University of South Florida Scholar Commons Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center Publications 1-1-1998 Tampa Bay History 20/02 University of South Florida. College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Department of History Follow this and additional works at:http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/flstud_pub Part of theAmerican Studies Commons, and theCommunity-based Research Commons Scholar Commons Citation University of South Florida. College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Department of History, "Tampa Bay History 20/02" (1998). Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center Publications.Paper 2549. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/flstud_pub/2549 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. FALL/WINTER 1998 VOLUME 20, NUMBER 2 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 2 From the Editors 3 ARTICLES Stepping into Freedom: African Americans in Hillsborough County, Florida, during the Reconstruction Era. ........................................... by Kathleen S. Howe 4 Spans of Time: The Contributions of George S. Gandy, Ben T. Davis, and Courtney Campbell to the Development of the Tampa Bay Area. ...................................................................... by David W. Adams 31 African Americans and Chinsegut Hill: Race Relations in Hernando County, Florida, during the Jim Crow Era. .................................. by Michael Lee Correia 51 Ruth Clifford and Dorothy Ebersbach: Florida Fliers during World War II. ..............................................................by Thomas Reilly and Lynn Homan 64 First Christian Church of Tampa: The First Hundred Years. ......................................................................................... by Elaine Novak 75 BOOK REVIEWS Blakey, Lainhart, and Stephens, Rose Cottage Chronicles ............................................................................................ by Sheila B. Cohen 84 Gillespie, The Search for Thomas Ward ...........................................by James M. Denham 85 Pacheco, Pacheco’s Art o f Ybor City. ................................................by Ana Varela-Lago 86 Book Notes ................................................................................................................................... 88 Notes on Contributors .................................................................................................................. 95 Copyright 1998 by the University of South Florida Typography and composition by RAM Printing by RALARD PRINTERS, INC., San Antonio, Florida. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We extend our appreciaton to the following people who have made special contributions to TAMPA BAY HISTORY. PATRONS SUSTAINERS John M. Hamilton, M.D. Raymond Alley, Jr. William R. Hough Buford and Louise Council Mark T. Orr George D. Curtis Sandy and Didi Rief Frank De Benedictis Roland and Susan Rodriguez Sandra & Sol J. Fleishman, Jr. James Shimberg Carlos D. Gonzalez J. Thomas Touchton Gerald Herms Mr. & Mrs. Theodore E. Wade James V. Hodnett, Jr. Bill Wagner Mr. & Mrs. E.C. Ingalls M. Craig Massey Mr. & Mrs. Solon F. O’Neal, Jr. Lois Paradise Mr. & Mrs. R. James Robbins, Jr. Mrs. Jean W. Robbins Marsha Rydberg L. Gray Sanders FRIENDS June Alder John T. Lesley Cynthia Aprile Dick Levins Marvin Barkin Lt. Col. George W. McRory Mr. & Mrs. James Baxter Winnie Meighen Norma Lopez Bean James Miragliotta II Shelby Bender Mr. & Mrs. Sam Militello Howard and Joan F. Berry Dr. W. Mahon Myers Claire A. Cardina Mrs. Lester Olson Susan Carlo R. Rex Patrick H.L. Crowder, Jr. J. Wayne and Bridget Phillips C. Fred Deuel Mr. & Mrs. Mark A. Prater Charles Emerson Robert R. Renfroe Mary Figg Harley E. Riedel II John M. Fitzgibbons William E. Rumph Dr. Carl Fromhagen Martha Jane Ryan Robert G. Gadsden, III R.E. Shoemaker Howard L. Garrett Donald Stailey Joseph Garrison Dick & Raymetta Stowers William H. Gates Maynard F. Swanson Leon R. Hammock Dr. G.P. Thomas William N. Hayes Wayne Lee Thomas Russell V. Hughes Ken Walters Professor Eric Jarvis Charles L. Williamson Dr. & Mrs. Galen Jones William Wofford Robert Kerstein Kathleen M. Wolan Richard Lane FROM THE EDITORS In the nineteenth century, Thomas Carlyle asserted that history "is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here." For generations this declaration raised little question among historians who focused on political developments and looked largely at the past from the top down. However, beginning in the 1960s, a new generation of historians suggested that the past appeared different if viewed from the bottom up. Examinations of history from the perspective of common people far removed from the heady world of high politics brought a flood of path-breaking studies of long-neglected people such as plantation slaves, wage-earning women, and working-class immigrants. The new social history also sparked a running debate about which actors - great men or ordinary people - deserved primary emphasis in the writing of history. This issue of Tampa Bay History does not pretend to answer that question, but it does reflect the variety of approaches and perspectives now used by historians. In the article entitled "Spans of Time," David W. Adams examines the contributions of George S. Gandy, Ben T. Davis, and Courtney Campbell - men whose names are familiar to residents of the Tampa Bay area. Adams highlights the foresightedness and entrepreneurship of these men who spearheaded the development of the two spans that first linked Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. The article "Florida Fliers during World War II" shifts the focus to emphasize the contributions of two women who piloted planes during wartime. In telling the story of little-known women, authors Thomas Reilly and Lynn Homan emphasize individual accomplishments that have largely escaped the attention of historians. Two other articles focus on local African Americans and provide both new information and new perspectives. In the article entitled "African Americans in Hillsborough County, Florida, during the Reconstruction Era," Kathleen S. Howe shows how different the period after the Civil War looks if examined from the point of view of former slaves living in a sparsely settled area. Her study also challenges readers to think about politics in new ways that make the daily lives of ordinary people central to struggles over power. In another article, "African Americans and Chinsegut Hill," Michael Lee Correia documents the lives of several black families in Hernando County and their relations with the famous owners of the Chinsegut property, Magaret Dreier and Raymond Robins. In focusing on blacks, these articles reveal significant ways in which African Americans influenced events. Finally, this issue includes a look at the First Christian Church of Tampa, which is celebrating its centennial anniversary, and once again, the focus shifts to an institution whose leading members ranked high in Tampa society. The editors hope you enjoy this issue, which marks the completion of twenty years of this publication. STEPPING INTO FREEDOM: AFRICAN AMERICANS IN HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA, DURING THE RECONSTRUCTION ERA by Kathleen S. Howe The end of the Civil War ushered in the Reconstruction era which brought new realities to Southerners, both black and white. For blacks, emancipation marked the beginning of freedom; for whites, an end to uncontested control. Conservative whites who had previously dominated society would have to compete for power with white Unionists and those they had once enslaved. What emancipation ultimately meant for all was dramatic change. While much of this occurred in high profile battles at the state and federal levels, the process of change was also highly contested in local confrontations that pitted blacks against whites in communities across the South. African-American resistance to white attempts to limit the independence of freedpeople appeared in everyday struggles as blacks formed their own households, negotiated new labor relations, sought education, and wielded the vote. The outcome of these contests varied from community to community, and this study highlights developments in Florida’s Hillsborough County, a rural frontier locale where Reconstruction unfolded in ways that varied from those experienced in areas dominated by the plantation economy. Most Reconstruction scholarship deals with “cotton belt” blacks rather than their counterparts residing in developing areas like Hillsborough County. These studies can mislead, implying that the process of Reconstruction followed the same course regardless of the setting. For example, in North Florida counties, large black populations accentuated white fears, bringing determined efforts to control freedpeople. Hillsborough County, by contrast, was sparsely populated and underdeveloped. The entire population in 1860 was only 2,981, with blacks contributing 566 of that number. So while African Americans made up about 44 percent of the state’s populace and several northern counties had large black majorities, Hillsborough County’s black population averaged from 18 to 20 percent of the total throughout the Reconstruction era from 1865 to 1877.1 The smaller black population in Hillsborough County undoubtedly explains why the area experienced less overt violence toward blacks during Reconstruction. Thus, a study centered on Hillsborough County makes it easier to gain an unobstructed view of routine psychological and verbal battles that accompanied change, phenomena easily overlooked in the face of high-profile violence that took the lives of over 200 blacks elsewhere in Florida during the Reconstruction period.2 In Hillsborough County, confrontations between whites and blacks occurred, but most often in subtle daily interactions, which involved struggles over who should control the household, labor, political activities, educational matters, access to courts, and a host of other areas. Understanding the dynamics of change during Reconstruction requires examining both the black and white communities, because first slavery and then emancipation inevitably tied the two together. In Hillsborough County most African Americans, first as slaves and later as In 1882, Tampa (as viewed here from the county courthouse) was still sparsely settled with a population of less than 1,000 people. Photograph courtesy of Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System. freedpeople, lived in or very close to the county seat of Tampa, and they were concentrated in an area called the Scrub. Bounded by Scott Street on the north, Cass on the south, Central Avenue on the west, and Nebraska on the east, the Scrub was described by a Tampa newspaper as an area that was “impenetrable and serves to remind one of a walled city.”3 During Reconstruction, black and white Southerners also had to deal with white Northerners who played a role in shaping the new society, especially as U. S. soldiers and officials of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the federal agency that was created in 1865 to assist ex-slaves in the transition to freedom.4 The views of both southern and northern whites can be found in surviving newspapers and government documents which they wrote, but few African Americans left written records. While this complicates analysis, we can learn much by examining official documents, the press, and the reactions of whites to what transpired. Given the general absence of records actually written by ex-slaves, we must infer their attitudes largely from their actions which often spoke loudly about their beliefs. After emancipation, some of the fiercest battles between blacks and whites were over the household. The very act of forming families fundamentally challenged the prevailing view of elite whites that they were the rightful regulating agents in society.5 Slaves could not contract for themselves, control their families, or express themselves within the body politic. Emancipation changed this and offered freedpeople the right to form their own households and represent themselves in the public arena. Their attempts to exercise these rights were not uncontested, however, as many whites still assumed their control over blacks was necessary to assure social During Reconstruction, the Freedmen’s Bureau went to the defense of newly freed slaves, who were depicted here as ready to defend themselves. Illustration from Harpers’s Weekly, July 25, 1868. order. Nevertheless, blacks forced changes, as evidenced by the way they ordered their domestic life. After the war, Hillsborough County blacks gathered their kin around them, as did freedpeople throughout the South. For those ex-slaves separated from relatives, reuniting families proved a major challenge. The drive to unite with family was not a product of emancipation, however. Rather it was played out countless times even before the Civil War began. Such was the case in Hillsborough County when the local newspaper ran an advertisement in 1858 for a 26-year-old runaway slave named Pierce who was “probably heading for Columbus Georgia to join his wife.” After the Civil War, attempts to reunite families accelerated. Throughout the North and South, family members advertised for information about loved ones. In 1867, Ann Wells was still seeking information about her daughter, “Maria Adeline, formerly a slave of Dr. Lively, [who] was taken from Tampa during the war by some colored people and carried to Key West. When last heard from she was in Apalachicola, Florida.”6 Black families maintained contemporary visions of males as heads-of-household, yet they did not mirror the patterns of the middle-class white community.7 Rather, they more closely approximated poor white households. The poor of both races were more distinctly committed to a communally based experience that valued cooperation over individualism. In an example of cooperation, African-American families sometimes took in orphaned children after the war and raised them as their own. In 1880 two black families in Hillsborough County listed orphans