Eighteenth-Century Florida: Life on the Frontier. Edited by Samuel Proctor.

Octavo, gray cloth (hardcover), illustrated endpapers, 110 pp. Very Good+. From Introduction: Life was not easy on the isolated Florida frontier before and during the American Revolution. When the Spanish evacuated the territory after signing the Treaty of Paris in 1763, they left behind a a wilderness that was almost devoid of human beings. Fewer than a dozen white people remained in all of East Florida when the British arrived to take possession in all of East Florida when the British arrived to take possession of St. Augustine. Stimulated by a major publicity campaign, a land boom ensued, thus encouraging a steady flow of settlers. By 1775, the population of East and West Florida had swelled to nearly 8,00; about 3,000 lived in and around St. Augustine and the remainder at Pensacola and along the Mississippi River. In many ways, eighteenth-century Florida was almost a microcosm of the rest of America that was already moving rapidly toward political independence. Her population was polyglot. Most of the colonists were English and Scots, but there were also Irish, Germans, French, and Scandinavians, Minorcans, Greeks, Corsicans, and Italians had settled first at New Smyrna and later in St. Augustine. The blacks were numerous than any other group, and Indians outnumbered the whites. Catholics, Anglicans, and Jews were all present in Florida by the time of the Revolution, and all made a contribution to the economic, social, and political life of the time. The loyalist refugees who made their way into East and West Florida from Georgia, the Carolinas, and the back country after the firing of the firs shots of the Revolution added to the complex problems of frontier Florida. Some of these transients had been affluent planters, government officials, and wealthy merchants and land speculators. Most of them, however, were farmers, laborers, and tradesmen. A few were able to bring their slaves and other personal possessions, but many arrived with little more than they could carry on their backs. All, rich or poor, had lost their homes, land, and businesses, and in many cases they had been separated from their families. Florida, Floridiana, Florida History, United States History, U. S. History, U.S.-iana, Americana, American History nslic.…