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A state of the southeast United States bordering on the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. It was admitted as the 27th state in 1845. The peninsula was explored by Juan Ponce de León in 1513 and became the center of a Spanish settlement that included the southeast part of the present-day United States. Spain finally ceded the area in 1819. Tallahassee is the capital and Jacksonville the largest city. Population: 18,300,000.
Floridian Flo·rid'i·an (flə-rĭd'ē-ən) or Flor'i·dan (-ĭd-n) adj.
For more information on Florida, visit Britannica.com.
The state of Florida consists of a peninsula and a strip of mainland at the southeastern corner of the United States. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf of Mexico and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. The Gulf Stream runs only a few miles off the southeastern coast. Low-lying barrier islands and mangrove swamps fringe the long, flat coastline. Lake Okeechobee lies near the center of the peninsula. The Everglades, a grassy water-land, once extended over nearly all of southern Florida but is now restricted to the southwestern tip of the peninsula.
The first humans reached Florida at least twelve thousand years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age. Because sea level was lower then, Florida was much larger, with the Gulf coast some 100 miles west of its current position. The first people found a drier, cooler climate than today, in which they hunted and gathered edible plants, collected shellfish, and used the fibers of palms and saw palmetto to make rope and mats. As the glaciers melted and the sea level rose, Florida shrank, and the climate grew wetter and hotter. The human population grew, with major centers at the present-day Saint Johns River, Tampa Bay, and Belle Glade. By 2000 B.C. people were living in villages and making pottery; by 750 A.D. they were growing corn.
European Exploration and Settlement
Juan Ponce de León sailed along the eastern coast of the peninsula in 1513 and named it La Florida because of its lush beauty and because it was the season of Pascua Florida, the Easter feast of flowers. In 1521 Ponce de León tried to establish a settlement in southern Florida but the local Indians quickly drove him off. In 1528 Pánfilo de Narváez landed at Tampa Bay with three hundred men and forty horses and disappeared into the wilderness. Eight years later the last four survivors of his expedition stumbled back to Mexico. Landing somewhere on Florida's Gulf coast in 1539, Hernando de Soto marched north on an unsuccessful trek that covered four thousand miles in four years.
The next European attempt to settle Florida came from French Huguenots, who built Fort Caroline on the Saint Johns River in 1564. Alarmed, Spain sent Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565 to wipe out Fort Caroline and establish a permanent Spanish presence. This settlement, Saint Augustine, remains the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in North America. As French and English interests grew in North America, Saint Augustine anchored the Spanish hold on the Caribbean. But during the Seven Years' War, Spain joined the French against the English, who seized Havana. To recover the Cuban city, the Spanish surrendered Florida in 1763. Diseases introduced by Europeans had already decimated the natives, and the last few indigenous Floridians joined the Spanish exodus to Cuba when the British took over.
British Rule
The British divided Florida at the Apalachicola River. West Florida extended as far as the Mississippi. With the Spanish gone, there were almost no whites in either territory. Peninsular Florida was still a wilderness of man-grove swamp, sawgrass, and everglades. The Seminoles, who had moved south into Florida beginning around 1700, maintained peaceful relations with the British.
The British crown offered settlers free land in Florida, often in tracts of thousands of acres. At first landholders used free labor and indentured servants, who balked at the brutal work. Therefore plantation owners began to import slaves. Since Indians could escape, and suffered terribly from European-borne diseases, the new owners brought in enslaved Africans. Under the Spanish, slavery had been relatively humane, and many free blacks thrived in Florida. The British brought the much harsher chattel slavery to Florida.
Coastal Florida was infertile, the cost of living high, the tropical fevers lethal. Nonetheless, the British began to squeeze profits from the new territories. Besides producing timber for the treeless West Indies, tar and pitch for ships, and furs and deerskins, West Florida maintained a vigorous clandestine trade with Spanish-controlled New Orleans. East Florida, where the plantations were larger, produced indigo and naval stores, and carried out an embryonic commerce in oranges, which the Spanish had introduced.
Florida remained loyalist throughout the American Revolution. American forces invaded Florida on several raids but the greatest danger came from Spain, eager to recover its old colony. A vigorous Spanish campaign took back West Florida, and when the British finally settled the issue with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, they ceded Florida back to Spain, which was in no position to enjoy the recovery. The infant United States of America wanted Florida, and European troubles allowed her to take the territories piecemeal. In 1810 local people west of the Perdido proclaimed a Republic of West Florida, which the United States absorbed in 1812. Over the next several years, the pro-British Seminoles raided Alabama and Georgia, culminating in the first Seminole War (1817–1818). Andrew Jackson invaded West Florida in 1818 and took Pensacola. Although he eventually withdrew, the Spanish grip on Florida was clearly failing. Spain entered into negotiations with the United States, ceded Florida to the United States through the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819, and on 17 July 1821 the American flag went up.
U.S. Territory and State
Florida was organized as a territory in 1822, and Jackson became its first governor. In 1824 Tallahassee became the capital, and the surrounding area rapidly became the dominant region. The cotton-growing counties surrounding Tallahassee produced 80 percent of the territory's crop. In 1830 Florida's census recorded a total population of more than 33,000, of whom 16,000 lived in the area around Tallahassee, so-called Middle Florida. In 1845 Florida was granted admission to the Union as a slave state.
Throughout this period, small farmers from Georgia and the Carolinas, often called crackers, were migrating to Florida. While the Tallahassee planters grew their cotton and the large landowners south of Saint Augustine turned to sugar cane, the crackers built small farms to raise cattle, corn, vegetables, tobacco, and citrus fruit. These newcomers quickly came into conflict with the Seminoles. Tensions between white settlers and the Indians grew, and white landowners pressed the government to wipe out or remove the Indians. The federal government's efforts to do so led to the second Seminole War (1835–1842), following which only a few hundred Seminoles remained in Florida. These isolated, outnumbered bands fought a third Seminole War (1855–1858), after which attempts to remove the few remaining Seminoles ceased.
At the beginning of the Civil War, the Union seized Saint Augustine, and the small Union garrison at Pensacola managed to hold on against a much larger Confederate force under Braxton Bragg. Conscription gangs roamed the countryside forcing men into the Confederate Army; more than 16,000 Florida men (from a total white population of about 77,746 in the 1860 Census) went north to fight for the Confederacy. Left behind to fend for themselves were women, old men, and children, and more than sixty thousand slaves, all trapped inside the Union blockade. Most lived in direst poverty. Florida's civic structure collapsed.
After the Civil War, Federal troops occupied the state to enforce Reconstruction. Radical Republicans, composed of Unionist Floridians (scalawags), newly arrived Northerners (carpetbaggers), and recently enfranchised blacks, dominated the constitutional convention of 1868; but a white conservative faction managed to lock the radicals out and ram through its own constitution. However odd its inception, this document allowed the army to give Florida back to civil government, and the battle for control heated up in earnest. White Democrats were devoted to restoring Florida to the same social order it had known before the war. Republican Harrison Reed of Massachusetts was elected the first postwar governor in 1868, but he spent his nearly five years in office fighting off impeachment efforts.
Meanwhile, white conservatives worked to under-mine the Republican base by intimidating black voters. Even during the war, occupying Federal authorities had broken up confiscated lands and distributed them to blacks, but after Lincoln's murder Federal policy reversed, the lands were returned to their original owners, and the blacks were kicked off. Discriminatory local laws, the Ku Klux Klan, and even cavalry charges into lines of voters terrorized former slaves. By 1881 the Democratic Party was in charge of the government, and a new constitution in 1885 imposed segregation and a poll tax. For the next eighty years all state elections were decided within the Democratic Party. Florida was still largely a frontier state, isolated and wretchedly poor. Sharecropping and tenant farming dominated agriculture. The state government was largely insolvent. With the lowest literacy rate in the south, the governor in 1876 nonetheless proposed eliminating public high schools.
Still, the seeds of modern Florida were germinating. The balmy climate had attracted tourists as early as the 1840s. By 1873, 50,000 people a year were boating up the Saint Johns River. New railroads, used at first to transport lumber, made other areas of the state accessible; economic troubles in the north encouraged people to move down into peninsular Florida. In 1880 the population was 269,493, of whom 126,690 were black. Beginning in 1883 Henry Flagler, an associate of John D. Rockefeller, developed resorts on Florida's Atlantic coast, starting at Saint Augustine. His East Coast Railroad reached West Palm Beach in 1894, bringing tourists and supplies to the extravagant resort hotels Flagler built there. The 1894–1895 freezes, which destroyed the citrus crop in the north, convinced Flagler to build on into Miami, where heiress Julia Tuttle had founded an ambitious but empty city. The Spanish-American War, with its bases in Tampa and Key West, further stimulated the economy. By 1912 Flagler's railroad had reached Key West, then a sleepy fishing and cigar-making community. The railroad linked Florida from its southernmost tip to the continental United States. The opening of the Panama Canal brought a steady increase in commerce to the area. Nonetheless, political power remained with North Florida.
Ongoing political dissension split the dominant Democratic Party, pitting "wool hats" (farmers and small businessmen) against "silk hats" (wealthy businessmen and landowners). Farmers black and white found common ground in the Florida Farmers Alliance, whose Ocala Demands formed the basis for the platform of the national Populist Party formed in 1891. The threat of empowerment of black Floridians led to a savage backlash among whites; new laws segregated blacks and locked them into poverty and powerlessness. Yet blacks kept striving for equality, and whites resorted to increasing force to keep them down, including lynchings and the burning of black towns.
The Rise of South Florida
The Panama Canal brought another boon to Florida: weapons against the dreaded yellow fever. Terrifying epidemics of the "black vomit" had swept the state for years; the techniques that cleared the steaming jungles of Panama soon tamed the disease in Florida as well. Nonetheless, the state remained too poor to attract investors. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, elected governor in 1904, was a wool hat liberal; he began the reclamation of the Everglades, building canals to drain off the water. In 1900 the census counted 528,542 people in Florida; 1910, there were 752,619.
The Progressive movement sweeping the nation influenced Florida as well. Progressives demanded socially responsible government; May Mann Jennings, the wife of Governor William Sherman Jennings, promoted conservation, Seminole reservations, education, and public libraries. In 1905 the Buckman Act established the University of Florida for white men, the Florida Female College for women, and the Colored Normal School for blacks.
World War I brought a new boom to Florida. Flying schools took advantage of the consistent good weather and Key West was the site of a major submarine base. Toward Prohibition Florida exhibited the same fractured sensibility as the rest of the nation. Much of the state had passed local dry laws even before the Volstead Act of 1919; yet the long coastline and steady high demand made Florida a major nexus of liquor smuggling.
During the 1920s Florida experienced a spectacular land boom, especially in Miami Beach, Dade County, up and down both coasts, and into central Florida. Speculators designed and sold whole communities, like Coral Gables and Boca Raton. Between 1922 and 1925, 300,000 people arrived in Florida. The 1930 census showed a population of 1,468,211 (29 percent black). Many people arrived in cars, feeding the motel industry. Land values soared.
In 1926, like a harbinger of bad times to come, a terrible hurricane killed four hundred people and left five thousand homeless. The great boom was fizzling out. Undermined by speculation, banks began to fail; Florida was in a depression before the rest of the nation followed in 1930. The railroads went bankrupt; there was no money and no work. The state had no funds for relief, and no inclination to deliver it anyway. Local agencies took over as best they could. By 1932, 36 percent of blacks and 22 percent of whites were on relief.
In the 1932 presidential election Franklin Delano Roosevelt won Florida with 74 percent of the vote. The index of industrial production continued to drop, Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and Roosevelt's New Deal steadied the banks and provided employment through public works. In 1931 Florida had legalized pari-mutuel gambling, and thoroughbreds, greyhounds, and jai alai become major revenue producers. By 1934 tourism was making a comeback.
The New Deal stabilized Florida's economy but World War II ended the Great Depression. After Pearl Harbor, military bases opened around the state and the shipbuilding industry boomed. This resulted in a labor shortage, which authorities in some areas dealt with by rounding up "vagrants," mostly black, and putting them into peonage. The sugar industry, booming after the fall of the Philippines, was especially bad, with labor conditions like prison camps.
In 1940 the population of Florida was 1,897,414, making it the least populated state in the Southeast. Between 1940 and 1990 an average of 1.8 million people entered Florida each decade. Air conditioning and mosquito controls made South Florida livable in the summer. Key West, nearly bankrupt in the 1930s, got a new water pipeline from the federal government in 1942, and its population tripled by the end of the war. Miami and the Gold Coast above it was transformed as new military recruits came there to train, many stationed in luxury hotels because of the severe housing shortage. These recruits included blacks, who fought with distinction in the war, and chafed angrily under Jim Crow laws at home.
After the war Florida was clearly divided into two camps: the north, which clung to Jim Crow, and the south, which, flooded with newcomers, felt no attachment to customary norms and practices. Still the north controlled the state government: less than 20 percent of the population elected more than half the legislature. The stage was set for a major confrontation between Jim Crow and the civil rights movement.
Modern Florida
In 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down segregated education in Brown v. Board of Education, white supremacists struggled to hold the color line, but blacks now had the federal government on their side. In 1949, five black students challenged the segregation of the University of Florida, and in 1959 the courts finally ordered the institution open to African Americans. Martin Luther King went to Saint Augustine in 1964 to preach and lead protest marches that drew national news attention. At the same time flourishing industries were realizing that race riots were bad for business. In 1968 another state constitution shifted legislative control to the south and modernized the government. Claude Kirk (1967–1971) became the first Republican governor since Reconstruction and in 1992 the first black Floridians in over a hundred years went to the House of Representatives. Leander Shaw in 1990 became the first black chief justice of the Florida supreme court.
Liberated from the long race war, which had sucked up the energies and suppressed the aspirations of so many, Florida transformed itself. No longer part of the Deep South, it now belonged to the Sunbelt, affluent and modern. Its business-friendly politics and balmy climate attracted growth industries. Starting in 1950, rockets from Cape Canaveral sent people into space and to the moon. Housing construction, high technology, and tourism pushed agriculture into the background of the economy. Disney World, opened in Orlando in 1965, drew millions of tourists a year, feeding the hotel and airline industries.
Florida's population was diversifying as it grew. In the thirty years after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959, more than 800,000 Cubans moved to the Miami area. Haitians and Nicaraguans also fled to Florida from oppressive regimes in their homelands. People from all over Latin America and beyond came seeking jobs and advancement. From the northern states, retirees flooded into the sunshine and warmth. By 1990, 25 percent of the population was elderly. In 1990 the census counted 12,937,926 people, only 30 percent of them native Floridians.
This human tidal wave devastated Florida's natural environment. Starting at the turn of the twentieth century, developers drained the Everglades, diked Lake Okeechobee, and built high-rise hotels and condominiums on beaches and barrier islands—communities built not to exploit a local resource or serve local needs but simply to provide people a place to go that was not home. Rapid development strained water and energy supplies. The danger of such development in a hurricane zone was amply illustrated in August 1992, when Hurricane Andrew leveled extreme south Florida, killing more than 20 people and causing $20 billion in damage.
In 2000 Florida decided a presidential election. With the presidency in the balance, Democrat Albert Gore contested election results in Florida (where the governor was the brother of the Republican candidate, George W. Bush), demanding a recount; the subsequent confusion finally ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which stopped the recount and awarded the election to Bush.
In fifty years Florida evolved from the poorest and most isolated part of the South to a cosmopolitan, multicultural society, a winter playground for millions from the icy north, and a tourist mecca for the entire world. In 2000 the population was 15,982,378, and still growing.
Bibliography
Gannon, Michael, ed. The New History of Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996.
Newton, Michael. The Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
Storter, Rob. Crackers in the Glade: Life and Times in the Old Everglades. Edited and compiled by Betty Savidge Briggs. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Williams, Joy. The Florida Keys: A History and Guide. 9th ed. New York: Random House, 2000.
—Cecelia Holland
Facts and Figures
Area, 58,560 sq mi (151,670 sq km). Pop. (2000) 15,982,378, a 23.5% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Tallahassee. Largest city, Jacksonville. Statehood, Mar. 3, 1845 (27th state). Highest pt., 345 ft (105 m), Walton co.; lowest pt., sea level. Nickname, Sunshine State. Motto, In God We Trust. State bird, mockingbird. State flower, orange blossom. State tree, Sabal palmetto palm. Abbr., Fla.; FL
Geography
The Florida peninsula, warmed by surrounding subtropical and tropical waters and cooled by the trade winds, is famous for its pleasant climate, abundant sunshine, and scenery. The NW of Florida is a gently rolling panhandle area, cut into by deep swamps along the Gulf coast. The St. Marys River in the northeast and the Perdido River in the northwest form part of the boundary with Georgia and Alabama. Much of the east coast is shielded from the Atlantic Ocean by narrow sandbars and barrier islands that protect the shallow lagoons, rivers, and bays. Immediately inland, pine and palmetto flatlands stretch from the Georgia border almost to the southern tip of the state. Central Florida abounds in lakes, with Lake Okeechobee being the largest. The Everglades, which includes Big Cypress Swamp, is a unique wilderness region of subtropical plant growth and animal life and extends over the center of the southern part of the peninsula. Florida's SW coast, on the Gulf of Mexico, is dotted with tiny islands, and the Florida Keys, extending south and west from the southern tip of the state, are linked to the mainland by a causeway. Florida is separated from Cuba to the south by the Straits of Florida.
Tallahassee is the capital, and
Economy
Tourism plays a primary role in the state's economy; in 1996 visitors to Florida spent over $48 billion. Walt Disney World, a massive cluster of theme parks near Orlando that is one of the world's leading tourist attractions; Universal Studios, a combination theme park and film and television production facility, also near Orlando; and other attractions draw millions yearly. Famed beaches, such as those at Miami Beach, Daytona Beach, and Fort Lauderdale, attract hordes of vacationers. With more than 4,000 sq mi (10,360 sq km) of inland water and with the sea readily accessible from almost anywhere in the state, Florida is a fishing paradise. Other attractions include Everglades National Park, with its unusual plant and animal life; Palm Beach, with its palatial estates; and Sanibel Island's picturesque resorts.
Famous for its citrus fruits, Florida leads the nation in the production of oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, and market-ready corn and tomatoes. Other important crops include sugarcane and many varieties of winter vegetables. Cattle and dairy products are important, as is commercial fishing, with the catch including crabs, lobsters, and shrimp.
Cape Canaveral is the site of the John F. Kennedy Space Center, and many defense and scientific-research companies are in the area. Space flights, including those to the moon and the space shuttle missions, have been launched from Cape Canaveral. There are also major air and naval facilities, especially near Tampa and Pensacola. Construction is a major industry in fast-growing Florida, and Miami is a center of international (especially Latin American) trade.
Florida's leading manufactured items are food products, printed and published materials, electrical and electronic equipment, and transportation equipment. Lumber and wood products are also important. Most of the state's timber is yellow pine. Florida's mineral resources include phosphate rock, sand, and gravel.
Government, Politics, and Higher Education
In 1968, Florida adopted a new state constitution. The governor is elected for a term of four years, and the legislature has a senate of 40 members and a house of representatives of 120 members. The state also elects 23 representatives and 2 senators to the U.S. Congress and has 25 electoral votes.
The state has authorized the creation of special governing districts that give to commercial entities certain rights usually restricted to elected governments. A special district approved for Disney World in the 1960s allows it to oversee land drainage, and its powers have since been vastly expanded.
Florida is solidly Republican in presidential elections, supporting the Democratic candidate only once since 1968. Democrat Lawton Chiles, elected governor in 1990 and reelected in 1994, was succeeded by Republican John Ellis “Jeb” Bush, elected in 1998 and reelected in 2002. Charlie Crist, also a Republican, won the governorship in 2006.
Florida's institutions of higher education include the Univ. of Florida, at Gainesville; the Univ. of Miami, at Coral Gables; Florida State Univ. and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical Univ., at Tallahassee; Univ. of Central Florida, at Orlando; Rollins College, at Winter Park; the Univ. of Tampa and the Univ. of South Florida, at Tampa; Florida Southern College, at Lakeland; Stetson Univ., at De Land; Barry College, at Miami; and Bethune-Cookman College, at Daytona Beach.
History
Early Spanish and French Exploration
Although the Florida peninsula was probably sighted by earlier navigators, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León is credited as the first European to visit the area. Seeking the fabled Fountain of Youth, Ponce de León landed near the site of Saint Augustine in 1513. He claimed the area, which he thought was an island, for Spain and named it Florida, probably because it was then the Easter season (Pascua Florida). Other Spanish adventurers, notably Pánfilo de Narváez and Hernando De Soto, later explored the region and established the fact that Florida was not an island. The vast region that comprises most of the SE United States was claimed for Spain, the whole being known as Florida.
It was the activity of the French in the area, however, that led to actual Spanish settlement of the Florida peninsula. In May, 1562, Jean Ribaut had discovered the St. Johns River, and two years later René de Laudonnière built Fort Caroline at its mouth. Alarmed at this encroachment by the French, Philip II of Spain commissioned Pedro Menéndez de Aviles to drive the French out of the area; this he did ruthlessly. Spanish colonization began when Menéndez founded St. Augustine in 1565. Florida had no precious metals to spur conquest (as in Mexico and Peru), its soil seemed infertile (Spanish Florida was never self-sufficient agriculturally), and the Native Americans resented their encroachment. However, the Spanish were compelled to hold Florida because of its strategic location along the Straits of Florida, through which rich treasure ships from the south sailed for Spain.
English Colonization
In the 1600s the English, who were trying to expand their American colonial holdings after 1607, began to threaten Florida. St. Augustine was attacked several times by English corsairs and in 1702–3 was besieged by a force from the English colony in South Carolina. In 1742, English colonists from Georgia under James E. Oglethorpe, Georgia's founder, defeated the Spanish in the battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simons Island, making Florida's northern boundary the St. Marys River. Spain's last-minute entry (1762) into the Seven Years War cost her Florida, which the British acquired through the Treaty of Paris (1763).
Under the British (1763–83), Florida was divided into two provinces, and St. Augustine and Pensacola were respectively made the capitals of East Florida and West Florida. Under the Treaty of Paris (1783), Florida was returned to Spain. Many colonists in Florida abandoned the region and moved to British possessions in the West Indies. Spain's hold over Florida, however, was extremely tenuous. Boundary disputes developed with the United States (see West Florida Controversy). In the War of 1812, Pensacola served as a British base until captured (1814) by U.S. General Andrew Jackson.
U.S. Occupation
In 1819, after years of diplomatic wrangling, Spain reluctantly signed the Adams-Onis treaty ceding Florida to the United States in return for U.S. assumption of $5 million in damages claimed by U.S. citizens against Spain. Official U.S. occupation took place in 1821, and Andrew Jackson was appointed military governor. Florida, with its present boundaries, was organized as a territory in 1822, and William P. Duval became its first territorial governor.
Settlers poured in from neighboring states, settling especially in the area around the newly founded capital of Tallahassee. A plantation economy flourished there, with cotton and tobacco the chief crops. Settlement expanded southward and displaced the Seminoles, and wars with them seriously impeded Florida's development. A group of Seminole, under Osceola, resisted attempts to move them to the West, but eventually most of them were transported out of the region at the end of the Second Seminole War (1835–42). However, a small band fled to the wilderness of the Everglades and their descendants live on reservations in the Lake Okeechobee area.
Statehood, Civil War, and Reconstruction
Florida was admitted to the Union in 1845 as a slaveholding state. After Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860 proslavery sentiment in Florida led the state to secede from the Union in 1861 and join the Confederacy. Florida furnished vital supplies (particularly salt and cattle) to the Confederacy. The most important Civil War engagement fought in Florida was the battle of Olustee (Feb. 20, 1864), a Confederate victory.
After the war Florida was placed under military rule by Congress. A constitution was drafted providing for black suffrage, and the state was readmitted to the Union in 1868. The constitution had been drafted by moderate Republicans, some of whom were from the North, and these same Republicans held most political offices until 1876, when the Democrats were returned to power and African Americans were once again relegated to an inferior position. In 1885 a new constitution replaced the Reconstruction charter of 1868.
Land Booms
In 1881 Florida sold 4,000,000 acres (1,618,800 hectares) of land to real-estate promoters. Northern capitalists such as Henry M. Flagler built railroads and hotels, and Florida began to develop. The drainage of the Everglades, begun in 1906, precipitated one of the state's periodic land booms. Because of environmental degradation due to farming these drained lands, areas are now being restored to their natural state through reflooding. The most famous of Florida's land booms started after World War I and reached its peak in 1925 when land values achieved fantastic heights, only to collapse completely the following year.
From Depression to Postwar Growth
Florida weathered the depression of the 1930s with the help of the federal government, and during World War II prospered from army, navy, and air force installations. After the war the state enjoyed phenomenal growth. Virtually unlimited water resources, as well as the pleasant climate, were important factors in attracting new industries. Manufacturing, particularly industries related to aeronautics, developed at an extraordinary rate.
Relations with Latin America
Close to Cuba, Florida has often been involved in the affairs of that island. During the latter half of the 19th cent., Cubans rebelling against Spain received sanctuary and aid in Florida, and the state enthusiastically supported and profited economically from the Spanish-American War (1898), in which Tampa was the chief U.S. base. Florida's relationship with Cuba has become even closer in the 20th cent. Political refugees from the Cuban revolution of 1958–59 poured into Florida by the thousands, creating acute resettlement problems. In 1980 more than 100,000 Cuban refugees came to the United States, mostly through Florida, after Fidel Castro briefly opened the port of Mariel to a flotilla of privately chartered U.S. ships (see Cuba).
In the early 1990s, Florida was again the receiving ground for thousands of refugees, this time from Haiti, following the 1991 military coup in that country, as well as another wave from Cuba in 1994. Miami has been profoundly influenced by the massive influx of Cubans and other Caribbean people, both culturally and commercially. The city functions as the trade center of Latin America.
Florida has been one of the fastest growing states in the country for many decades. During the 1980s it surpassed Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania to become the fourth largest state, and has retained that position. Thousands of retired persons have settled in the state, particularly in St. Petersburg on the west coast and on the eastern coast from West Palm Beach to the vicinity of Miami, nicknamed the “Gold Coast.” The central interior of the state is the fastest growing region, particularly the corridor along Interstate 4, which connects the Tampa Bay–St. Petersburg area through Orlando to Daytona Beach.
Florida is subject to hurricanes, and the extensive development during the late 20th cent. has led to an increase in the damage caused by such storms. Hurricane Andrew devastated much of S Florida in 1992, leaving over 200,000 people homeless and costing property insurers more than $15 billion. In 1995, Hurricane Opal raged along the Panhandle coast. Four hurricanes struck Florida in 2004, resulting in widespread damage, and Hurricane Wilma also caused extensive damage in S Florida the following year. In 1994 the state approved a $685 million program to restore the deteriorating Everglades ecosystem, and in 1996 the federal government substantially enlarged the Everglades plans.
In Nov., 2000, Florida became the focus of unlooked-for national attention when George W. Bush and Al Gore found themselves separated by a thin margin in the contest for the state's electoral votes, which both needed to win the presidency. With Bush holding a lead of a few hundred out of several million, the outcome was fought over in the state government, state and federal courts, and the media. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on Bush's side in December, but deficiencies that were exposed in voting systems, recount methods, and even ballot design guaranteed that victory would be tarnished no matter who won (and led to an overhaul of Florida's election system).
Bibliography
See R. B. Marcus and E. A. Fernald, Florida: A Geographical Approach (1975); C. W. Tebeau, A History of Florida (rev. ed. 1981); D. Marth, ed., Florida Almanac, 1988–89 (1989).
The southeasternmost state of the contiguous United States, bordered by Alabama and Georgia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, and the Gulf of Mexico and Alabama to the west. Its capital is Tallahassee, and its largest city is Jacksonville.
Local Time: Jul 20, 3:44 PM
Local Time: Jul 20, 2:44 PM
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Florida was the center of controversy during the 2000 U.S. presidential election.
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| State of Florida | |||||||||||
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| Official language(s) | English | ||||||||||
| Capital | Tallahassee | ||||||||||
| Largest city | Jacksonville | ||||||||||
| Largest metro area | Miami metropolitan area | ||||||||||
| Area | Ranked 22nd | ||||||||||
| - Total | 65,795[1] sq mi (170,304[1] km²) |
||||||||||
| - Width | 361 miles (582 km) | ||||||||||
| - Length | 447 miles (721 km) | ||||||||||
| - % water | 17.9 | ||||||||||
| - Latitude | 24°27′ N to 31° N | ||||||||||
| - Longitude | 80°02′ W to 87°38′ W | ||||||||||
| Population | Ranked 4th | ||||||||||
| - Total (2000) | 15,982,378 | ||||||||||
| - Density | 309/sq mi 117.3/km² (8th) |
||||||||||
| - Median income | $41,171 (36th) | ||||||||||
| Elevation | |||||||||||
| - Highest point | Britton Hill[2] 345 ft (105 m) |
||||||||||
| - Mean | 98 ft (30 m) | ||||||||||
| - Lowest point | Atlantic Ocean[2] 0 ft (0 m) |
||||||||||
| Admission to Union | March 3, 1845 (27th) | ||||||||||
| Governor | Charlie Crist (R) | ||||||||||
| U.S. Senators | Bill Nelson (D) Mel Martinez (R) |
||||||||||
| Congressional Delegation | List | ||||||||||
| Time zones | |||||||||||
| - peninsula | Eastern: UTC-5/DST-4 | ||||||||||
| - panhandle | Central: UTC-6/DST-5 | ||||||||||
| Abbreviations | Fla., FL, US-FL | ||||||||||
| Web site | www.myflorida.com | ||||||||||
The State of Florida (IPA: /ˈflɒrɪdə/) is located in the southeastern region of the United States. Most of the state is a large peninsula with the Gulf of Mexico on its west and the Atlantic Ocean on its east. Much of the state has a humid subtropical climate, except for southern Florida, where the climate is tropical.[3] Florida was named by Juan Ponce de León, who landed on the peninsula on 2 April, 1513, during Pascua Florida (Spanish for "Flowery Easter," referring to the Easter season). Florida is the 4th most populated state in the country. It ranks 4th in population only behind New York(3rd), Texas(2nd), and California(most).
Archaeological research indicates that Florida had been inhabited for thousands of years before any European settlements. Of the many indigenous peoples, the largest known were the Ais, the Apalachee, the Calusa, the Timucua and the Tocobago tribes. Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish conquistador, named Florida in honor of his discovery of the land on April 2, 1513, during Pascua Florida, a Spanish term for the Easter season. From that date forward, the land became known as "La Florida." (Juan Ponce de León may not have been the first European to reach Florida; according to one report, at least one indigenous tribesman who he encountered in Florida in 1513 spoke Spanish.[4]
Over the following century, both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success. In 1559, Spanish Pensacola was established by Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano as the first European settlement in the continental United States, but it had become abandoned by 1561 and would not be reinhabited until the 1690s. French Huguenots founded Fort Caroline in modern-day Jacksonville in 1564, but the fort was conquered by forces from the new Spanish colony of St. Augustine the following year. After Huguenot leader Jean Ribault had learned of the new Spanish threat, he launched an expedition to sack the Spanish settlement; en route, however, severe storms at sea waylaid the expedition, which consisted of most of the colony's men, allowing St. Augustine founder Pedro Menéndez de Avilés time to march his men over land and conquer Fort Caroline. Most of the Huguenots were slaughtered, and Menéndez de Avilés marched south and captured the survivors of the wrecked French fleet, ordering all but a few Catholics executed beside a river subsequently called Matanzas (Spanish for 'killings'). Later, St. Augustine came to serve as the capitals of the British and Spanish colonies of East and West Florida, respectively.
The Spanish never had a firm hold on Florida, and maintained tenuous control over the region by converting the local tribes, briefly with Jesuits and later with Franciscan friars. The local leaders (caciques) demonstrated their loyalty to the Spanish by converting to Roman Catholicism and welcoming the Franciscan priests into their villages.
The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English colonies to the north and French colonies to the west. The English weakened Spanish power in the area by supplying their Creek Indian allies with firearms and urging them to raid the Timucuan and Apalachee client-tribes of the Spanish. The English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several times, while the citizens hid behind the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos.
The Spanish, meanwhile, encouraged slaves to flee the English-held Carolinas and come to Florida, where they were converted to Roman Catholicism and given freedom. They settled in a buffer community north of St. Augustine, called Gracie Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first completely black settlement in what would become the United States.
Great Britain gained control of Florida diplomatically in 1763 through the Peace of Paris (the Castillo de San Marcos surrendered for the first time, having never been taken militarily). Britain tried to develop Florida through the importation of immigrants for labor, including some from Minorca and Greece, but this project ultimately failed. Spain regained Florida after Britain's defeat by the American colonies and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles in 1783. They offered land grants to anyone who settled the colony, and many Americans moved to the state. This Americanization resulted in 1819, by terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty, of Spain ceding Florida to the United States in exchange for the American renunciation of any claims on Texas and $5 million.
On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state of the United States of America. On January 10, 1861, before the formal outbreak of the Civil War, Florida seceded from the Union; ten days later, the state became a founding member of the Confederate States of America. The war ended in 1865. On June 25, 1868, Florida's congressional representation was restored.
Until the mid-twentieth century, Florida was the least populous Southern state; however, the local climate, tempered by the growing availability of air conditioning, made the state a haven, and migration from the Rust Belt and the Northeast sharply increased the population. Economic prosperity combined with Florida's sudden elevation in profile led to the Florida land boom of the 1920s, which brought a brief period of intense land development before the Great Depression brought it all to a halt. Florida's economy would not fully recover until World War II. Today, with an estimated population over 18 million, Florida is the most populous state in the Southeastern United States, the second most populous state in the South behind Texas, and the fourth most populous in the United States. The Census Bureau estimates that "Florida, now the fourth most populous state, would edge past New York into third place in total population by 2011".[5] [6]
Florida is situated mostly on a large peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida. It extends to the northwest into a panhandle, extending along the northern Gulf of Mexico. It is bordered on the north by the states of Georgia and Alabama, and on the west, at the end of the panhandle, by Alabama. It is near the countries of the Caribbean, particularly the Bahamas and Cuba. Florida's extensive coast line made it a perceived target during World War II, so the government built airstrips all around the state. Today approximately 400 airports are still in service due to the coastal geography of the state. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, Florida has 131 public airports, and more than 700 private airports, airstrips, heliports, and seaplane bases.[7] Florida is one of the largest states east of the Mississippi. Only Alaska and Michigan are larger in water area.
The Florida peninsula is a porous plateau of karst limestone sitting atop bedrock. Extended systems of underwater caves, sinkholes and springs are found throughout the state and supply most of the water used by residents. The limestone is topped with sandy soils deposited as ancient beaches over millions of years as global sea levels rose and fell. During the last Ice Age, lower sea levels and a drier climate revealed a much wider peninsula, largely desert. At the southern end of the peninsula, the Everglades are in fact an enormously wide, very slow-flowing river.
At 345 feet (105 m) above mean sea level, Britton Hill is the highest point in Florida and the lowest highpoint of any U.S. state.[8] Contrary to popular belief, however, Florida is not entirely "flat." Some places, such as Clearwater, feature vistas that rise 50 to 100 feet (15 – 30 m) above the water. Much of the interior of Florida, typically 25 miles (40 km) or more away from the coastline, features hills with elevations ranging from 100 to 250 feet (30 – 76 m) in many locations. Lake County holds the highest point of peninsular Florida, Sugarloaf Mountain, at 312 feet (95 m).[9]
Areas under control of the National Park Service include:
