Customer Reviews

Black Society in Spanish Florida (Blacks in the New World)

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The history of the Floridas and its Black peoples has for many years been relegated to the back pages of American history. Jane Landers' important work will move the history of Black Florida before 1820 to the forefront of American history. She presents the people of color of Eastern Spanish Florida free and enslaved, as active participants in shaping 500 years of American history. Landers helps to dispell the one dimensional template (and inaccurate) of slavery taken from the central Southern states: cotton fields, the big house, field hands and the few and despised priviledged house slaves. Life during Spanish rule was similar but different. Landers certainly doesn't let the Spanish off the hook, but brings another dimension to Blacks living enslaved or free in the eastern Floridas. These were multi-lingual people Blacks, who traveled throughout the ports in the Caribbean, or interacted with the many cultures of the Florida's port cities. Landers forces the reader to look at Blacks in Florida in a different light. The early sons and daughters of Florida "MET" the immigrants from Europe, the Upper South and the Caribbean at the docks of St. Augustine, Tampa etc.

Jane Landers' thorough research of St. Augustine unearths fascinating histories of Black families who live in present day Florida.

Hopefully the readers of this book will look for the imprint of Florida Blacks beyond the Spanish Rule.

For historians, or fans of African-American history, or American history, Lander's style will captivate and compell them to search for more histories on the Afro-Caribbeans of Florida.

Jane Landers, the author, is an authority on the topic. A very valuable resource to help in understanding and visualizing what life was like in the "melting pot" of races, cultures, ethnicities that was Spanish Florida. Definitely worth the time to read it!