A Fierce and Fractious Frontier: The Curious Development of Louisiana's Florida Parishes, 1699-2000.A Fierce and Fractious Frontier: The Curious Development of Louisiana's Florida Parishes, 1699-2000. Edited by Samuel C. Hyde Samuel Clarence Hyde (April 22, 1842 - March 7, 1922) was a representative from Washington. Hyde was born in Fort Ticonderoga, New York in 1842. He studied law at the University of Iowa at Iowa City. He moved to the territory of Washington in 1877. Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press This article needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. , 2004. Pp. xvi, 232. Paper, $21.95, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-8071-2923-2; cloth, $59.95, ISBN 0-8071-2908-9.) Part of a slowly developing hinterland, the ethnically diverse, still-rural region north of New Orleans and east of Baton Rouge has a history notable for blood feuds, hostility to authority, and natural beauty combined with environmental despoliation de·spo·li·a·tion n. The act of despoiling or the condition of being despoiled. [Late Latin d  spoli . Its distinctive history
has gone largely unrecognized. When treated, it has often been
misunderstood. This collection of conference papers, edited by the
director of Southeastern Louisiana University's fine Center for
Southeast Louisiana Studies, is important for what it includes and for
what it does not.
Charles N. Elliot's chapter, "A Geography of Power: French and Indian Alliances on the Southeastern Louisiana Fontier," focuses on early-eighteenth-century French alliances with Indian cultures that had been reduced in number by European disease. The alliances were designed to protect alternative French trade routes from the Gulf of Mexico Noun 1. Gulf of Mexico - an arm of the Atlantic to the south of the United States and to the east of Mexico Golfo de Mexico Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east to the Mississippi River from English and Chickasaw depredations. The result was the further decimation DECIMATION. The punishment of every tenth soldier by lot, was, among the Romans, called decimation. of these petites nations in geopolitically strategic southeast Louisiana. Robin F. A. Fabel's interesting essay entitled "Boom in the Bayous: Land Speculation and Town Planning in the Florida Parishes under British Rule" details the British settlement of west Florida and the chimerical chi·mer·i·cal also chi·mer·ic adj. 1. Created by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination; highly improbable. 2. Given to unrealistic fantasies; fanciful. 3. attempt to attract settlers to a disease-ridden imperial fringe that was threatened by hostile Indians and the possibility of Spanish reconquest Re`con´quest n. 1. A second conquest. . Gilbert C. Dirt's authoritative treatise on slavery in the late-eighteenth-century Florida parishes underscores Spanish efforts to mitigate the most baleful effects of involuntary servitude in the interest of greater harmony among the restive, mostly French constituents. These essays provide a solid introduction to what Samuel C. Hyde Jr., the editor, terms the "convoluted colonial identity" of the Florida Parishes. The section on nineteeth-century southeastern Louisiana is sketchier. Gene A. Smith's well-crafted account of the role of the battle on Lake Borgne in the epic American victory at New Orleans reveals little about the region. The absence of an essay on any facet of the period after 1815 accentuates the need for antebellum scholarship on the region. Hyde's analysis of guerrilla warfare skillfully illustrates the strategic importance of the region and the destruction of its physical and social fabric after the capture of New Orleans by Union forces in April 1862. Richard H. Kilbourne Jr.'s essay, "The Ongoing Agricultural Credit Crisis in the Florida Parishes of Louisiana, 1865-1890," downplays racism and sharecropping sharecropping, system of farm tenancy once common in some parts of the United States. In the United States the institution arose at the end of the Civil War out of the plantation system. Many planters had ample land but little money for wages. in explaining the area's economic backwardness. Instead, Kilbourne emphasizes debt distress emanating from the demise of antebellum commercial credit, which had spread the risks of staple crop production. The theme of extractive extractive /ex·trac·tive/ (-tiv) any substance present in an organized tissue, or in a mixture in a small quantity, and requiring extraction by a special method. ex·trac·tive adj. 1. colonial economics continues in Latimore Smith's excellent account of the destruction of the magnificent longleaf-pine forests by absentee timber barons, with attendant ecological and economic consequences for those who remained. The final section, which addresses the twentieth-century Florida parishes, is richly suggestive of avenues for further research. Bill Wyche's study of African American lumber workers examines the common ground found by black and white workers immediately after World War I. Adam Fairclough's analysis of Horace Mann Bond's 1934-1935 on-site study of black families and racial violence in Washington Parish presents the dark side of race relations in the locale that gave rise to the Deacons for Defense in the 1960s. Finally, in "Environment, Economy, and Quality of Life in Louisiana's Florida Parishes," Paul H. Templet, with ample statistical evidence, buttresses his argument that environmental health promotes economic development. This volume is a worthy beginning to understanding this fascinating lower South subregion sub·re·gion n. A subdivision of a region, especially an ecological region. sub  re . It is perhaps more important because it
implicitly raises larger issues about Louisiana history, especially the
danger that Louisianians are losing their past. The work of Hyde and the
other scholars notwithstanding, political support for developing the
state's history, one of its richest resources, is anemic.
University funding in Louisiana continues at crisis levels, raising
doubts about the future of research in Louisiana history, traditionally
a stepchild step·child n. 1. A child of one's spouse by a previous union. 2. Something that does not receive appropriate care, respect, or attention: "Demography has a reputation for being the stepchild of . . . in history departments. The public school textbook for Louisiana history is not a history but a bland, politically correct mishmash mish·mash n. A collection or mixture of unrelated things; a hodgepodge. [Middle English misse-masche, probably reduplication of mash, soft mixture; see mash. with lots of pretty pictures and a substantial price tag. Designed to offend no one, it thereby denies reality and is a disservice to students, teachers, and taxpayers. Southern historians, other regionalists, and even general readers will find A Fierce and Fractious Frontier: The Curious Development of Louisiana's Florida Parishes, 1699-2000 enlightening. But one wonders if a next generation of scholars will continue this work or if any of these findings will ever be synthesized in a reputable state history text that will treat its readers as though they might be capable of handling complexity and controversy in an intellectually and emotionally mature fashion. MICHAEL G. WADE Appalachian State University History Appalachian State University began in the summer of 1899 when a group of citizens of Watauga County, NC, under the leadership of D.D. Dougherty and B.B. Dougherty, began a movement to establish a good school in Boone, NC. Land was donated by D.B. |
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