If you have the power, you can abuse it and no one will say a word in protest. At least this is the case for Israel, which openly violates international law and human rights feeling secure that one will stop it.

But Khader Adnan, a detainee from Jenin, has decided not to stay silent and accept injustices against him and his fellow prisoners. He is battling armed jailers with his only weapon: his empty stomach. Khader started hunger striking the day of his arrest, December 18, to protest the unjust administrative detention he is serving and the indescribable cruelty he has experienced since then.

My father’s experience of being an administrative detainee

It’s worth mentioning that administrative detention is a procedure the Israeli military uses to hold detainees indefinitely on secret evidence without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. Over 300 Palestinian political prisoners are serving this term now, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have experienced administrative detention since 1967.

My father served this term three times. Previously, he had been sentenced to seven lifetimes plus ten years, but released in the 1985 prisoner exchange after serving thirteen. As I read about Khader’s story in a report by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, stories about Dad’s experiences in Israeli prisons came back to me.

The last time it happened, a month after I was born in 1991, was the hardest. My mother told me how I came into this life where safety, peace, and justice are not guaranteed. ”In the middle of the night, a huge force of armed Israeli soldiers suddenly broke into our home, damaging everything before them. They attacked your father, bound him with chains, and dragged him to the prison, beating him the whole way.” The happiness of a new baby – me – didn’t continue for the whole family. My traumatized mother was able to breastfeed me for a month, but then she couldn’t anymore; her sorrow ended her lactation.

Every Palestinian is convicted to a life of uncertainty without having to commit a crime. Being a Palestinian is our only offense. For Khader, this detention is not his first time in Israeli prisons. It’s actually his eighth, for a total of six years of imprisonment, all under administrative detention. Each one had a different taste, ranging from bitter to bitterer.

Story of Khader’s Adnan’s arrest

This time, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) raided Khader’s house at 3:00 am using a human shield, Mohammad Mustafa. Mohammad is a taxi driver who always takes Khader’s father to the vegetable market. He was kidnapped by the IOF and forced to knock on Khader’s door while blindfolded. Then the IOF raided Khader’s house, trashing it as they did. Shouting, they aggressively grabbed his father, with no consideration for Khader’s two little daughters, his wife, who could have miscarried her five-month fetus, or his sick mother. But when did IOF have any respect for human values?

Khader was immediately blindfolded, and his hands were tied behind his back with plastic shackles. Afterwards, the soldiers pushed him into a military jeep with non-stop physical torment that continued for the ten-minute drive it took for the jeep to reach Dutan settlement. You can imagine how a short period seemed like forever to Khader, who was unable to move or see while every part of his body was continuously and brutally beaten. To make things even worse, Khader’s face was injured when he smashed in a wall he couldn’t see due to the blindfold wrapping his eyes after he was pushed out of the jeep.

Addamear reported that after Khader’s arrest, he was transferred to different interrogation centers and ended up in Al-jalameh. Upon arriving there, Khader was given a medical exam, where he informed prison doctors of his injuries and told them that he suffered from a gastric illness and disc problems in his back. However, instead of being treated, he was taken to interrogation immediately.

Silence and hunger strike in response to interrogators’ humiliation

The interrogation period, which lasted for ten days, took the form of psychological torture with continuous humiliation using very abusive language about his wife, sister, children, and mother. Throughout the interrogation sessions, his hands were tied behind him on a crooked chair, causing extreme pain to his back. Believing in the power of silence, Khader’s only response was to object to the interrogator’s use of increasingly insulting speech.

Because of Khader’s hunger strike against violations of his rights and the terrible treatment used against him, Addameer reported that he was sentenced to a week in isolation by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) on the fourth day of interrogation. Moreover, in order to further punish him without being required to go to court, the IPS also banned him from family visits for three months.

In addition, during the second week of interrogation, Khader experienced further humiliations. One interrogator pulled his beard so hard that it ripped hair out. The same interrogator also took dirt from the bottom of his shoe and rubbed it on Khader’s mustache. But they couldn’t break his dignity, and even after the interrogation ended, Khader continued his hunger strike.

According to Addameer report, on the evening of Friday, 30 December 2011, Khader was transferred to Ramleh prison hospital because of his health deteriorating from the hunger strike. But even there, he lacked medical care. He was placed in isolation in the hospital, where he was subject to cold conditions and cockroaches filled his cell. He refused any medical examinations after 25 December, which was one week after he stopped eating and speaking. The prison director came to speak to Khader, or rather threaten him, commenting that they would “break him” eventually.

I know I mentioned before that there are no trials for Palestinian detainees under administrative detention. But actually, they do get a trial. It’s not for them to challenge the reasons for their detention though. It’s for a military judge to decide the period they are going to serve according to the “secret evidence” that IPS holds against him, none of it shared with the detainee or his lawyer. This is an obvious violation of human rights, leaving Khader and detainees like him with no legitimate means to defend themselves.

On 8 January 2012, at Ofer military court, Khader received a four- month administrative detention order. There, he was threatened by members of the Nahshon, a special intervention unit of the IPS known for particularly brutality in their treatment of prisoners, who told Khader that his head should be exploded.

The need to act

Khader’s health is deteriorating rapidly. He is refusing treatment until he is released, but a prison doctor has threatened to force-feed him if he continues. Cameras in his cell watch him at all times, and if he does not move at night, soldiers knock loudly on his door. This prisoner is at risk, so SUPPORT Addamear campaign to call for his release.

People in Gaza set up a tent in front of the Red Cross last Thursday to join Khader’s protest against his administrative detention and violations of Palestinian detainees’ simplest rights, and demand justice and freedom for them. Something must be done against this unjust system and its conditions of imprisonment. International solidarity is greatly needed. Join Addameer’s campaign to Stop Administrative Detention. ACT NOW!

Shahd Abusalama, 20, is a Palestinian artist, a blogger and an English literature student living in Gaza City. She is interested in conveying the images, experience and emotions of the Palestinian people as well as their strength, determination, struggle and suffering. She blogs at Palestine From my Eyes, and she can always be followed at @shahdabusalama.

In February 1888, Florida had a special tourist: President Grover Cleveland, the first lady and his party visited Florida for a couple of days. He visited the Subtropical Exposition in Jacksonville where he made a speech supporting tourism to the state; then, he took a train to St. Augustine, meeting Henry Flagler; and then a train to Titusville, where he boarded a steamboat and visited Rockledge. On his return trip, he visited Sanford and Winter Park.

Theme parks

Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort

Florida’s first theme parks emerged in the 1930s and included Cypress Gardens (1936) near Winter Haven and Marineland (1938) near St. Augustine.

Disney World

Disney selected Orlando over several other sites for an updated version of their DisneyLand park in California. In 1971, the Magic Kingdom, the first component of the resort, opened and became Florida’s best known attraction, attended by tens of millions of visitors a year, spinning off other attractions and large tracts of housing.^[27]

The Orlando area became an international resort and convention destination with a wide variety of themed parks. The Orlando area features theme parks including Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld, and Wet ‘n Wild.

Military and space industry

Kennedy Space Center

In the years leading up to World War II, 100 ships were sunk off the coast of Florida.^[28] More more sunk after the country entered the war.

The state became a major hub for the United States Armed Forces. Naval Air Station Pensacola was originally established as a naval station in 1826 and became the first American naval aviation facility in 1917. The entire nation mobilized for World War II and many bases were established in Florida, including Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Naval Station Mayport, Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Naval Air Station Whiting Field and Homestead Air Force Base. Eglin Air Force Base and MacDill Air Force Base (now the home of U.S. Central Command) were also developed during this time. During the Cold War, Florida’s coastal access and proximity to Cuba encouraged the development of these and other military facilities. Since the end of the Cold War, the military has closed some facilities, including major bases at Homestead and Cecil Field, but its presence is still significant in the economy.

Due to the low latitude of the state, it was chosen in 1949 as a test site for the country’s nascent missile program. Patrick Air Force Base and the Cape Canaveral launch site began to take shape as the 1950s progressed. By the early 1960s, the Space Race was in full swing. As programs were expanded and employees joined, the space program generated a huge boom in the communities around Cape Canaveral. This area is now collectively known as the Space Coast and features the Kennedy Space Center. It is also a major center of the aerospace industry. To date, all manned orbital spaceflights launched by the United States, including the only men to visit the Moon, have been launched from Kennedy Space Center.

[edit] Migrations and the civil rights movement

Five flags of Florida, not including the current State Flag.

Florida’s populations have been rapidly changing. After World War II, Florida was transformed as air conditioning and the Interstate highway system encouraged emigration from the north. In 1950, Florida was ranked twentieth among the states in population; 50 years later it was ranked fourth.^[29] Due to low tax rates and warm climate, Florida became the destination for many retirees from the Northeast, Midwest and Canada.

The Cuban Revolution of 1959 led to a large wave of Cuban immigration into South Florida, which transformed Miami into a major center of commerce, finance and transportation for all of Latin America. Emigration from Haiti, other Caribbean states, and Central and South America continues to the present day.

Like other states in the South, Florida had many African American leaders who were active in the civil rights movement. In the 1940s and ’50s, a new generation started working on issues. Harry Moore built the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Florida, rapidly increasing its membership to 10,000. Because Florida’s voter laws were not as restrictive as those of Georgia and Alabama, he also had some success in registering black voters. In the 1940s he increased voter registration among blacks from 5 to 31% of those age-eligible.^[30]

The state had white groups who resisted change to the point of attacking and killing blacks. In December 1951 was the notorious bombing of the house of activists Harry Moore and his wife Harriette, who both died of injuries from the blast. Although their murders were not solved then, a state investigation in 2006 reported they had been killed by an independent unit of the Ku Klux Klan. Numerous bombings were directed against African Americans in 1951–1952 in Florida.^[31]

The state’s population had changed markedly by in-migration of new groups, as well as outmigration of African Americans, 40,000 of whom moved north in earlier decades of the 20th century during the Great Migration.^[32] By 1960 African Americans in Florida numbered 880,186 citizens, but represented only 18% of the state’s population.^[33] This was a much smaller proportion than in 1900, when according to the census, they comprised 44% of the state’s population but numbered 231,209 persons. Since the 19th century, educated black middle classes had developed in numerous cities. By their leadership in Florida and other states, African Americans gained national support and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protected voting for all citizens.

In the years after such legislation, African Americans and other minorities in the South began to vote and participate more fully in the political process.

The state created a civil service in the constitutional rewrite of 1968.^[34] Until that time, every time a cabinet officer or governor changed, “three fourths of the employees lost their jobs.”^[35]

2000 Presidential election controversy

“Butterfly ballot”

Florida became the battleground of the controversial 2000 US presidential election which took place on November 7, 2000, when a count of the popular votes held on Election Day was extremely close triggering automatic recounts. These recounts triggered accusations of fraud, manipulation and brought to light voting irregularities.

Subsequent recount efforts degenerated into arguments over mispunched ballots, “hanging chads,” and controversial decisions by the Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and the Florida Supreme Court. Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore to end all recounts, allowing Secretary of State Harris to certify the election results. The final official Florida count gave the victory to George W. Bush over Al Gore by 537 votes, a 0.009% margin of difference. The process was extremely divisive, and led to calls for electoral reform in Florida.

Everglades, hurricanes, drilling and the environment

Long-term scientific attention has focused on the fragility of the Everglades. In 2000 Congress authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) at $8 billion. The goals are to restore the health of the Everglades ecosystem and maximize the value to people of its land, water, and soil.,^[36]

Destruction in Lakes by the Bay near Miami following Hurricane Andrew

Florida has historically been at risk from hurricanes and tropical storms. These have presented higher risks and property damage as the concentration of population and development has increased along Florida’s coastal areas. Not only are more people and property at risk, but development has overtaken the natural system of wetlands and waterways, which used to absorb some of the storms’ energy.^{[citation needed]}

Hurricane Andrew in August 1992 struck Homestead, just south of Miami as a Category 5 hurricane, leaving forty people dead, 100,000 homes damaged or destroyed, more than a million people left without electricity, and damages of $20–30 billion. Much of South Florida’s sensitive vegetation was severely damaged. The region had not seen a storm of such power in decades. Besides heavy property damage, the hurricane nearly destroyed the region’s insurance industry. Andrew also destroyed complacency and erased any sense of benign ignorance toward hurricanes among South Florida residents.^[37]

The western panhandle was damaged heavily in 1995, with storms Allison, Erin, and Opal hitting the area within the span of a few months. The storms increased in strength as the season went on, culminating with Opal’s landfall as a Category 3 in October.

Florida suffered heavily during the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, when four major storms struck the state. Hurricane Charley made landfall in the Charlotte County area and cut northward through the peninsula, Hurricane Frances struck the Atlantic coast and drenched most of central Florida with heavy rains, Hurricane Ivan caused heavy damage in the western Panhandle, and Hurricane Jeanne caused damage to the same area as Frances, including compounded beach erosion. Damage from all four storms was estimated to be at least $22 billion, with some estimates going as high as $40 billion. In 2005, South Florida was struck, by Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. The panhandle was struck by Hurricane Dennis.

Environmental issues include preservation and restoration of the Everglades, which has moved slowly. There has been pressure by industry groups to drill for oil in the eastern Gulf of Mexico but so far, large-scale drilling off the coasts of Florida has been prevented. The federal government declared the state an agricultural disaster area because of 13 straight days of freezing weather during the growing season in January, 2010.^[38]

Florida’s economy did not fully recover until the buildup for World War II. The climate, tempered by the growing availability of air conditioning, and low cost of living made the state a haven. Migration from the Rust Belt and the Northeast sharply increased the population after the war. In recent decades, more migrants have come for the jobs in a developing economy. With a population of more than 18 million according to the 2010 census, Florida is the most populous state in the Southeastern United States, the second most populous state in the South behind Texas, and the fourth most populous in the United States.

Race relations

The remains of Sarah Carrier’s house after the Rosewood massacre

After World War I, there was a rise in lynchings and other racial violence directed by whites against blacks in the state, as well as across the South and in northern cities. It was due in part from strains of rapid social and economic changes, as well as competition for jobs. Whites continued to resort to lynchings to keep dominance, and tensions rose. White mobs committed murders, accompanied by wholesale destruction of black houses, churches and schools, in the small communities of Ocoee, November 1920; Perry in December 1922; and Rosewood in January 1923. The governor appointed a special grand jury and special prosecuting attorney to investigate Rosewood and Levy County, but the jury did not find sufficient evidence to prosecute. Rosewood was never resettled.

To escape segregation, lynchings, and civil right suppression, 40,000 African Americans migrated from Florida to northern cities in the Great Migration from 1910–1940. That was one-fifth of their population in 1900. They sought better lives, including decent-paying jobs, better education for their children, and the chance to vote and participate in political life. Many were recruited for jobs with the Pennsylvania Railroad.^[21]

Boom of 1920s

The 1920s were a prosperous time for much of the nation, including Florida. Florida’s new railroads opened up large areas to development, spurring the Florida land boom of the 1920s. Investors of all kinds, mostly from outside Florida, raced to buy and sell rapidly appreciating land in newly platted communities such as Miami and Palm Beach. Led by entrepreneurs Carl Fisher and George Merrick, Miami was transformed by land speculation and ambitious building projects into an emerging metropolis. A growing awareness in the North about the attractive south Florida winter climate, along with local promotion of speculative investing, spurred the boom.^[22] A majority of the people who bought land in Florida were able to do so without stepping foot in the state, by hiring intermediaries. By 1924, the main issues in state elections were how to attract more industry and the need to build and maintain good roads for tourists.^[23]

By 1925, the market ran out of buyers to pay the high prices, and soon the boom became a bust. The 1926 Miami Hurricane further depressed the real estate market.^[24]

Prohibition

Prohibition had been popular in north Florida, but was opposed in the south, which became a haven for speakeasies and rum-runners in the 1920s. During 1928–32 a broad coalition of judges, lawyers, politicians, journalists, brewers, hoteliers, retailers, and ordinary Floridians organized to try to repeal the ban on alcohol. When the federal government legalized near beer and light wine in 1933, the wet coalition launched a successful campaign to legalize these beverages at the state level. Floridians subsequently joined in the national campaign to repeal the 18th Amendment, which succeeded in December 1933. The following November, state voters repealed Florida’s constitutional ban on liquor and gave local governments the power to legalize or outlaw alcoholic beverages.^[25]

Great Depression

The Great Depression occurred in 1929. By that time, the economy had already declined in much of Florida from the collapse four years earlier of the land boom.^{[citation needed]}

The New Deal (1933–40) changed and reaffirmed the physical and environmental landscape of south Florida. Sewers, roads and schools were built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). There were work camps for the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).^{[citation needed]}

Anticipating war, the Army and Navy decided to use the state as a primary training area. The Navy chose the coastal areas, the Army, the inland areas.^[26]

In 1940, the population was about 1.5 million. Average annual income was $308 ($4,823.87 in 2012 dollars). ^[26]

Andrew Jackson served as the first military Governor of Florida

Florida became an organized territory of the United States on March 30, 1822. The Americans merged East Florida and West Florida (although the majority of West Florida was annexed to Territory of Orleans and Mississippi Territory), and established a new capital in Tallahassee, conveniently located halfway between the East Florida capital of St. Augustine and the West Florida capital of Pensacola. The boundaries of Florida’s first two counties, Escambia and St. Johns, approximately coincided with the boundaries of West and East Florida respectively.

Seminole leader Osceola

As settlement increased, pressure grew on the United States government to remove the Indians from their lands in Florida. Many settlers in Florida developed plantation agriculture, similar to other areas of the Deep South. To the consternation of new landowners, the Seminoles harbored and integrated runaway blacks, and clashes between whites and Indians grew with the influx of new settlers. In 1832, the United States government signed the Treaty of Payne’s Landing with some of the Seminole chiefs, promising them lands west of the Mississippi River if they agreed to leave Florida voluntarily. Many Seminoles left then, while those who remained prepared to defend their claims to the land. White settlers pressured the government to remove all of the Indians, by force if necessary, and in 1835, the U.S. Army arrived to enforce the treaty.

The Second Seminole War began at the end of 1835 with the Dade Massacre, when Seminoles ambushed Army troops marching from Fort Brooke (Tampa) to reinforce Fort King (Ocala). They killed or mortally wounded all but one of the 110 troops. Between 900 and 1,500 Seminole warriors effectively employed guerrilla tactics against United States Army troops for seven years. Osceola, a charismatic young war leader, came to symbolize the war and the Seminoles after he was arrested by Brigadier General Joseph Marion Hernandez while negotiating under a white truce flag in October 1837, by order of General Thomas Jesup. First imprisoned at Fort Marion, he died of malaria at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina less than three months after his capture. The war ended in 1842. The U.S. government is estimated to have spent between $20 million ($453,655,172 in 2012 dollars) and $40 million ($907,310,345 in 2012 dollars) on the war, at the time, this was considered a large sum. Almost all of the Seminoles were forcibly exiled to Creek lands west of the Mississippi; about 300 remained in the Everglades.

Statehood

The brick Capitol as built in 1845

On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state of the United States of America. Its first governor was William Dunn Moseley.

Almost half the state’s population were enslaved African Americans working on large cotton and sugar plantations.^{[citation needed]} Like the people who held them, many slaves had come from the coastal areas of Georgia and the Carolinas. They were part of the Gullah-Gee Chee culture of the Low Country. Others were enslaved African Americans from the Upper South who had been sold to traders taking slaves to the Deep South.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1850s, white settlers were again encroaching on lands used by Seminoles.^{[citation needed]} The United States government decided to make another attempt to move the remaining Seminoles to the West.^{[citation needed]} Increased Army patrols led to hostilities. The Third Seminole War lasted from 1855 to 1858. At its end, US forces estimated only 100 Seminoles were left in Florida. In 1859, 75 Seminoles surrendered and were sent to the West, but some Seminoles continued to live in the Everglades.

On the eve of the Civil War, Florida had the smallest population of the Southern states. It was invested in plantation agriculture. By 1860, Florida had only 140,424 people, of whom 44% were enslaved. There were fewer than 1,000 free people of color before the Civil War.^[18]

Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow

The Battle of Olustee was the only major Civil War battle fought in Florida

Following Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, Florida joined other Southern states in seceding from the Union. Secession took place January 10, 1861, and, after less than a month as an independent republic, Florida became one of the founding members of the Confederate States of America. As Florida was an important supply route for the Confederate Army, Union forces operated a blockade around the entire state. Union troops occupied major ports such as Cedar Key, Jacksonville, Key West, and Pensacola. Though numerous skirmishes occurred in Florida, including the Battle of Natural Bridge, the Battle of Marianna and the Battle of Gainesville, the only major battle was the Battle of Olustee near Lake City.

A state convention was held in 1865 to rewrite the constitution.^[19] After meeting the requirements of Reconstruction, including ratifying amendments to the US Constitution, Florida was readmitted to the United States on July 25, 1868. This did not end the struggle for political power among groups in the state. Southern whites objected to freedmen’s political participation and complained of illiterate representatives to the state legislature. But of the six members who could not read or write during the seven years of Republican rule, four were white.^[19]

After Reconstruction, conservative white Democrats strove for political power until they regained it in 1877. This was accomplished partly through violent actions by white paramilitary groups targeting freedmen and their allies to discourage them from voting. From 1885 to 1889, after regaining power, the white-dominated state legislature passed statutes to reduce voting by blacks and poor whites, which had threatened white Democratic power with a populist coalition. As these groups were stripped from voter rolls, white Democrats established power in a one-party state, as happened across the South.

By 1900 the state’s African Americans numbered more than 200,000; 44 percent of the total population. This was the same proportion as before the Civil War, and they were effectively disfranchised.^[20] Not being able to vote meant they could not sit on juries, and were not elected to local, state or federal offices. They were not recruited for law enforcement or other government positions. White Democrats proceeded to pass Jim Crow legislation establishing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation.^[when?] Without political representation, African Americans were shortchanged in the state. For more than six decades, white Democrats controlled virtually all the state’s seats in Congress, which were apportioned based on the total population of the state rather than only on those voting.

Juan Ponce de León

Timucua Indians at a column erected by the French in 1562

1527 map by Vesconte Maggiolo showing the east coast of North America with “Tera Florida” at the top and “Lavoradore” at the bottom.

1591 map of Florida by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues

Juan Ponce de Leon discovered Florida. A legend, unlikely to be true, says he discovered it while searching for the Fountain of Youth. Although it is often stated that he sighted the peninsula for the first time on March 27, 1513, and thought it was an island, he probably saw one of the Bahama islands.^[8] It is Spanish custom to name a place after the nearest Roman Catholic feast.^{[citation needed]} He arrived on the east coast during the Spanish Easter feast, Pascua Florida, April 7. He named the land La Pascua de la Florida, or “Passion of the Flowers,” or “Passion of the Christ”

Ponce de León returned with equipment and settlers to start a colony in 1521, but they were driven off by repeated attacks from the native population. Pánfilo de Narváez’s expedition explored Florida’s west coast in 1528 but was lost at sea upon his attempted seaward escape to Mexico. Hernando de Soto’s entered Florida in 1539. In 1559 Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a brief settlement in Pensacola but after a violent hurricane destroyed the area it was abandoned in 1561.^[9]

René Goulaine de Laudonnière founded Fort Caroline in what is now Jacksonville in 1564 as a haven for the Huguenots.^[10] Further down the coast the Spanish founded in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, San Agustín (St. Augustine)^[11] is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in any U.S. state; it is second oldest only to San Juan, Puerto Rico in the United States’ current territory. From this base of operations, the Spanish began building Catholic missions.

On September 20, 1565, Menéndez de Avilés attacked Fort Caroline, killing most of the French Huguenot soldiers defending it.^[12] Two years later, Dominique de Gourgues recaptured the settlement from the Spanish and slaughtered all of the Spanish defenders.

St. Augustine became the most important settlement in Florida. It was little more than a fortress for many years, and was frequently attacked and burned, with most residents killed or fled. It was notably devastated in 1586, when English sea captain and sometime pirate Sir Francis Drake plundered and burned the city. Catholic missionaries used St. Augustine as a base of operations to establish far-flung missions. They converted 26,000 natives by 1655, but a revolt in 1656 and an epidemic in 1659 proved devastating. Pirate attacks were unrelenting against small outposts and even St. Augustine itself.

Throughout the 17th century, English settlers in Virginia and the Carolinas gradually pushed the boundaries of Spanish territory south, while the French settlements along the Mississippi River encroached on the western borders of the Spanish claim. In 1702, English Colonel James Moore and allied Yamasee and Creek Indians attacked and razed the town of St. Augustine, but they could not gain control of the fort. In 1704, Moore and his soldiers began burning Spanish missions in north Florida and executing Indians friendly with the Spanish. The collapse of the Spanish mission system and the defeat of the Spanish-allied Apalachee Indians (the Apalachee massacre) opened Florida up to slave raids, which reached to the Florida Keys and decimated the native population. The Yamasee War of 1715–1717 resulted in numerous Indian refugees, such as the Yamasee, moving south to Florida. In 1719, the French captured the Spanish settlement at Pensacola.^[13]

The British and their colonies made war repeatedly against the Spanish, especially in 1702, and captured St Augustine in 1740. The British were angry that Spanish Florida was attracting a large number of Africans and African Americans in North America who sought freedom from British slavery. The slaves that could escape, once they made it to Florida, were given freedom after they converted to Catholicism. They settled in a buffer community north of St. Augustine, called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first settlement made of free slaves in North America.

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake triggered a tsunami that would have struck Central Florida with an estimated 1.5-meter (4 ft 11 in) wave.^[14]

Creek and Seminole Native Americans who had established buffer settlements in Florida at the invitation of the Spanish government also welcomed many of those slaves. In 1771, Governor John Moultrie wrote to the English Board of Trade that “It has been a practice for a good while past, for negroes to run away from their Masters, and get into the Indian towns, from whence it proved very difficult to get them back.” When British government officials pressured the Seminoles to return runaway slaves, they replied that they had “merely given hungry people food, and invited the slaveholders to catch the runaways themselves.”^[15]

British rule

The expanded West Florida territory in 1767.

In 1763, Spain traded Florida to the Kingdom of Great Britain for control of Havana, Cuba, which had been captured by the British during the Seven Years’ War. It was part of a large expansion of British territory following the country’s victory in the Seven Years War. Almost the entire Spanish population left, taking along most of the remaining indigenous population to Cuba. The British divided the territory into East Florida and West Florida. They began aggressive recruitment programs designed to attract settlers to the area, offering free land and backing for export-oriented businesses.

East Florida was the site of the largest single importation of white settlers in the colonial period; Dr Andrew Turnbull transplanted around 1,500 indentured settlers, from Minorca, Majorca, Ibiza, Smyrna, Crete, Mani Peninsula, and Sicily, to grow hemp, sugarcane, indigo, and to produce rum. Settled at New Smyrna, within months the colony suffered major losses primarily due to insect-borne diseases and Native American raids. Most crops did not do well in the sandy Florida soil. Those that survived rarely equaled the quality produced in other colonies. The colonists tired of their servitude and Turnbull’s rule. On several occasions, he used African slaves to whip his unruly settlers. The settlement collapsed and the survivors fled to safety with the British authorities in St. Augustine. Their descendants survive to this day, as does the name New Smyrna.

In 1767, the British moved the northern boundary of West Florida to a line extending from the mouth of the Yazoo River east to the Chattahoochee River (32° 28′north latitude), consisting of approximately the lower third of the present states of Mississippi and Alabama. During this time, Creek Indians migrated into Florida and formed the Seminole tribe.

The two Floridas remained loyal to Great Britain throughout the American Revolutionary War. However, Spain (participating indirectly in the war as an ally of France) captured Pensacola from the British in 1781. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War and returned all of Florida to Spanish control, but without specifying the boundaries. The Spanish wanted the expanded boundary, while the new United States demanded the old boundary at the 31st parallel north. In the Treaty of San Lorenzo of 1795, Spain recognized the 31st parallel as the boundary.

Second Spanish rule

Spanish presence was minor during that empire’s second rule over Florida. The region became a haven for escaped slaves and a base for Indian attacks against the U.S., and the U.S. demanded Spain reform. There were almost no Spanish settlers and only a few soldiers. In the meantime, American settlers established a foothold in the area and ignored Spanish officials. British settlers who had remained also resented Spanish rule, leading to a rebellion in 1810 and the establishment for ninety days of the so-called Free and Independent Republic of West Florida on September 23. After meetings beginning in June, rebels overcame the Spanish garrison at Baton Rouge (now in Louisiana), and unfurled the flag of the new republic: a single white star on a blue field. This flag would later become known as the “Bonnie Blue Flag”.

In 1810, parts of West Florida were annexed by proclamation of President James Madison, who claimed the region as part of the Louisiana Purchase. These parts were incorporated into the newly formed Territory of Orleans. The U.S. annexed the Mobile District of West Florida to the Mississippi Territory in 1812. Spain continued to dispute the area, though the United States gradually increased the area it occupied.

Seminole Indians based in East Florida began raiding Georgia settlements, and offering havens for runaway slaves. The United States Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminole Indians by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. The United States now effectively controlled East Florida. Control was necessary according to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams because Florida had become “a derelict open to the occupancy of every enemy, civilized or savage, of the United States, and serving no other earthly purpose than as a post of annoyance to them.”.^[16] Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons. Madrid therefore decided to cede the territory to the United States through the Adams-Onís Treaty, which took effect in 1821.^[17]

Excavations at an ancient stone quarry (the Container Corporation of America site in Marion County) yielded “crude stone implements” showing signs of extensive wear from deposits below those holding Paleo-Indian artifacts. Thermoluminescence dating and weathering analysis independently gave dates of 26,000 to 28,000 years ago for the creation of the artifacts. The findings are controversial, and funding has not been available for follow-up studies.^[5]

As the glaciers began retreating about 8000 BC, the climate of Florida became warmer and wetter, and the sea level rose. The paleo-Indian culture was replaced by, or evolved into, the Early Archaic culture. With an increase in population and more water available, the people occupied many more locations, as evidenced by numerous artifacts. Archaeologists have learned much about the Early Archaic people of Florida from the spectacular discoveries made at Windover Pond. The Early Archaic period evolved into the Middle Archaic period around 5000 BC. People started living in villages near wetlands and favored sites that were likely occupied for multiple generations.

The Late Archaic period started about 3000 BC, when Florida’s climate had reached current conditions and the sea had risen close to its present level. People commonly occupied both fresh and saltwater wetlands. Large shell middens accumulated during this period. Many people lived in large villages with purpose-built earthwork mounds, such as at Horr’s Island, which had the largest permanently occupied community in the Archaic period in the southeastern United States. It also has the oldest burial mound in the East, dating to about 1450 BC. People began creating fired pottery in Florida by 2000 BC. By about 500 BC, the Archaic culture, which had been fairly uniform across Florida, began to fragment into regional cultures.^[6]

The post-Archaic cultures of eastern and southern Florida developed in relative isolation. It is likely that the peoples living in those areas at the time of first European contact were direct descendants of the inhabitants of the areas in late Archaic times. The cultures of the Florida panhandle and the north and central Gulf coast of the Florida peninsula were strongly influenced by the Mississippian culture. Continuity in cultural history suggests that the peoples of those areas were also descended from the inhabitants of the Archaic period. In the panhandle and the northern part of the peninsula, people adopted cultivation of maize. Its cultivation was restricted or absent among the tribes who lived south of the Timucuan-speaking people (i.e., south of a line approximately from present-day Daytona Beach, Florida to a point on or north of Tampa Bay.)^[7] Peoples in southern Florida depended on the rich estuarine environment and developed a highly complex society without agriculture.

Native American tribes

Bernard Picart Copper Plate Engraving of Florida Indians, Circa 1721 “Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de tous les Peuples du Monde” (Private Collection of L.S. Morgan, St. Augustine Beach, Fla.)

At the time of first European contact, Florida was inhabited by an estimated 350,000 people belonging to a number of tribes. The Spanish recorded nearly one hundred names of groups they encountered, ranging from organized political entities such as the Apalachee, with a population of around 50,000, to villages with no known political affiliation. There were an estimated 150,000 speakers of dialects of the Timucua language, but the Timucua were only organized as groups of villages and did not share a common culture.

Other tribes in Florida at the time of first contact included the Ais, Calusa, Jaega, Mayaimi, Tequesta and Tocobaga. What we know of these tribes are from what was written about them by early explorers such as Alvaro Mexia. The populations of all of these tribes decreased markedly during the period of Spanish control of Florida, mostly due to epidemics of newly introduced infectious diseases, to which the Native Americans had no natural immunity.

At the beginning of the 18th century, when the indigenous peoples were already much reduced in populations, tribes from areas to the north of Florida, supplied with arms and occasionally accompanied by white colonists from the Province of Carolina, raided throughout Florida. They burned villages, wounded many of the inhabitants and carried captives back to Charles Towne to be sold into slavery. Most of the villages in Florida were abandoned and the survivors sought refuge at St. Augustine or in isolated spots around the state. Many tribes became extinct during this period and by the end of the 18th century.

Some of the Apalachee eventually reached Louisiana, where they survived as a distinct group for at least another century. The Spanish evacuated the few surviving members of the Florida tribes to Cuba in 1763 when Spain transferred the territory of Florida to the British Empire following the latter’s victory in the Seven Years War. In the aftermath, the Seminole, originally an offshoot of the Creek people who absorbed other groups, developed as a distinct tribe in Florida during the 18th century through the process of ethnogenesis. They are now represented in the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida.

Do not forget Palestinian fishermen who are prevented from fishing beyond the unilaterally imposed Israeli limit of 3 nautical miles and whose life is constantly under threat from the Israeli Naval Forces.

We are waiting for you to lift the naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip and its seawaters and to force Israel to respect international legal obligations.

We the Palestinian fishermen of the Besieged Gaza Strip, the CPSGAZA, the Union of Fishermen in Gaza City, the Palestinian Association for Fishing and Marine Sports and Al Tawofeek Society are calling on the word to force Israel to lift the naval blockade which restricts the Palestinian fishing area to 3 nautical miles and to support the Oliva and similar peaceful civil missions aimed at monitoring Israeli violations and at ensuring Palestinian fishermen the possibility of fishing in safe conditions.

As it has been the case with the buffer zone on land, since the beginning of the second Intifada Israel has been progressively implementing restrictions on Palestinian fishermen’s access to the sea. The 20 nautical mile permissible fishing area, agreed under the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), was reduced to 12 miles under the never implemented 2002 Bertini Commitment. In 2006, the fishing zone was reduced to 6 miles off the coast. Following the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip ‘Operation Cast Lead’, Israel banned Palestinian fishermen from sailing beyond a distance of 3 nautical miles, preventing them to access 85 per cent of the maritime areas they are entitled to according to the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement.

Despite pledges by the Government of Israel in June and December 2010 to ease the ongoing blockade, the restrictions at the sea continue to paralyze the Palestinian fishing industry, forcing thousands of fishermen to abandon their work because the area within 3 nautical miles is markedly over-fished.  Restricting the work of the Palestinian Fishermen by limiting the permissible fishing area to only 3 nautical miles denies them access to the sole source of income available for them and their families.  This is inconsistent with Israel’s international legal obligations.

Recently, the Israeli Naval Forces have place large buoys to serve as limit markers for the 3 nautical mile allowed area and have warned Palestinian fishermen not to sail beyond such limit markers; otherwise, they will be subject to shooting, detention and confiscation of boats and fishing equipment. Palestinian fishermen expose themselves to high risk every day at sea, they are frequently harassed and arrested by the Israeli Naval Forces under the pretext of sailing beyond the 3 nautical miles.  This has been documented and denounced by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Israeli violations in Gaza’s water have been also documented by the  Oliva, the boat sponsored by dozens of local and international organizations, which accompanies fishermen in their activities since June 2011. While trying to document the Israeli violations in Gaza’s seawater, the Oliva herself has been also attacked several times by the Israeli Naval Forces.

We call on the International Community to condemn the continuous attacks by the Israeli Navy against Palestinian fishing boats and to exert pressure on Israel to open the fishing area up to 20 nautical miles. We also call on the International community to support peaceful civil missions with the presence of international observers and entirely legal tools, such as the Oliva, to continue monitoring the violations of human rights in Gaza’s seawaters and allow Palestinian fishermen to work in safe conditions.

Signed:

Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA)
The Union of Fishermen, Gaza
The Palestinian Association for Fishing and Marine Sports, Gaza
Al Tawofeek Society, Gaza

The planned national park, located adjacent to the E1 area, on the slopes of Mt. Scopus, would constitute an insurmountable obstacle to any possible future peace agreement involving Jerusalem.  Most immediately, it would “choke off” a number of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and deny residents access to their private lands.  For detailed information on the plan for the national park, click here.

Solidarity’s campaign agaist the park-construction has already recorded some success. Following an investigative report in Ha’aretz, and an appeal by Solidarity to the Municipality of Jerusalem, construction work on the park has been temporarily stopped.  This construction work, which was illegally started by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, is taking place on private lands of the East Jerusalem residents of Issawiya.

Overseas
We need your help now!

Get the word out to your community and public officials Help us raise awareness of this issue with Jewish community representatives, elected officials, members of Knesset, and local Israeli embassies. Click here for a letter and call to action.

In Israel
Take action this week:
Join our demonstration, study tour, and clean-up efforts!

In the coming week, the Solidarity movement, together with residents of A-Tur and Issawiya, is organizing a series of protests, a study tour, and a call to action in order to prevent the continued construction of this park.  We need your help! Here’s what you can do:

Help residents of Issawiya
On Friday, January 13, join Solidarity activists and the residents of Issawiya in repairing the damage already caused by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. Meet at 11:15 next to the Aroma Cafe on Mount Scopus (by Hebrew University). Contact: Daniel 054-6236609

Protest in Safra square
On Tuesday, January 17, we will demonstrate together with hundreds of residents of East Jerusalem in front of City Hall to protest the city’s support of the National Park plan. Meet at Safra Square at 4:00 PM. Details about transportation are forthcoming.  For the Facebook event, click here.

Join the Study Tour
The tour, which is scheduled on a weekly basis, will be led by “Solidarity” activists and residents of Issawiya and A-Tur. This week the tour will take place on Wednesday, January 18, and begin at 4:00 PM.  Meet next to the Aroma Cafe on Mount Scopus (by Hebrew University).  For information and registration: Roi 054-5858625

***

For more information, we recommend reading the following:

A call for action: Stop the Slopes of Mount Scopus “National Park”

A New Plan to Establish a National Park Threatens to Choke Issawiya and A-Tur

“New Jerusalem park a ‘ruse’ to set up new settlement, activists say”, Ha’aretz

“National park in east Jerusalem stirs controversy”, Jerusalem Post

“Freedom Waves to Gaza” has been kept secret until now for fear of Israeli sabotage and obstruction, as happened with Freedom Flotilla 2: Stay Human. Now we have to make sure that Israel does not attack “Freedom Waves to Gaza,” preventing its arrival in the Strip, as happened with the first Freedom Flotilla, in open violation of international law and with the silent complicity of the Western world. To avoid this we need your help.

You are asked to act in favor of this initiative in any way you consider effective in your context. In particular, we propose:

• Spreading the news of this initiative as much as possible, and demand that the media report about it. Israel may act less violently if it feels the world’s eyes fixed upon it.
• Pressuring the United Nations and the international community, following the example of young Palestinians in the West Bank, who will hold a sit-in at the UN complex in Ramallah, asking the international body “to take urgent action to protect this mission as well as to end its compliance with Israel’s criminal blockade of Gaza.”
• Organizing protests if Israel’s reaction threatens to prevent the activists from reaching the port of Gaza.

We appeal to your humanity to act, and act with urgency.  The boats have already left port and the success of this enterprise, depends on the support they receive from the outside.