Summary Of Creating An Old South

Looking back on the years leading up to Florida statehood, it is tempting to believe that the outcome was inevitable and to ignore the disagreements that occurred at the time. This view forms the myth of the “Old South” which was imagined as being stable and lacking any significant changes or crises. Documents written at the time along with books such as Creating an Old South contradict this view and reveal a number of divisive issues, including geographic divisions and disagreement over the ultimate fate of Indians that reveal that the idea of an unchanging South was just an illusion with no basis in reality. The author of the book Creating an Old South, Edward E Baptist, does a very effective job when it comes to addressing the main thesis

This is shown by the memorial that the residents of St Augustine sent to Congress in 1838, making it clear that they were against being part of the same state as Middle and West Florida. Their reasons for this aversion were that in their view “[they had] been connected with and in part governed by, a territory of country possessing a large majority in numerical strength, and with which they had no association or business connection.” The people of East Florida clearly believed that forming a single state with Middle and East Florida would result in them being dominated by the more populated portions of the state. To further emphasize their desire to be a separate territory from the rest of Florida, they sent a petition to Congress two years later. In the petition they stated their support for the efforts of Middle and West Florida to gain statehood, but again requested that East Florida be allowed to form a separate territory. This fear of being dominated by Middle Florida is also mentioned in Creating an Old South. While the citizens of Middle Florida desired statehood as soon as possible, the citizens of East and West Florida were against it. They were concerned that the state would be dominated by Middle Florida and therefore opposed forming a state at that time. This makes it clear that Florida was a divided territory and could easily have been

Settlers were against any treaties that didn’t include either the “extermination of the Seminoles or the relocation of all surviving Indians to the west. Any attempts by the army officers to make peace that would allow the Seminoles to remain in Florida was opposed by settlers and whenever possible they attempted to persuade Congress to accept nothing less than relocation. This is shown by the memorial the citizens of St John sent to Congress in 1841. They sent the message as a response to rumors of a treaty with the Seminoles which would allow the Seminoles to keep living in Florida. The settlers made it clear that they were against the treaty. They asserted that the treaty would only embolden the Seminoles, and make settlers fear for their safety. In addition, they stated that the land in question would strengthen the American economy and that the Seminoles should instead be relocated west of the Mississippi. There were clearly different opinions regarding the fate of the