HISTORICAL FESTIVALS/REENACTMENTS
Festivals and reenactments help us with our comprehension of our varied and rich history through visual, auditory and hands-on presentation. They enrich our "time travel" backwards to a time without electricity, technology, indoor plumbing, and farming using our bodies, not machines. Some of these great festivals in our area are listed below. They are well worth the time spent in indulging our senses to really understand our heritage.
STONE AGE AND PRIMITIVE ARTS FESTIVAL ( 12,000 BC and forward)
Ochlockonee River State Park, Wakulla County
Florida's earliest inhabitants had arts, crafts and technologies that have pretty well been buried underneath today's avalanche of applied sciences. In past centuries if some one wanted to know what the weather would be like, they just looked up at the sky and made their predictions. Such a method is still effective today. At this festival you'll have a chance to try your hand at arrowhead making, deer hide tanning, make your own stone tool, and learning how to carve both bone and antlers. You'll learn how bows and arrows were made, and watch demonstrations of basket weaving and pottery making from local materials. You can participate in primitive archery and spear-throwing competitions.
It is held the first weekend of february from 9:30 am until 5 pm. 850-962-2771 www.floridastateparks.org/ochlockoneeriver
MISSION SAN LUIS (1656-1704)
As Spanish explorers infiltrated La Florida, they indoctrinated native populations into Chrisianity. The Spanish established over 100 missions from the 1560s to the 1690s. Mission San Luis was home to over 1400 Spanish and Apalachee Native Americans. It was the home of the greatest Apalachee chiefs and was the westernmost military and religious outpost of the Spanish. It was burned in 1704 to keep it out of British hands. It currently is the only reconstructed mission in the southeastern United States. It is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 am to 4 pm.
Living historians, along with first-person impressions of Apalachee Native American or Spanish families, soldiers, friars, farmers, people making up a thriving village, are visible each day. The mission had a blend of two cultures as the Spanish and the Apalachee learned to live together. There is a reconstructrion of a Spanish house, the mission's fort, the church, a friary, and one of the largest Native American council houses ever built in the southeast. Daily demonstrations of the activities, arts, crafts and skills of seventeenth century mission life in Florida are a part of the Mission today.
850-487-3711 www.missionsanluis.org
THE MAY MILITARY MUSTER AT CASTILLO de SAN LUIS (1690s)
The Apalachee who had been beset by European diseases, found that they faced a new problem: the military threat from the English colonies north of Spanish Florida.They persuaded the Spanish to send missionaries to them. When the site for Mission de San Luis was chosen in 1656, a powerful Apalachee chief brought his people to live at the new mission and built a blockhouse for the soldiers who defended them. By the 1690s the threat of attacks by the British and their Native American allies had intensified so that the blockhouse was upgraded to a full scale fort. The fort had a palisade and a dry moat filled with cacti. It was manned by Spanish soldiers and their trained Apalachee militia. The mission's people would gather within the walls of the fort when under attack.
During this event you can observe seventeenth-century military drills and firing demonstrations, along with watching a formal Changing of the Guard ceremony. There are demonstrations of colonial arts, crafts, and skills. You can even try your hand at pike drills. This event is held the second Saturday in May and goes from 10 am until 4 pm.
FEEDING THE FLOCK; FOODWAYS AT MISSION SAN LUIS (1656-1704(
The Spanish learned about new foods found in La Florida, and the Apalachee were introduced to new foods imported from Europe. New and unfamiliar ways of cooking and storing foods were also shared.
The Saturday and Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend is when this event is held. There are illustrations of the two different cultures cooperating and blending. Demonstrations of how food was obtained, and the hunting, harvesting and storing of foods. The variety of foods, and how they were cooked during those times. In addition to the visual experience, you will also be able to enjoy the aromas of the various kitchens.
PANHANDLE FOLK LIFE DAYS (late 1800s)
Blountwtown, Calhoun County
The Panhandle Pioneer Settlement in Blountstown is a living history museum coonsisting of a farmstead and an early Florida agricultural community, with sixteen historic or recreated buildings on forty-seven acres. Volunteers staff the settlement, and it is open four day a week. The event is held the first Thursday -Saturday in April. Hours are 9 am to 3 pm.
You will find an active rural Florida village, showcasing domestic skills such as soapmaking, laundry methods, crocheting, and quiltmaking. There is a blacksmith, also. Pioneer food production methods such as churning butter, making cracklings, and beekeeping, along with wood-carving demonstrations, plus lots more.
GOAT DAY/PIONEER DAY (1800s)
This celebration was started by the local Rotary Club to call attention to the place of goats in the food industry. It wasn't long before the pioneer re-enactors got involved, and created a really good country festival. It is held the third Saturday in October from 9 am till 3 pm.
Along with the goats, you can take a guided tour of the settlement, take part in a greased-pig chase, or a penny dig, where you can try to find coins buried in a sandpile. There are hay rides, lots of live heritage music from different cabins porches. Eating some of the fresh biscuits and crackling bread made while you watch, and a blacksmith showing you how to make the handy household tools 850-674-2777 www.ppmuseum.org
OPEN HOUSE AT THE LIGHTHOUSE (early twentieth century)
St. Marks National Wildlife Refude, St. Marks, Wakulla County
This is the only living history event involving a lighthouse and its keeper. Florida has twelve hundred miles of coastline, and over thirty lighthouses in the state. this event takes place during the Wildlife Heritand and Outdoors Festival at the Refuge. it is held the first Saturday in February from 10 am until 3 pm.
The event includes an open house at the lighthouse keeper's quarter, hosted by a reenacator in an authentic lighthouse keeper's uniform. There will be demonstrations of tying and casting a cast net, along with teaching stations on tomahawk-throwing, primitive archery and shooting a black-powder musket. An eighteenth century huinter trappers encampment will be available for touring. Demonstrations of traditional salt making, and mullet smoking will be included. 850-925-6121 www.fws.gov/saintmarks
WAKULLA SPRINGS WILDLIFE FESTIVAL
Wakulla Springs State Park, Wakulla County
What started out as a fun celebragtion of the return of the local birds during the spring, has now grown to a three day festival, involving four state parks, a national forest, a national wildlife refuge, the Wakulla River, and the Apalachee Bay.
The living history segments are from 9 am to 3pm on the first saturday in April. They feature hearing the origins of the Pocahontas story from Juan Ortiz, a survivor of one of the first Spanish expeditions to Florida. You can chat with soldiers who are fighting in the Seminole Wars, and learn all about moonshine from a farmer. Watch spinning of cotton, silk, wool, and other natural fibers, and watch the blacksmith. Listen to an 1876 Florida Cracker share his secrets of living off the land. There is also fine art, foot-stompin' music, guided tours, and way to much more to list. 850-561-7286 www.wakullawildlifefestival.org
Thomas Fasulo, writing in FORUM, Spring 2010 edition, discusses possible reasons why folks would get involved being historical characters. He queries why people would wear wool clothes in the hot, humid Florida weather? Or, why they would spend a day or two out in the heat, cooking food over open fires, sleeping in tents or the open air, marching, fighting, all of it in sweat soaked clothing? He states that it is because they are having a great time! He goes on to explain that performing living history is a tremendous stress reliever from a day job. Reenacting is the only hobby where, when you get tired or bored, you can "take a hit" (get shot), fall down, take a nap, and still be participating in your hobby.
Not all people who reenact like to interact with spectators. They may be shy, or really fear they haven't learned enough about the event to answer questions. Everyone plays a role at a reenactment, even if it only as authentic background. The reenactors are there to enjoy themselves, too.
Some people are so used to modern conveniences that they are surprised by some things we do. there have been instances where folks have checked out fires to make sure they were real. Others can't seem to understand the process of a big pot suspended over a fire taking the place of a stove or microwave. If you love the history of our state and area, check with some of the afore mentioned living history events, and volunteer to become a reenactor.
FLORIDA'S BLACK SEMINOLES
Slaves from the Carolinas and Georgia escaped to North Florida as early as 1688 on the Underground Railroad. At that time North Florida was under Spanish rule, and the Spainards encouraged such flights. The Seminoles were also quite receptive to the runaways, bringing them into their communities. Intermarriage inevitably occured. The Black Seminoles did not have individual owners, but they did work as "tenant farmers" in order to receive the relative freedom and protection from re-enslavement. They lived in separate, but nearby towns or villages, rather than in the Seminole villages. Some became quite successful at farming, and cattle raising, and some served as interpreters and military leaders during the Seminole Wars. They fought hard, for to lose a battle would mean they would lose their independence, their homes and their freedom. Over a period of seven years, the U.S. Army sent 40,000 troops to fight about 2,000 Seminoles, about 500 of them being Black Seminoles. Three wars were fought, and a truce was finally called. No peace treaty was ever signed, which is why the Seminoles are called "the Unconquered People".
By 1857, most of the tribe had been forcibly resettled in the Indian Territories in Oklahoma. The 100 or so Seminole who stayed fled into the Everglades and now make up the 3000 plus Seminole Tribe of Florida. They are a true mixture of African and Native American peoples and cultures.
FLORIDA'S UNDERGROUD RAILROAD
Runaway slaves seeking freedom traveled the Underground Railroad south to "free" Florida. Some continued on to the Bahamas. Many sought refuge in the North Florida wilderness, some fought with the British in the War of 1812, while others fought in the Seminole wars against General Andrew Jackson.
Importatnt sites related to these courageous folks are: Fort Mose, north of St. Augustine, is designated a National Historic Landmark. It was a site on the Underground Railroad, and is the earliest free black community within our country. The British Fort, aka Fort Gadsden, aka the Negro Fort is another National Historic Landmark, and today is a Florida State Park. It is located along the Apalachicola River. It was destroyed under order of Major General Andrew Jackson. Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, is a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site. It was one of the earliest stations on the Underground Railroad, and was a secret meeting place and port for runaway slave and Black Seminoles who sought freedom in the British Bahamas.
SHIPWRECKED HISTORY
The oldest colonail shipwrecks to be discovered in Florida's waters are relics of the ill-fated 1559 Luna expedition. Since 1992, underwater archaeologists have brought up thousands of artifacts from these time capsules in Pensacola Bay, including cannonballs, pottery, and even a breast plate of Spanish armor. Most artifacts are on display in the Archaeology Institute at the University of West Florida. See also pages entitled: Shipwreck Trail, Shipwrecks of Dog Island, and the Division of Historical Resources guide to the 1753 Spanish Galleon Trail.
LA LEYENDA NEGRA
Spanish explorers killed Indians, captured slaves, and destroyed rival colonies. These brutal episodes became part of the La Leyenda Negra (The Black Legend) which held that Spain and its conquistadors were cruel. Violence was common during the competition for the New World, and was indulged in by other explorers from other countries. Indians killed explorers, The French wiped out a Spanish garrison, the British burned St. Augustine and killed hundreds of Indian mission converts. Americans invaded Florida when it was a Spanish possession, blowing up the Negro Fort which killed more than 300 African Americans and Indians. History records few examples of conquest without violence and cruelty.
