Florida‘s Heritage of Diversity and Justice: A Collection of Papers from the Florida Southern College Honors Program Volume II. Under the Direction of Dr. James Denham and Dr. Patrick Anderson Edited by Richard Soash Produced by The Lawton M. Chiles Center for Florida History at Florida Southern College 2009 i Introduction In 2003 Florida’s Heritage of Diversity and Justice: A Compendium of Honors Papers Produced at Florida Southern College appeared. This collection contained honors papers produced under the direction of Professors James M. Denham (History) and Patrick Anderson (Criminology) in four previous semesters of a course entitled Florida‘s Heritage of Diversity and Justice. This second volume constitutes honors papers produced in the spring 2009 semester. The sophomore level honors course is designed to engage FSC honors students in the study and appreciation of the cultural diversity of Florida and the struggles for justice inherent in that diversity, as explored primarily through the disciplines of history and criminology. The intent of this collection is both to celebrate the fine original research of our students and assist FSC students and other interested persons in exploring similar topics. After intense reading and discussion of specifically selected articles in the Florida Historical Quarterly, students selected topics based on close collaboration with their professors. The resulting twelve essays represent original student research and writing. The extent and scope of this collection broadly reflects the varied interests of our students. For example, Jennifer Bruno uses her understanding of biology to analyze the devastating effects of disease on Florida‘s original inhabitants. Brent Willobee and Richard Soash scrutinize Florida‘s early nineteenth century military affairs. Ashleah Zigmond explores the letters of an army surgeon living in Fort King during the Second Seminole War. Tanja Speaker, Levis George, and Jillian Swartz engage the question of race in Florida‘s Civil War and Reconstruction era. Michael Politis traces Tarpon Springs‘s unique Greek heritage while Emily Canterbury delves into the early years of the Cassadaga spiritualist camp. Christine Simone surveys a little known aspect of South Florida‘s industrial heritage and Michael Saco investigates the connection of gambling the organized crime in early twentieth century Tampa. Finally, Eddie Sipple examines Lakeland, Florida‘s long time association with baseball. Taken together, these papers contribute to our understanding of the Florida Experience. They are the result of many revisions, re-writes, and collaborations. They are also based on extensive discussions (sometimes boisterous) with fellow students and professors. The production of this collection was made possible through the support of many persons and departments at Florida Southern College. FSC Provost Russell Warren and Arts and Science Dean James Byrd provided summer faculty-student collaborative research funds for Professor iii James M. Denham and Richard Soash to edit and produce the project. The college‘s Faculty Professional Interests Committee (Professors Eric Kjellmark, Peter Schreffler, Sue Stanley Green, Larry Ross, David Wood, and William Otremsky) voted to support the project. Tom Brennan and Cassie Paizis provided indispensible production assistance, and Randall MacDonald and the entire Roux library staff offered encouragement along the way. Our students‘ hard work and fine accomplishments have inspired us, and thus we enthusiastically dedicate this compendium to them. James M. Denham (Professor of History) Patrick Anderson (Professor of Criminology) Lakeland, Florida August 2009 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................. iii. Dr. James Denham and Dr. Patrick Anderson A Decimating Sneeze: the Role of Infectious Disease in Destroying Native Americans Societies in Post-Columbian Florida .................................................................. 1-16. Jennifer Bruno The Conflict Without Glory: An Analysis of Florida’s First Seminole War................... 17-29. Brent Willobee “Dear Grandpapa”: The Seminole War Letters of Dr. George Clarke ........................... 30-55. Ashleah Zigmond On Another Frontier: William Jenkins Worth and the Second Seminole War .............. 56-74. Richard Soash Slavery, Suspicion, and Secession: St. Augustine during the Sectional Crisis ................ 75-82. Tanja Speaker “With Malice Toward None and Charity for All”: Emancipation and Reconstruction in Florida, 1865-1868 ................................................................................. 83-95. Jillian Swartz Black Churches during the Post-Civil War Era, 1865-1870 ........................................... 96-108. Levis George The Establishment of Tarpon Springs with Emphasis on Greeks and Sponging ....... 109-123. Mike Politis Rocks Beneath the Water: Cassadaga, 1900-1910 ......................................................... 123-133. Emily Canterbury “Neath the Shadow of the Pine”: Woodmere, Venice’s Forgotten Lumber Town ................................................................................................................................... 134-147. Christine Simone Charlie Wall and the Trafficantes Take a Gamble: Bolita in Florida, 1895-1965 ........................................................................................................................... 148-160. Michael Saco Historic Henley: Lakeland’s Field of Legends ............................................................... 161-167. Eddie Sipple Contributors ...................................................................................................................... 168-170. v A Decimating Sneeze: the Role of Infectious Disease in Destroying Native Americans Societies in Post-Columbian Florida By Jennifer Bruno Prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1492, the inhabitants of Florida were an isolated people. Florida Indians lived in agricultural and nomadic chiefdoms where they were culturally and socially sequestered from the rest of the world. As a result of their seclusion, Native Floridians represented a largely homogeneous genetic population, a factor which directly contributed to their grim fate upon the arrival of European pestilence. Hernando De Soto and his men were the first to make contact with the indigenous people in the interior of Florida during their 1539 expedition down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. De Soto‘s men wrote accounts of the complex and populous Indian societies they encountered. One hundred years later, however, European explorers that ventured from Florida‘s coasts were perplexed by the absence of the burgeoning chiefdoms described by the De Soto expedition.1 Instead they found defeated stragglers decimated by European diseases that had spread throughout the Florida Peninsula. It soon became clear that diseases largely benign to the Spaniards were destroying the fabric of Native American life, effectively wiping Indian societies off the face of the Earth. The cocktail of European infectious disease (smallpox, measles, influenza, tuberculosis, typhus pertussis and the plague) reached Florida through the first Spanish explorers. Juan Ponce de Leon was the first European to come into contact with Florida Indians in 1513. Leon landed on Florida‘s Atlantic coast but decided to return to Puerto Rico after two violent encounters with the Calusa Indians. Meanwhile, as Leon was exploring the Florida shore, smallpox made its way to Hispaniola between November and December of 1518, a quarter of a century after Columbus‘ first voyage to the Americas. This twenty-five year gap between the arrival of Columbus and the arrival of smallpox was due to a lack of non-immune Europeans to transport the disease across the Atlantic. If an infected person did manage to make the voyage to the Americas, the smallpox 1 Charles Hudson, Chester B. DePratter, and Marvin T. Smith,‖Hernando de Soto‘s Expedition Through the Southern United States,‖ in Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milbrath, eds., First Encounters: Explorations in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1989), p. 78. 1 Jennifer Bruno virus would run its course in the individual by the time he or she made landfall. Those who survived the disease were then immune and unable to infect others.2 Smallpox first made landfall in Santo Domingo and quickly spread to the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico. When Ponce de Leon returned to Florida in 1521, some of his men were likely carrying the newly travelled smallpox virus. On this voyage, Leon brought with him 200 settlers, among them priests and missionaries. Cattle, notorious vectors of disease, also came along for the ride. Juan Ponce attempted to set up an establishment near Charlotte Harbor, but was again chased off by the Calusa, who were a large nonagricultural Indian tribe that inhabited southwest Florida and the small islands off the coast.3 On April 14, 1528, the Spanish explorer Panfilo de Narvaez anchored his ships near Tampa. Narvaez set out on land with a group of his men, with instructions for his ships and the rest of the expedition to meet them at a harbor further up the coast. Unfortunately for this unlucky group of explorers, they were never able to locate Narvaez‘s ships, and the 300 men and forty horses marched to Tallahassee in desperation. Over the course of their journey,