical Society, 1320 Highland Avenue, Melbourne, FL 32935, and is printed by E.O. Painter Printing Co., DeLeon Springs, FL. Second-class postage paid at Tampa, FL, and at additional mailing office. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Florida Historical Quarterly 1320 Highland Avenue, Melbourne, FL 32935. Copyright 1998 by the Florida Historical Society, Melbourne, Florida. THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Kari Frederickson, Editor Samuel Proctor, Editor Emeritus Nancy Rauscher, Editorial Assistant Imar DaCunha, Graduate Assistant EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Raymond O. Arsenault, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg William S. Coker, University of West Florida David R. Colburn, University of Florida James B. Crooks, University of North Florida Kathleen Deagan, University of Florida Wayne Flynt, Auburn University Michael V. Gannon, University of Florida Maxine D. Jones, Florida State University Harry A. Kersey, Jr., Florida Atlantic University Jane Landers, Vanderbilt University Eugene Lyon, Flagler College John K. Mahon, University of Florida Raymond A. Mohl, University of Alabama at Birmingham Gary R. Mormino, University of South Florida Theda Perdue, University of Kentucky Gerald E. Poyo, St. Mary’s University Joe M. Richardson, Florida State University William W. Rogers, Florida State University Daniel L. Schafer, University of North Florida Correspondence concerning contribution, books for review, and all editorial matters should be addressed to the Editor, Florida Historical Quarterly, Department of History, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-1350. The Quarterly is interested in articles and documents pertaining to the history of Florida. Sources, style, footnote form, originality of material and interpretation, clarity of thought, and interest of readers are considered. All copy should be dou- ble spaced and about 25 pages or 6,000 words. Footnotes are to be numbered con- secutively in the text. Documentation should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style. THE AUTHOR SHOULD SUBMIT AN ORIGINAL AND A PHOTOCOPY RETAINING A COPY FOR SECURITY Authors are also asked to submit articles on a diskette in IBM WordPerfect 5.1. The Florida Historical Society and the editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly accept no responsibility for statements made or opin- ions 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 may be ordered. Table of Contents SEEKING THE SWEET SPIRIT OF HARMONY: ESTABLISHING A SPIRITUALIST COMMUNITY AT CASSADAGA, FLORIDA, 1893-1933 John J. Guthrie Jr. 1 THE BEGINNINGS OF BIG SUGAR IN FLORIDA, 1920-1945 John A. Heitmann 39 THE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR, NOVEMBER 21, 1817-MAY 24, 1818 John K. Mahon 62 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS LIST OF THE INHABITANTS OF PENSACOLA WHO WERE HOUSEHOLDERS AT THE TIME OF THE CAPITULATION William S. Coker and Rodrigo Fernández Carrión 68 REVIEW ESSAY FLORIDA‘S HERITAGE OF DIVERSITY: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF SAMUEL PROCTOR James B. Crooks 73 FLORIDA HISTORY IN PERIODICALS . 81 BOOK REVIEWS . 87 BOOK NOTES. ........ ... 124 FLORIDA MANUSCRIPT ACQUISITIONS AND ACCESSIONS . 130 HISTORY NEWS . 134 DIRECTORS MEETING . 137 BOOK REVIEWS OSSIAN BINGLEY HART: FLORIDA’S LOYALIST RECONSTRUCTION GOVERNOR, by Canter Brown Jr. reviewed by David J. Coles W. W. LORING: FLORIDA’S FORGOTTEN GENERAL, by James W. Raab reviewed by Robert A. Taylor CUBANS IN PUERTO RICO: ETHNIC ECONOMY AND CULTURAL IDENTITY, by Jose A. CO- has and Jorge Duany reviewed by Maria Cristina Garcia THE LESSER ANTILLES IN THE AGE OF EUROPEAN EXPANSION, edited by Robert L. Paquette and Stanley L. Engerman reviewed by Sidney W. Mintz JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON HIS LIFE AND LEGACY, edited by John C. Inscoe reviewed by Glenn T. Eskew BOUNDED LIVES, BOUNDED PLACES: FREE BLACK SOCIETY IN COLONIAL NEW ORLEANS, 1769-1803, by Kimberly S. Hanger reviewed by F. Todd Smith BETWEEN AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY: STATE CONSTITUTION MAKING IN REVOLUTION- ARY AMERICA, by Marc W. Kruman reviewed by John E. Selby THE LONG AFFAIR: THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1785-1800, by Conor Cruise O’Brien reviewed by Richard C. Rohrs LETTERS OF DELEGATES TO CONGRESS, 1774-1789, VOL. 22, NOVEMBER 1, 1784-NO- VEMBER 6, 1785, edited by Paul H. Smith and Ronald M. Gephart reviewed by Robert M. Calhoon DRED SCOTT'S ADVOCATE: A BIOGRAPHY OF ROSWELL M. FIELD, by Kenneth C. Kauf- man reviewed by Lawrence Frederick Kohl TO HAVE AND TO HOLD: SLAVE WORK AND FAMILY LIFE IN ANTEBELLUM SOUTH CARO- LINA, by Larry E. Hudson Jr. reviewed by Sharla Fett “AIN’T GONNA LAY MY ‘LIGION DOWN”: AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGION IN THE SOUTH, edited by Alonzo Johnson and Paul Jerslid reviewed by Larry E. Rivers THE UNION SOLDIER IN BATTLE: ENDURING THE ORDEAL OF COMBAT, by Earl J. Hess reviewed by David J. Coles THADDEUS STEVENS: NINETEENTH-CENTURY EGALITARIAN, by Hans L. Trefousse reviewed by G. B. Crawford THE FRUITS OF THEIR LABOR: ATLANTIC COAST FARMWORKERS AND THE MAKING OF MIGRANT POVERTY, 1870-1945, by Cindy Hahamovitch reviewed by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH: LYNCHING IN THE SOUTH, edited by W. Fitzhugh Brund- age reviewed by Robert P. Ingalls RISING TIDE: THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI FLOOD OF 1927 AND How IT CHANGED AMERICA, by John M. Barry reviewed by Telemate A. Jackreece THE REPUBLICANS: FROM LINCOLN TO BUSH, by Robert Allen Rutland reviewed by Tracy E. Danese THE WEIGHT OF THE YEN, by R. Taggart Murphy reviewed by John O’Sullivan Seeking the Sweet Spirit of Harmony: Establishing a Spiritualist Community at Cassadaga, Florida, 1893-1933 by JOHN J. GUTHRIE JR. N March of 1899, a prominent Spiritualist from Amelia, Ohio, J. I Clegg Wright, sent a letter to a medium residing in Cassadaga, Florida. Wright informed Emma J. Huff that he planned to attend the following year’s Spiritualist convention in the Sunshine State. Congratulating her for having a “fairly good meeting this year,” he added: “It must be a hard region in which to sow the seed of pro- gressive thought. The South Land is behind. It is cursed by the heel of old religion—a monstrous tyrant. He puts the eyes out of all his subjects.“1 Wright’s letter reveals much about the attitudes that many northern Spiritualists held toward the region in which the emerging religious community at Cassadaga had taken root. To some Spiritualists who had never traveled below the Mason-Dixon Line, Florida at that time appeared as a stereotypical southern state populated by people whose values stood in stark contrast to north- ern culture. Yet at the same time, Wright’s letter provokes numer- ous questions concerning Florida’s “spiritual frontier” at the turn of the century. Such queries warrant exploration by historians. Indeed, only during the last few decades have scholars begun examining the history of Spiritualism in the United States. Much of this work has advanced the notion that mainstream Americans John J. Guthrie Jr. is associate professor of history at Daytona Beach Community College. The author wishes to thank Eileen Kiser, Christine Spillar, Vince Owens, and Reverend Nick Sourant for their valuable research assistance, and Bret E. Carroll, Kurt Cumiskey, Gary Monroe and Len Lempel for commenting on earlier drafts of this article. This article is an imprint from Cassadaga: The Continuing Story of a Florida Spiritualist Camp, forthcoming from the University Press of Florida. 1. J. Clegg Wright to Emma J. Huff, Amelia, Ohio, March 25, 1899, Vince Owens Collection, Cassadaga, Florida. [1] 2 FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY have viewed Spiritualists as religious outsiders.2 Accordingly, the Spiritualists’ belief that a person’s identity and existence continues on after death in the spirit plane, coupled with their conviction that the living can communicate with spirits through the assistance of a medium, posed a serious threat to the creed of the dominant Christian groups. Conventional Protestant churches thus scorned Spiritualism for its unorthodox ways. Neither accepted nor toler- ated by the mainstream, Spiritualists found themselves relegated to the margins of American culture.3 Ann Braude has argued that Spiritualism “became a magnet for social radicals,” particularly for those who advocated women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. Taking Braude’s cue, historians are now paying greater attention to Spiritualism and its linkage to nineteenth-century reform movements. Still, these studies all but ignore Spiritualism’s place in the twentieth century and have slighted some of the more moderate—if not conservative—aspects of the religion and its followers.4 Founded in 1894 by northerners, Cassadaga is the oldest Spiri- tualist community in the South. Since most scholarship dealing with Spiritualism focuses on the origins and evolution of the faith in the North, an exploration of Cassadaga’s history has enormous 2. Although I have used mainstream-fringe for analytical purposes, two historians question the utility of such conceptual distinctions. See R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York, 1986); Mary Farrell Bednarowski, New Religions and the Theological Imagination in America (Blooming- ton, 1989). 3. See, for example, Robert W. Delp, “Andrew Jackson Davis: Prophet of American Spiritualism,” Journal of American History 54 (June 1967), 43-56; Idem, “Ameri- can Spiritualism and Social Reform, 1847-1900,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 44 (Fall 1972), 85-99; R. Laurence Moore, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsy- chology and American Culture (New York, 1977). For the fundamentals of Spiritu- alism, see Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp: 1997/98 Annual Program (Cassadaga, 1997), 9, 26, 36-37.