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African Americans have made considerable contributions to the history and development of Jacksonville, Florida. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population make up of African American in Jacksonville Florida is 30.7%. [1]
In 1562 Jean Ribault, a French Huguenot explored the St. Johns River and made contact with the native Timucuan Indians. Jean Ribault and the French Huguenots built Fort Caroline along the river at St. Johns Bluff in their first attempts to establish a permanent colony in Florida. St. Augustine, which is the oldest continually occupied settlement in the United States, was founded by Spanish leader Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565. The Spanish settled in St. Augustine as a base to attack and capture Fort Carolina. At the time, both the French and Spanish brought in African slaves as laborers. The Huguenot were accompanied by free and enslaved Africans that worked on early fortification. They sawed timber, built churches, a blacksmith shop, and an artillery platform. They also cleared land to grow crops. [2] [3]
In October 1687 the first fugitive slave escaped from Carolina and arrived in Florida. Following the kings decree many more enslaved Africans escaped from the Carolinas and found refuge in Florida, promoting royal decree in 1733 reinforcing the offer of freedom, prohibiting the reimbursement of the English for escaped slaves, and requiring of them four years of service to the crown in order to be free. A lot of freedom seekers came to Florida in 1738, Governor Manuel de Montiano gave them land that expanded two miles north of St. Augustine where they could build their own forts. The people became Catholics and adopted Spanish names and Spanish cultures with African decants. Fort Mose became the first African free settlement in North America. The community held thirty-eight men and their families, the men were required to serve in the militia and defend their community in times of attack. [4]
In 1821, the Adams–Onís Treaty ceded Florida to the United States. Laws that were passed to limit a freed slave. The laws that were passed were for African-Americans to not carry a firearm, serve on juries, or testify against whites. They were taxed unfairly and had a curfew. They could be whipped for misdemeanors and impressed and forced back in slavery to meet the cost of debts and fines. Whites and blacks to marry was not allowed, the children of the interracial family could not take back land. Florida [5]
Racial violence and discrimination was very rough through Jacksonville in the early 1880s to the late 1950s. According to Stewart Tolney and E. M Beck, between 1882 and 1930, more African American males would be lynched in Florida then any other Southern state. In this time frame, Florida led the nation with eleven lynches in 1920. Studies showed that for every 100,000 African American in Florida, 79.8 were lynched. Mob violence through Jacksonville was at an all-time high and occurred more than often. One of the most relevant mob violence's was on July 4, 1910, when a group of black people were attacked by white gangs for celebrating boxing champion Jack Johnson defeating Jim Jefferies. Jacksonville also served for the 1912 lynching's when Eugene Baxter, a young black man was a described in a newspaper as a tall light-skinned darkly male was charged with robbing and murdering Simon Silverstein while grocery shopping, including beating his daughter, son, and wife. This made the white people of Jacksonville rage and start rushing the jail that Eugene was held in. The judge that worked this trial sent Eugene far as way as possible until seeing if he was guilty or innocent of this crime to calm down the city of Jacksonville from violence. James Weldon Johnson, an African American leader in the Jacksonville people, stepped in and wanted to put a stop to the hate between blacks and white throughout the community. He came together with the mayor in hopes of making Jacksonville a better and safer place for all people. In this time, James Weldon created opportunities to further blacks financially, spiritually, and emotionally and come together with the white community to unite as one. [6]
The Ax Handle Saturday, also known as the Jacksonville riot on August 27, 1960. On this day a group of young black teens attempted to sit down at a whites-only lunch counter for hamburgers and egg sandwiches. In the year of 1960, was a year of regular sit-ins for civil rights activist in the south. On this day, more than 200 white men who carried around wooden ax handles viciously attacked innocent, unarmed black protestors. The lunch-in inspired members of the Youth Council of Jacksonville to launch the nonviolent sit-in in Jacksonville. The leader that launch this sit-in in Jacksonville was Rutledge Pearson. Pearson, a young civil rights activist, and history teacher. He would tell his history class that "freedom is not free" and would tell the students to leave their school textbooks at home and he will teach them about black history. Pearson wanted to launch this sit in at Hemming Park, a centerpiece of the downtown shopping district and the center of Charles C. Hemming, a local Civil War veteran who in 1898 donated a towering Confederate monument to the city. Pearson warned his followers in the launch of this sit-in that it could be violent and to not engage in any violence as they proceed in there works for desegregation and equal rights. Pearson was alerted each and everyday by white members of community that if he would go to a sit-in that he would be killed and assaulted, but that never scared Pearson to continue the sit-in. Pearson and the people who followed him at the sit-in were approached and physically and verbally abused along with other blacks that protested by a huge crowd of white men. [7]
The Kingsley Plantation is a historic slavery plantation that was owned by Zephaniah Kingsley and Anna Kingsley who were an interracial couple. Zephaniah Kingsley was a slave trader and a merchant who built a lot of plantation across Florida. Kingsley allowed slaves to buy their freedom in exchange for working for him. Kingsley married Anna Kingsley who was once a slave but freed by Mr. Kingsley. They had four children who all owned and worked on the plantation. When Anna Kingsley turned 18, Mr. Kingsley gave Anna permission to run the plantation until 1821, when Spanish Florida became Florida territory. Mr. Kingsley had to surrender over his land. Today, the Kingsley Plantation is a historic landmark in Jacksonville, Florida. [8]
The Stanton College Preparatory School started as an elementary school for segregated African American children in 1860, but now serves as a high school for grades (9-12). Stanton Preparatory School was started by a group of former slaves to educate their children. The Freedmen's Bureau donated $16,000 to build Stanton Institute with the purpose of training African American women from ages 16–25 to be educators. As of right now the school is ranked 62nd as one of the best schools in the United States and fifth in the state of Florida. [9]
The J.P. Small Memorial Stadium is home to the stadium built for the Negro Baseball League in 1911. This field was the first municipal recreation field in the city of Jacksonville. The Joseph H. Durkee family once owned this property and the field's original name was the Joseph E. Durkee Athletic Field then it was later changed to the J.P. Small Memorial Stadium. Joseph Durkee was a former Civil War Union officer who settled in Jacksonville following the Civil War. This field was played on by the Jacksonville Tars, an African American negro team and the local negro league baseball teams in Jacksonville at the time. The field was also used by the Major League Baseball teams (New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, and more). The most notable African American to play on this field was Hank Aaron who played for the Jacksonville Braves, a minor league team for the Milwaukee Braves at the time. This field is now home to the city of Jacksonville, Florida and used by everyone throughout the state. [10]
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St. Johns County is a county in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 273,425. The county seat and most populous incorporated city is St. Augustine, although the nearby community, St. Johns, has a higher population. St. Johns County is part of the Jacksonville metropolitan area.
St. Augustine is a city in and the county seat of St. Johns County located 40 miles south of downtown Jacksonville. The city is on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States.
The history of Florida can be traced to when the first Native Americans began to inhabit the peninsula as early as 14,000 years ago. They left behind artifacts and archeological evidence. Florida's written history begins with the arrival of Europeans; the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León in 1513 made the first textual records. The state received its name from that conquistador, who called the peninsula La Pascua Florida in recognition of the verdant landscape and because it was the Easter season, which the Spaniards called Pascua Florida.
East Florida was a colony of Great Britain from 1763 to 1783 and a province of the Spanish Empire from 1783 to 1821. The British gained control over Spanish Florida in 1763 as part of the Treaty of Paris which ended the Seven Years' War. Deciding that the colony was too large to administer as a single unit, British officials divided Florida into two colonies separated by the Apalachicola River; the colony of East Florida, with its capital located in St. Augustine and West Florida with its capital located in Pensacola. East Florida was much larger and comprised the bulk of the former Spanish colony and most of the current state of Florida. It had also been the most populated region of Spanish Florida, but before control was transferred to Britain, most residents – including virtually everyone in St. Augustine – left the territory, with most migrating to Cuba.
The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States; it is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida.
The city of Jacksonville, Florida, began to grow in the late 18th century as Cow Ford, settled by British colonists. Its major development occurred in the late nineteenth century, when it became a winter vacation destination for tourists from the North and Midwest. Its development was halted or slowed by the Great Fire of 1901, the Florida Land Bust of the 1920s, and the economic woes of the 1960s and 70s. Since the late 20th century, the city has experienced steady growth, with a new federal building constructed in downtown in 2003.
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, born Anta Madjiguène Ndiaye, also known as Anna Kingsley, Anta Majigeen Njaay or Anna Madgigine Jai, was a West African from present-day Senegal, who was enslaved and sold in Cuba, probably via the slave pens on Gorée Island. In Cuba she was purchased, as wife, by plantation owner and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley. After his death, she became a planter and slave owner in her own right, as a free Black woman in early 19th-century Florida.
The history of Tallahassee, Florida, much like the history of Leon County, dates back to the settlement of the Americas. Beginning in the 16th century, the region was colonized by Europeans, becoming part of Spanish Florida. In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty ceded Spanish Florida, including modern-day Tallahassee, to the United States. Tallahassee became a city and the state capital of Florida in 1821; the American takeover led to the settlements' rapid expansion as growing numbers of cotton plantations began to spring up nearby, increasing Tallahassees' population significantly.
Kingsley Plantation is the site of a former estate on Fort George Island, in Duval County, Florida, that was named for its developer and most famous owner, Zephaniah Kingsley, who spent 25 years there. It is located at the northern tip of Fort George Island at Fort George Inlet, and is part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve managed by the U.S. National Park Service. Kingsley's house is the oldest plantation house still standing in Florida, and the solidly-built village of slave cabins is one of the best preserved in the United States. It is also "the oldest surviving antebellum Spanish Colonial plantation in the United States."
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. was a plantation owner, born in England, who moved as a child with his family to South Carolina, and became a planter, slave trader, and merchant. He built four plantations in the Spanish colony of Florida near what is now Jacksonville, Florida. He served on the Florida Territorial Council after Florida was acquired by the United States in 1821. Kingsley Plantation, which he owned and where he lived for 25 years, has been preserved as part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, run by the United States National Park Service. Finding his large and complicated family progressively more insecure in Florida, he moved them to a vanished plantation, Mayorasgo de Koka, in what was then Haiti but soon became part of the Dominican Republic.
Rutledge Henry Pearson was an educator, civil rights leader and human rights activist. He also was a Negro league baseball player in his early years.
J. P. Small Memorial Stadium is a baseball park in Jacksonville, Florida. It is located in the Durkeeville community in northwest Jacksonville. Constructed in 1912 and rebuilt in 1936, it was the city's first municipal recreation field, and served as its primary baseball park before the construction of Wolfson Park in 1954. Throughout the years the stadium has been known at various times as Barrs Field, Durkee Field, and the Myrtle Avenue Ball Park.
James Weldon Johnson Park is a 1.54-acre (6,200 m2) public park in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida. Originally a village green, it was the first and is the oldest park in the city.
The St. Augustine movement was a part of the wider Civil Rights Movement, taking place in St. Augustine, Florida from 1963 to 1964. It was a major event in the city's long history and had a role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, often referred to as the Florida Territorial Council or Florida Territorial Legislative Council, was the legislative body governing the American territory of Florida before statehood. The territory of Florida was acquired by the U.S. in 1821 under the Adams–Onís Treaty. Replacing the form of martial law that had existed in the territory since Florida was acquired, the U.S. Congress in 1822 established a territorial government consisting of a governor, secretary, thirteen-member Legislative Council, and judiciary, all of whom were appointed by the U.S. president.
African Americans in Florida or Black Floridians are residents of the state of Florida who are of African ancestry. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, African Americans were 16.6% of the state's population. The African-American presence in the peninsula extends as far back as the early 18th century, when African-American slaves escaped from slavery in Georgia into the swamps of the peninsula. Black slaves were brought to Florida by Spanish conquistadors.
Slavery in Florida is more central to Florida's history than it is to almost any other state. Florida's purchase by the United States from Spain in 1819 was primarily a measure to strengthen the system of slavery on Southern plantations, by denying potential runaways the formerly safe haven of Florida.
St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the continental United States, was founded in 1565 by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. The Spanish Crown issued an asiento to Menéndez, signed by King Philip II on March 20, 1565, granting him various titles, including that of adelantado of Florida, and expansive privileges to exploit the lands in the vast territory of Spanish Florida, called La Florida by the Spaniards. This contract directed Menéndez to explore the region's Atlantic coast and report on its features, with the object of finding a suitable location to establish a permanent colony from which the Spanish treasure fleet could be defended and Spain's claimed territories in North America protected against incursions by other European powers.
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