Further evidence of Southern Identity

I'm about a fourth of the way through my book on Florida history.  Definitely some important history has been fleshed out - such as, contrary to the popular conception of Plymouth Rock, the first city in America to be "discovered" and founded is St. Augustine, Florida by Ponce de Leon, a Puerto Rican governor looking for gems, minerals, and as the folk tale goes, waters that would prove to be the fountain of youth.  (He found none of these.  Florida turned out to be very commercially disappointing to the Spaniards, English and French who all at one point had possession.)  Ponce de Leon named his find Florida, which meant Place of (or Island of) Flowers.  By the time the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, St. Augustine had a full-fledged urban system and was celebrating its 55th birthday.

So why are we told the story of Plymouth Rock?  Because history seems to be the history of conquerors.  The Spanish ran Florida for a very long time, but eventually lost possession to the English.  It's the English history we are told and remember.

Florida was the 3rd state after Mississippi and (hmm.. one other.. can't remember...) to join the Confederacy.  In the antebellum era, as many as 40% of Florida's meager population were black; most were slaves.  The only Confederate city/stronghold not to fall to the Union was Tallahassee.  In the one major battle of the Civil War in Florida, the Confederates prevailed.  There is a strong Confederate history in Florida, with all the requisite post-war Jim Crow laws to, in a sense, reenact the conditions of slavery in opposition to the federal government's victory.  African American Floridians lost the right to vote.  The KKK flourished.  This political and racist history ties Florida to the Southern tradition and what we think of as the "South", beyond its simple location below Georgia.

Of course there are other rich Native histories.  The tribe that came to be known as the Seminoles was actually a composite of several other Northern tribes that moved South.  They were responsible for three great wars for territory and rights against the state and federal government, some of the strongest, longest, and fiercest battles fought in the United States by native people.  I was surprised to learn that "Chief Osceola," a great military leader of the second Seminole War was neither a chief nor wholly native.  His mother, I believe, was English.    (The Seminoles and Osceola being names every Floridian grows up knowing.)

Other than that, the early history of the Spaniards permeates the state, including setting up some of the first Catholic missions, long before the Californian missions were established.  I'm fairly certain this type of influence from the Spanish didn't occur in the rest of the U.S. (accounts for certain regional differences) but the physical territory of Florida - what is referred to as Florida -- was actually much larger than what we now know of as the state.  It extended west almost to Texas and north, at one point, almost to the Carolinas.  At one point, a good chunk of what we think of as the "deep South" -- Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana -- was part of Florida.

What I've discovered so far is that - despite the influence of the Spanish, the island-like beauty and topography which distinguishes it from the rest of the South, and other factors -- Florida, through its ties to the Confederacy and slavery, definitely solidified its own Southern identity.  When at last it became a state, Iowa was also granted statehood in an attempt to balance the pro-slavery and anti-slavery/"free" black votes in Congress.  This too sets up an opposition to the north.