An important collection of essays and scholarship by Cuban archaeologists about precontact human settlement on the island.

An important and timely collection of essays that greatly expands knowledge of the human settlement of Cuba and the activities of its indigenous peoples. The collection is a testament to the tenacity of Cuban and US scholars determined to dismantle the political and economic barriers that have impeded collaborative archaeological scholarship in Cuba. Despite economic and political challenges that have limited the pursuit of archaeological research in Cuba, these essays show that Cuban archaeology has made valuable contributions to understanding the cultural processes that have shaped life in the Caribbean in both prehispanic and historic periods and added significantly to our understanding of past Cuban peoples.

The collection, one of only a few studies of Cuban archaeology published in English in the United States, includes essays by both Cuban and US scholars that highlight trends in Cuban archaeology. It recognizes the past pioneers of joint Cuban-US archaeological projects and pays homage to those researchers, including Betty Meggers and Lourdes Dominguez, who sustained scholarly contact across the Florida Straits despite geopolitical roadblocks. 

Blacks under Spanish rule in Florida lived in a more complex and international world that linked the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe with a powerful and diverse Indian hinterland. Jane Landers’s pioneering study of people of the African diaspora under Spain’s colonial rule rewrites Florida history and enriches our understanding of the powerful links between race relations and cultural custom. 

As Landers shows, Spanish Florida was a sanctuary to Blacks fleeing enslavement on plantations. Castilian law, meanwhile, offered many avenues out of slavery. In St. Augustine and elsewhere, society accepted European-African unions, with families developing community connections through marriage, concubinage, and godparents. Assisted by Spanish traditions and ever-present geopolitical threats, people of African descent leveraged linguistic, military, diplomatic, and artisanal skills into citizenship and property rights. Landers details how Blacks became homesteaders, property owners, and entrepreneurs, and in the process enjoyed greater legal and social protection than in the two hundred years of Anglo history that followed.

A fascinating account of Floridians who served in the Confederate army and the changes to Florida society and politics that resulted from the state's Confederate experience

Until recently Florida’s Confederate soldiers have received scant attention. This volume explores the story of Florida soldiers going to war, families left behind, a white population fighting to maintain a society built on slavery, and a state torn by political and regional strife.

Before the war Florida’s inhabitants engaged in bitter political rivalries. Sheppard argues that prior to secession Florida citizens maintained regional loyalties rather than considering themselves “Floridians.” He argues that service in Confederate armies eased tensions between political factions and fostered solidarity among white Floridians. In this illuminated account, Sheppard also addresses the practices of prisoner parole and exchange, unit consolidation and its effects on morale and unit identity, politics within the Army of Tennessee, and conscription and desertion in the Southern armies. These issues come together to demonstrate the connection between the front lines and the home front.