Notes on the Floridian Peninsula; its Literary History, Indian Tribes and Antiquities. Brinton Daniel Garrison

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СКАЧАТЬ county, Pennsylvania, in 1701. From his earliest youth he manifested that absorbing love for the natural sciences, especially botany, that in after years won for him from no less an authority than the immortal Linnæus, the praise of being “the greatest botanist in the New World.” He was also the first in point of time. Previously all investigations had been prosecuted by foreigners in a vague and local manner. Bartram went far deeper than this. On the pleasant banks of the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, he constructed the first botanic garden that ever graced the soil of the New World; here to collect the native flora, he esteemed no journey too long or too dangerous. After the cession, he was appointed “Botanist to His Majesty for both the Floridas,” and though already numbering over three-score years, he hastened to visit that land whose name boded so well for his beloved science. Accompanied only by his equally enthusiastic son William, he ascended the St. Johns in an open boat as far as Lake George, daily noting down the curiosities of the vegetable kingdom, and most of the time keeping a thermometrical record. On his return, he sent his journal to his friends in England under whose supervision, though contrary to his own desire, it was published.76 It makes a thin quarto, divided into two parts paged separately. The first is a general description of the country, apparently a reprint of an essay by the editor, Dr. Stork, a botanist likewise, and member of the Royal Society, who had visited Florida. The second part is Bartram’s diary, enriched with elaborate botanical notes and an Introduction by the editor. It is merely the daily jottings of a traveller and could never have been revised; but the matter is valuable both to the naturalist and antiquary.

      The younger Bartram could never efface from his memory the quiet beauty and boundless floral wealth of the far south. About ten years afterwards therefore, when Dr. Fothergill and other patrons had furnished him the means to prosecute botanical researches throughout the Southern States, he extended his journey to Florida. He made three trips in the peninsula, one up the St. Johns as far as Long Lake, a second from “the lower trading house,” where Palatka now stands, across the savannas of Alachua to the Suwannee, and another up the St. Johns, this time ascending no further than Lake George. The work he left is in many respects remarkable;77 “it is written” said Coleridge “in the spirit of the old travellers.” A genuine love of nature pervades it, a deep religious feeling breathes through it, and an artless and impassioned eloquence graces his descriptions of natural scenery, rendering them eminently vivid and happy. With all these beauties, he is often turgid and verbose, his transitions from the sublime to the common-place jar on a cultivated ear, and he is too apt to scorn anything less than a superlative. Hence his representations are exaggerated, and though they may hold true to him who sees unutterable beauties in the humblest flower, to the majority they seem the extravaganzas of fancy. He is generally reliable, however, in regard to single facts, and as he was a quick and keen observer of every remarkable object about him, his work takes a most important position among our authorities, and from the amount of information it conveys respecting the aborigines, is indispensable to the library of every Indianologist.

      A very interesting natural history of the country is that written by Bernard Romans.78 This author, in his capacity of engineer in the British service, lived a number of years in the territory, traversing it in various directions, observing and noting with care both its natural features and the manners and customs of the native tribes. On the latter he is quite copious and is one of our standard authors. His style is discursive and original though occasionally bombastic, and many of his opinions are peculiar and bold. Extensive quotations from him are inserted by the American translator in the Appendix to Volney’s View of the United States. He wrote various other works, bearing principally on the war of independence. A point of interest to the bookworm in his History is that the personal pronoun I, is printed throughout as a small letter.

      A work on a contested land title, privately printed in London for the parties interested about the middle of this period,79 might possess some little interest from the accompanying plan, but in other respects is probably valueless. There is a manuscript work by John Gerard Williams de Brahm, preserved in the library of Harvard College, which “contains some particulars of interest relative to Florida at the period of the English occupation.”80 Extracts from it are given by Mr. Fairbanks, descriptive of the condition of St. Augustine from 1763 to 1771, and of the English in the province. This De Brahm was a government surveyor, and spent a number of years on the eastern coasts of the United States while a British province.

      Among the many schemes set in motion for peopling the colony, that of Lord Rolls who proposed to transport to the banks of the St. Johns the cypriennes and degraded femmes du pave of London,81 and that of Dr. Turnbull, are especially worthy of comment. The latter collected a colony from various parts of the Levant,—from Greece, from Southern Italy, and from the Minorcan Archipelago—and established his head quarters at New Smyrna. The heartless cruelty with which he treated these poor people, their birth-place and their fate, as well as the fact that from them most of the present inhabitants of St. Augustine receive their language, their character, and the general name of Minorcans, have from time to time attracted attention to their history. Besides notices in general works on Florida, Major Amos Stoddard in a work on Louisiana82 sketches the colony’s rise and progress, but he is an inaccurate historian and impeachable authority. It is the only portion of his chapter on the Floridas of any value. In 1827, an article upon them was published in France by Mr. Mease,83 which I have not consulted, and a specimen of their dialect, the Mahonese, as it existed in 1843, in the Fromajardis or Easter Song, has been preserved by Bryant, and is a curious relic.84

      § 5.—The Second Spanish Supremacy. 1780-1821

      During this period few books were published on Florida and none whatever in the land of the regainers of the territory. The first traveller who has left an account of his visit thither is Johann David Schöpf,85 a German physician who had come to America in 1777, attached to one of the Hessian regiments in the British service. At the close of the war he spent two years (1783-4) in travelling over the United States previous to returning home, a few weeks of which, in March, 1784, he passed in St. Augustine. He did not penetrate inland, and his observations are confined to a description of the town, its harbor and inhabitants, and some notices of the botany of the vicinity—for it was to natural history and especially medical botany that Schöpf devoted most of his attention during his travels. The difficulties of Spain with the United States in regard to boundaries gave occasion for some publications in the latter country. As early as 1797, the President addressed a message to Congress “relative to the proceedings of the Commissioner for running the Boundary Line between the United States and East and West Florida,” which contains a resumé of what had been done up to that date.

      Andrew Ellicott, Commissioner in behalf of the United States, was employed five years in determining these and other boundaries between the possessions of our government and those of His Catholic Majesty. He published the results partially in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, and more fully several years afterwards in a separate volume.86 They are merely the hasty notes of a surveyor, thrown together in the form of a diary, without attempt at digestion or connection; but he was an acute and careful observer, and his renseignements on the topography of East Florida are well worth consulting. Among the notable passages is a vivid description of the remarkable meteoric shower of November 12, 1799, which he encountered off the south-western coast of Florida, and from which, conjoined with the observations of Humboldt at Cumana, and others, the periodicity of this phænomenon was determined by Palmer, of New Haven.

      A geographical account of Florida is said to have appeared at Philadelphia about this time, from the pen of John Mellish,СКАЧАТЬ