Life in Postbellum Florida
This selection of published resources includes both primary and secondary sources offering insight into the experiences of Black Floridians in postbellum Florida.
Several publications on this list document the work of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Florida, while other publications document the history of Black communities in Tallahassee and surrounding areas after the Civil War.
Still other publications on this list trace social, political and labor movements organized by Black Floridians after the Civil War.
Church publications chronicle aspects of religious life in Florida’s Black communities, while city directories record the names, addresses and occupations of residents within Florida’s Black enclaves.
- Brown, Canter. Florida’s Black Public Officials, 1867-1924. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998.
- Hare, Julianne. Historic Frenchtown: Heart and Heritage in Tallahassee. Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2006.
- Jackson, David H., and Kimberlyn M. Elliott. “African Americans in Florida, 1870-1920: A Historiographical Essay.” The Florida Historical Quarterly 95, no. 2 (2016): 152–93.
- Laurie, Murray D. “The Union Academy: A Freedmen’s Bureau School in Gainesville, Florida.” The Florida Historical Quarterly 65, no. 2 (1986): 163–74.
- May, Mary Cathrin. From Freedmen to Free Men: Black Political Leaders in Tallahassee and Leon County, Florida, 1865-1890 and 1950-1971. Tallahassee: Durra Quick Print, 2009.
- Ortiz, Paul. Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida From Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
- Polk Directory Tallahassee, FL. Richmond, Virginia: R. L. Polk, 1925.
- Proceedings and Year Book of the 1891 Session of the East Florida Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (PDF). Jacksonville: African Methodist Episcopal Church East Florida Conference, 1891.
- Richardson, Joe Martin. African Americans in the Reconstruction of Florida. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008.
- Thompson, Sharyn. A Boardhouse With a Tin Top: Life at Ayavalla – Personal Histories From the Plantation. Tallahassee, FL: Phipps Foundation and the Northwest Florida Water Management District, 1997.
- United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. Education Division. Records of the Education Division of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1871.
- United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. Semi-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1866-1870.
- Wakefield, Laura Wallis. “‘Set a Light in a Dark Place’: Teachers of Freedmen in Florida, 1864-1874.” The Florida Historical Quarterly 81, no. 4 (2003): 401–17.