Florida Historical Quarterly
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COVER Corner of the Courthouse Square, University Avenue, Gainesville, Florida. This ca. 1906 postcard was published by the Hugh Leighton Company of Portland, Maine, and is from the collection of Dr. Mark V. Barrow, Gainesville. The monument, now in Evergreen Cemetery, Gainesville, is a memorial to the troops from Alachua County who died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1888. Historical Quarterly Volume LXVII, Number 3 January 1989 THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT 1989 by the Florida Historical Society, Tamp, Florida. Second class postage paid at Tampa and DeLeon Springs, Florida. Printed by E. O. Painter Printing Co., DeLeon Springs, Florida. (ISSN 0015-4113) THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Samuel Proctor, Editor Everett W. Caudle, Editorial Assistant EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD David R. Colburn University of Florida Herbert J. Doherty, Jr. University of Florida Michael V. Gannon University of Florida John K. Mahon University of Florida (Emeritus) 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/ Wordstar 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 SIBLING STEWARDS OF A COMMERCIAL EMPIRE: THE INNERARITY BROTHERS IN THE FLORIDAS Thomas C. Kennedy 259 “GIVE Us TWENTY-FIVE YEARS”: FLORIDA SEMINOLES FROM NEAR TERMINATION To SELF-DETERMINATION, 1953-1957 Harry A. Kersey, Jr. 290 FROM CAN'T TO CAN'T: THE NORTH FLORIDA TURPENTINE CAMP, 1900-1950 Robert N. Lauriault 310 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS: TOM MORENO: A PENSACOLA CREOLE William S. Coker 329 FLORIDA HISTORY RESEARCH IN PROGRESS . 340 B OOK REVIEWS . 353 B OOK NOTES . 388 History NEWS . 399 BOOK REVIEWS MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS: SOJOUNER AT CROSS CREEK, by Elizabeth Silverthorne reviewed by Edna Saffy CREEKS AND SEMINOLES: DESTRUCTION AND REGENERATION OF THE MUS- COGULGE PEOPLE, by J. Leitch Wright, Jr. reviewed by Helen Hornbeck Tanner APALACHEE: LAND BETWEEN THE RIVERS, by John H. Hann reviewed by Robert A. Matter N AVY G RAY : A S TORY OF THE C ONFEDERATE N AVY ON THE C HAT - TAHOOCHEE AND APALACHICOLA RIVERS, by Maxine Turner reviewed by George E. Buker TROPICAL SPLENDOR: AN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF FLORIDA, by Hap Hatton reviewed by Herschel E. Shepard THE EVOLUTION OF THE CALUSA: A NONAGRICULTURAL CHIEFDOM ON THE SOUTHWEST COAST OF FLORIDA, by Randolph J. Widmer reviewed by Robert S. Carr TREASURERS OF THE CHIPOLA RIVER VALLEY, by H. L. Chason reviewed by Barbara A. Purdy A CREEK SOURCEBOOK, edited with an introduction by William C. Sturtevant A SEMINOLE SOURCEBOOK, edited with an introduction by William C. Sturte- vant reviewed by Jerald T. Milanich EMPIRE OF FORTUNE: CROWNS, COLONIES, AND TRIBES IN THE SEVEN YEARS WAR IN AMERICA, by Francis Jennings reviewed by Robert R. Rea SOUTH CAROLINA LOYALISTS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, by Robert Stansbury Lambert reviewed by George C. Rogers, Jr. CRACKER CULTURE: CELTIC WAYS IN THE OLD SOUTH, by Grady McWhiney reviewed by Jack Temple Kirby BANKING IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH FROM THE AGE OF JACKSON TO RECON- STRUCTION, by Larry Schweikart reviewed by Ernest M. Lander, Jr. JUDAH P. BENJAMIN: THE JEWISH CONFEDERATE, by Eli N. Evans reviewed by Abraham J. Peck GETTYSBURG: THE SECOND DAY, by Harry W. Pfanz reviewed by James E. Sefton “FICTION DISTORTING FACT": PRISON LIFE, ANNOTATED BY JEFFERSON DAVIS, edited by Edward K. Eckert reviewed by Stephen Davis FROM SLAVE SOUTH TO NEW SOUTH: PUBLIC POLICY IN NINETEENTH-CEN- TURY GEORGIA, by Peter Wallenstein reviewed by Grilbert C. Fite OFFICIAL IMAGES: NEW DEAL PHOTOGRAPHY, by Pete Daniel, Merry A. Foresta, Maren Stange, and Sally Stein reviewed by Robert E. Snyder TALL BETSY AND DUNCE BABY: SOUTH GEORGIA FOLKTALES, by Mariella Glenn Hartsfield reviewed by Delma E. Presley SIBLING STEWARDS OF A COMMERCIAL EMPIRE: THE INNERARITY BROTHERS IN THE FLORIDAS by T HOMAS C. K ENNEDY ARQUIS JAMES, in his biography of Andrew Jackson, al- M luded to John Forbes and Company, a firm which had succeeded Panton, Leslie and Company in 1804, and asserted that members of the Forbes enterprise “remained the actual rulers of Florida.” Among its members in 1804 were James In- nerarity and his brother John. Of the latter, Marquis wrote: “Like a white shadow, John Innerarity glided through the weav- ing labyrinth, never on the losing side.“1 Another scholar con- tended that individuals connected with both companies “were influential with the governments under which they lived, and exercised unmeasured control over the Indian tribes with which they dealt.“2 Both judgments may incline somewhat toward hyperbole, but they also give some inkling as to why these firms, which operated in the southeastern Spanish borderlands in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, have been the subject of substantial scholarly research and writing.3 The activities of James and John Innerarity were most pro- nounced in the period of John Forbes and Company, during which the brothers, especially John, sometimes came under se- vere censure. During the course of the War of 1812, for exam- ple, a British officer complained bitterly, “The Mayor of Mobile [James Innerarity] has a brother in this town [Pensacola]. His name is [John] Innerarity. I have found him a great scoundrel Thomas C. Kennedy is professor of history, University of Wyoming. 1. Marquis James, The Life of Andrew Jackson, Complete in One Volume (In- dianapolis, NY, 1938), 321. 2. Thomas M. Owen, comp., “West Florida and Its Attempt on Mobile, 1810- 1811,” American Historical Review 2 (July 1897), 701n. 3. The most recent and comprehensive study of these companies is William S. Coker and Thomas D. Watson, Indian Traders of the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Panton Leslie & Company and John Forbes and Company, 1783- 1847 (Pensacola, 1986). See 382-94 for an extensive listing of published and unpublished works dealing with both firms. [259] 260 F LORIDA H ISTORICAL Q UARTERLY . [and] a great traitor.“4 In 1821, in the midst of a legal dispute involving Forbes and Company, Andrew Jackson informed Sec- retary of State John Quincy Adams, “the arts, the influence, the wealth, the power of no individual, not even of [John] Innerarity himself, could any longer obstruct the pure channels of justice.”5 With these “mixed reviews” in mind, this study proposes to examine the careers of James and John Innerarity and the le- gacy they bequeathed, as stewards of a commercial empire, to the history of the Gulf coast in the early nineteenth century. Their story begins in the revolutionary/independence period of the United States in the late eighteenth century, and revolves around the person of the Scotsman William Panton. This mer- chant has been described as “a typical late-18th century British entrepreneur with special gifts for reaping personal gain from the demands of high politics.“6 The Scotch Innerarity clan be- came joined with Panton’s family in 1776 when William’s sister, Henrietta, married John Innerarity. Of their five children, two were sons born in Scotland: James (b. August 18, 1771), and John, Jr. (b. November 11, 1783). Both would follow their father to the New World in association with Panton, Leslie and Com- pany, and then John Forbes and Company.7 In 1792 John Innerarity, Sr., was stationed at one of his brother-in-law’s trading posts at San Marcos de Apalache in East Florida. Panton soon realized that his brother-in-law was not the best person for managing the store. John Innerarity, Sr., appar- ently agreed and soon returned to his family, established resi- dence in London, and engaged in a series of commercial ven- tures that were not very successful. But relations between In- nerarity and Panton remained cordial. For a time, Innerarity served as a guardian for one of Panton’s nephews (William 4. Quoted in David H. White, “The John Forbes Company: Heir to the Florida Indian Tribe, 1801-1819” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Alabama, 1973), 154-55. Edward Nicolls’s title for James Innerarity was inaccurate; in March 1814 James was elected by the town commissioners of Mobile to be their president. Coker and Watson, Indian Traders, 284n. 5. American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1832-1834), II, Class X, Miscel- laneous, 801. 6. Thomas D. Watson, “Merchant Adventurer in the Old Southwest: William Panton, the Spanish Years, 1783-1801” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Tech University, 1972), iv. 7. Coker and Watson, Indian Traders 18. S IBLING S TEWARDS OF A C OMMERCIAL E MPIRE 261 Lumsden in England) and became involved in the care and edu- cation of a son (Alek) and nephew (David Tate) of Alexander McGillivray. McGillivray, chief of the Creek Indians, was ex- tremely crucial in promoting Panton’s trade relations with In- dian tribes in the Spanish-held Floridas in the decade after 1783.