The Illusion of Freedom: African Americans in 1890s Florida
Despite being granted their freedom some thirty years prior, freed slaves in turn of the century Florida were still barely unshackled. Being set free (13th Amendment), granted equal citizenship (14th Amendment), and given the right to vote (15th Amendment) didn’t mean very much once the Union soldiers pulled out after the Great Betrayal of 1877.
Wealthy landowners and politicians were then loosed to pass all kinds of laws and discriminatory practices. Town developers in the booming Sunshine State could deny land ownership rights or ban “negroes” altogether. Most of the white populous certainly had no intention of seeing blacks as more than cheap labor, much less as equal citizens.
Public perception at the time saw the race as an inferior class of less evolved humans that still held tendencies from their jungle days. Some even purported Africans had supernatural powers. They were viewed as curious and exotic, yet at the same time untamed, violent and lazy.
Of course, it behooved the Southern industrial complex to forward this perception and to ensure blacks were kept uneducated, ignorant, and feared yet defeated. Since they could no longer be legally enslaved, it was essential to keep them economically, culturally and politically subjugated.
