Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
South Florida was built on boom and bust, by dreamers who took advantage
of nice weather and opportunists who took advantage of natural disasters -
nothing clears out old real estate like a hurricane, after all. Every chapter of
the region's saga is closed by a hurricane, building boom or riot. South Flor-
ida has historically treated slow growth with contempt, and this attitude has
paid with huge financial dividends on the one hand, and economic and envir-
onmental catastrophes on the other.
Spain, Britain & Spain Again
The Spanish settled in Florida in 1565, several decades before Pilgrims landed on Plymouth
Rock and English aristocrats starved in Jamestown, Virginia. The territory changed hands
from Spain (until 1763) to Britain (1763-83) and back to Spain again (1783-1821). And
then came American Independence. The Spanish had to deal with a big, land-hungry new
nation lying just to the north.
Relations chilled when escaped American slaves made for Spanish Florida, where slavery
was illegal and freed slaves were employed as standing militia members. White American
Southerners saw armed black militia and started sweating the notion of slave revolts in their
back plantation yard. By 1821, the USA had purchased Florida from Spain; concurrently,
businessman John W Simonton bought the island of Key West from Spanish artillery officer
Juan Pablo Salas.
The island was deemed the 'Gibraltar of the West' for its command of the Straits of Flor-
ida, which sit between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. In 1823, Commodore
David Porter of the United States Navy took over the island, administering it as a base from
which to track down illegal slave ships.
