Gerald Ensley: Tallahassee doesn’t get a pass on slavery

I wrote a story recently about the origin of Bannerman Road. It was named for the family of Charles Bannerman, a North Carolina planter who moved to Tallahassee in the 1830s.

The story upset one reader because he said I didn't give the full story: Charles Bannerman was one of the biggest slaveholders in antebellum Tallahassee.

Though the story was not about such issues, it's a reminder of two things: Slavery still matters. And Leon County had a lot of slavery.

"It was a hotbed of slavery," said historian Larry Rivers. "Tallahassee was the center of the slave trade."

Rivers is the former Florida A&M professor who, since 2006, has been the president of his alma mater, Fort Valley (Ga.) State University. His 2000 book, "Slavery in Florida," is considered the seminal text on the subject and is one of the best-selling books ever published by the University of Florida Press. Rivers' newest book, "Runaways and Rebels. Slave Resistance in 19th century Florida," is being published in May by the prestigious University of Illinois Press.

Most people don't associate Florida with slavery. They think of cotton plantations in Georgia and South Carolina or tobacco plantations in Virginia and North Carolina.

Fewer still associate slavery with Tallahassee. They think of Tallahassee as a historically sleepy little burg, established for government and education.

But, it's good to recall the reality: Florida was as much a slave state as any of the 11 states of the Confederacy that seceded from the Union over the issue of slavery (no matter what apologists want to believe). And Tallahassee, founded in 1824, was the epicenter of Florida slavery.

As the capital of the new territory, and the biggest population center of fertile Middle Florida, Tallahassee attracted planters from other Southern states looking for new opportunity. They had exhausted the soil in Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas. So, they swarmed to Middle Florida to buy land for $1 an acre and start anew — with plantations that depended on large numbers of slaves.

By 1830, planters with 20 or more slaves constituted 14 percent of Leon County's population. By 1860, they counted for 21 percent of the population. The ranks of slaveholders included such historic figures as Richard Keith Call, Benjamin Chaires, William Bloxham and Francis Eppes, who each owned anywhere from 30 slaves (Bloxham) to 120 slaves (Call).

In fact, by 1860, Leon County had 2,197 white people — and 8,200 Black slaves. And it would be the 1950 census before whites would outnumber Black people in Leon County.

"Florida has always tried to present this sunny image to attract new settlers; we have not wanted to confront the darker aspects of our history," said historian Canter Brown. "Yet Florida was founded to permit development of the cotton plantations and the slaves that worked them. And Tallahassee sat at the very heart of that."

Often overlooked was the trade in slaves. Slaveholders routinely hired out their slaves as laborers to other slaveholders and to merchants or farmers in need of temporary labor. They also sold slaves: In 1830, a slave sold for $500 to $1,000. By 1860, they were selling for as much as $3,000 — the equivalent of an expensive car today.

"Tallahassee was tantamount in the slave trading business to New Orleans or Richmond or Washington, D.C.," Rivers said. "Tallahassee was where you came to deal with governmental affairs, talk about what was happening around the country and shop for a slave."

One of the enduring debates about slavery is how slaves were treated.

Brown allows that slaves in coastal and peninsula Florida may have suffered less than some — because the threat of escape and thus loss of property was more real.

"We talk about slaves running away," Brown said. "But slaves (on the coast) often just paddled away or got on board a ship. If you treated your slave badly (in those locations), the odds were you wouldn't have one long."

In Middle Florida, where escape was more difficult, slave owners may not have been as kind. Rivers is loath to generalize about the treatment of slaves because there was little documentation by slaves, most of whom could not read and write. He believes treatment varied from slave owner to slave owner.

Yet, it is not the treatment of slaves that matters today. Rather, it was the long existence of slavery that continues to impact us. To put it bluntly, there are still white people who feel superior to black people because of the condition to which we once relegated black people — during and after slavery.

"Slavery still matters, because remnants of the institution are still felt today," Rivers said. "It's the whole opportunity structure. We still have people who believe there are certain positions in society blacks need not apply, need not fill.

"Certainly, things have gotten better. But we still have instances of racism. I think we would have a much more color-blind society today if slavery had not existed in this country."

Including Tallahassee.

Gerald Ensley was a reporter and columnist for the Tallahassee Democrat from 1980 until his retirement in 2015. He died in 2018 following a stroke. The Tallahassee Democrat is publishing columns capturing Tallahassee’s history from Ensley’s vast archives each Sunday through 2024 in the Opinion section as part of the TLH 200: Gerald Ensley Memorial Bicentennial Project.

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