Amendments to the constitution may be made by a three-fifths vote of each house of the legislature, ratified by a majority vote of the people. A revision of the Constitution may be made upon a two-thirds vote of all members of both Houses of the legislature, if ratified by a majority vote of the people; a Constitutional Convention is then to be provided for by the legislature, such convention to meet within six months of the passage of the law therefor, and to consist of a number equal to the membership of the House of Representatives, apportioned among the counties, as are the members of this House.
A homestead of 160 acres, or of one-half of an acre in an incorporated town or city, owned by the head of a family residing in the state, with personal property to the value of $1000 and the improvements on the real estate, is exempt from enforced sale except for delinquent taxes, purchase money, mortgage or improvements on the property. The wife holds in her own name property acquired before or after marriage; the intermarriage of whites and negroes (or persons of negro descent to the fourth generation) is prohibited. All these are constitutional provisions. By legislative enactment whites and blacks living in adultery are to be punished by imprisonment or fine; divorces may be secured only after two years’ residence in the state and on the ground of physical incapacity, adultery, extreme cruelty, habitual indulgence in violent temper, habitual drunkenness, desertion for one year, previous marriage still existing, or such relationship of the parties as is within the degrees for which marriage is prohibited by law. Legitimacy of natural children can be established by subsequent marriage of the parents, and the age of consent is sixteen years.
The bonded debt was incurred during the Reconstruction Period (1865-1875). In 1871 7% 30 year bonds to the extent of $350,000 were issued and in 1873 another issue of 6% 30 year bonds to the value of $925,000 was made. Most of these were held by the Educational Fund at the time of their maturity. By 1901 all but $267,700 of the issue of 1871 had been retired and this amount was then refunded with 3% 50 year bonds which were taken by the Educational Fund. In 1903 $616,800 of the 1873 issue was held by the Educational Fund and $148,000 by individuals. The first part of this claim was refunded by a new bond issue, also taken by the Educational Fund, the second was paid from an Indian war claim of $692,946, received from the United States government in 1902, when $132,000 bonds of 1857, held by the United States government, were also extinguished. The bonded debt was thus reduced to $884,500; and on the 1st of January 1909 the debt, consisting of refunding bonds held as educational funds, amounted to $601,567.
Penal System.—There is no penitentiary; the convicts are hired to the one highest bidder who contracts for their labour, and who undertakes, moreover, to lease all other persons convicted during the term of the lease, and sub-leases the prisoners. In 1889 the convicts were placed under the care of a supervisor of convicts, and in 1905 the law was amended so that one or more supervisors could be appointed at the will of the governors. In 1908 there were four supervisors and one state prison physician, and there are special laws designed to prevent abuses in the system. In 1908 the state received $208,148 from the lease of convicts. Decrepit prisoners were formerly leased, but in 1906 the lease excluded such as were thought unfit by the state prison physician. Women convicts were still leased with the men in 1908; of the 446 convicts committed in that year, there were 15 negro females, 356 negro males and 75 white males. In the same year 54 escaped, and 27 were recaptured. The leased convicts are employed in the turpentine and lumber industries and in the phosphate works. The 1232 convicts “on hand” at the close of 1908 were held in 38 camps, 4 being the minimum, and 160 the maximum number, at a camp. In 1908 two central hospitals for the prisoners were maintained by the lessee company. County prison camps are under the supervision of the governor and the supervisors of convicts. The state supervisors must inspect each state prison camp and each county prison camp every thirty days.
Education.—As early as 1831 an unsuccessful attempt was made to form an adequate public school fund; the first real effort to establish a common school system for the territory was made after 1835; in 1840 there were altogether 18 academies and 51 common schools, and in 1849 the state legislature made an appropriation in the interest of the public instruction of white pupils, and this was supplemented by the proceeds of land granted by the United States government for the same purpose. In 1852 Tallahassee established a public school; and in 1860 there were, according to a report of the United States census, 2032 pupils in the public schools of the state, and 4486 in “academies and other schools.” The Civil War, however, interrupted the early progress, and the present system of common schools dates from the constitution of 1868 and the school law of 1869. The school revenue derived from the interest of a permanent school fund, special state and county taxes, and a poll-tax, in 1907-1908 amounted to $1,716,161; the per capita cost for each child of school age was $6.11 (white, $9.08; negro, $2.24), and the average school term was 108 days (112 for whites, 99 for negroes). The state constitution prescribes that “white and colored children shall not be taught in the same school, but impartial provision shall be made for both.” The percentage of enrolment in 1907-1908 was 60 (whites, 66; negroes, 52). The percentage of attendance to enrolment was 70%,—68% for white and 74% for negro schools. Before 1905 the state provided for higher education by the Florida State College, at Tallahassee, formerly the West Florida Seminary (founded in 1857); the University of Florida, at Lake City, which was organized in 1903 by enlarging the work of the Florida Agricultural College (founded in 1884); the East Florida Seminary, at Gainesville (founded 1848 at Ocala); the normal school (for whites) at De Funiak Springs; and the South Florida Military Institute at Bartow; but in 1905 the legislature passed the Buckman bill abolishing all these state institutions for higher education and establishing in their place the university of the state of Florida and a state Agricultural Experiment Station, both now at Gainesville, and the Florida Female College at Tallahassee, which has the same standards for entrance and for graduation as the state university for men. Private educational institutions in Florida are John B. Stetson University at De Land (Baptist); Rollins College (1885) at Winter Park (non-sectarian), with a collegiate department, an academy, a school of music, a school of expression, a school of fine arts, a school of domestic and industrial arts, and a business school; Southern College (1901), at Sutherland (Methodist Episcopal, South); the Presbyterian College of Florida (1905), at Eustis; Jasper Normal Institute (1890), at Jasper, and the Florida Normal Institute at Madison. The negroes have facilities for advanced instruction in the Florida Baptist Academy, and Cookman Institute (Methodist Episcopal, South), both at Jacksonville, and in the Normal and Manual Training School (Congregational), at Orange Park. There are a school for the Blind, Deaf, and Dumb (1885) at St. Augustine, a hospital for the insane at Chattahoochee and a reform school at Marianna, all wholly supported by the state, and a Confederate soldiers’ and sailors’ home at Tallahassee, which is partially supported by the state.
History.—The earliest explorations and attempts at colonization of Florida by Europeans were made by the Spanish. The Council of the Indies claimed that since 1510 fleets and ships had gone to Florida, and Florida is shown on the Cantino map of 1502. In 1513 Juan Ponce de Leon (c. 1460-1521), who had been with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage and had later been governor of Porto Rico, obtained a royal grant authorizing him to discover and settle “Bimini,”—a fabulous island believed to contain a marvellous fountain or spring whose waters would restore to old men their youth or at least had wonderful curative powers. Soon after Easter Day he came in sight of the coast of Florida, probably near the mouth of the St Johns river. From the name of the day in the calendar, Pascua Florida, or from the fact that many flowers were found on the coast, the country was named Florida. De León seems to have explored the coast, to some degree, on both sides of the peninsula, and to have turned homeward fully convinced that he had discovered an immense island. He returned to Spain in 1514, and obtained from the king a grant to colonize “the island of Bimini and the island of Florida,” of which he was appointed adelantado, and in 1521 he made another expedition, this one for colonization as well as for discovery. He seems to have touched at the island of Tortugas, so named on account of the large number of turtles found there, and to have landed at several places, but many of his men succumbed to disease and he himself was wounded in an Indian attack, dying soon afterward in Cuba. Meanwhile, in 1516, another Spaniard, Diego Miruelo, seems to have sailed for some distance along the west coast of the peninsula. The next important exploration of Florida was that of Panfilo de Narvaez. In 1527 he sailed from Cuba with about 600 men (soon reduced to less than 400), landed (early in 1528) probably at the present site of Pensacola, and for six months remained in the country, he and his men suffering terribly from exposure, hunger and fierce Indian attacks. In September, his ships being lost and his force greatly reduced in number, he hastily constructed a crazy fleet, re-embarked probably at Apalachee Bay, and lost his life in a storm probably near Pensacola Bay. Only four of his men, including Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, succeeded after eight years of Indian captivity and of long and weary wanderings, in finding their way to Spanish settlements in Mexico. Florida was also partially explored by Ferdinando de Soto (q.v.) in 1539-1540. In the summer of 1559 another attempt at colonization was made by Tristan de Luna, who sailed from Vera Cruz, landed at Pensacola Bay, and explored a part of Florida and (possibly) Southern Alabama. Somewhere in that region he desired to make a permanent settlement, but he was abandoned by most of his followers and gave up his attempt in 1561.
In the following year, Jean Ribaut (1520-1565), with a band of French Huguenots, landed first near St Augustine and then at the mouth of the St Johns river, which he called the river of May, and on behalf of France claimed the country, which he described as “the fairest, fruitfullest and pleasantest of all the world”; but he made his settlement on an island near what is now Beaufort, South Carolina. In 1564 René de Laudonnière (? -c. 1586), with another party of Huguenots, established Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St Johns, but the colony did not prosper, and in 1565 Laudonnière was about to return to France when (on the 28th of August) he was reinforced by Ribaut and about 300 men from France. On the same day that Ribaut landed, a Spanish expedition arrived in the bay of St Augustine. It was commanded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1523-1574), one of whose aims was to destroy the Huguenot settlement. This he did, putting to death almost the entire garrison at Fort Caroline “not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans,” on the 20th of September 1565. The ships of Ribaut were soon afterwards wrecked near Matanzas Inlet; he and most of his followers surrendered to Menéndez and were executed. Menéndez then turned his attention to the founding of a settlement which he named St Augustine (q.v.); he also explored the Atlantic coast from Cape Florida to St Helena, and established forts at San Mateo (Fort Caroline), Avista, Guale and St Helena. In 1567 he returned to Spain in the interest of his colony.
The news of the destruction of Fort Caroline, and the execution of Ribaut and his followers, was received with indifference at the French court; but Dominique de Gourgues (c. 1530-1593), a friend of Ribaut but probably a Catholic, organized an expedition of vengeance, not informing his men of his destination until his three ships were near the Florida coast. With the co-operation of the Indians under their chief Saturiba he captured Fort San Mateo in the spring of 1568, and on the spot where the garrison of Fort Caroline had been executed, he hanged his Spanish prisoners, inscribing on a tablet of pine the words, “I do this not as unto Spaniards but as to traitors, robbers and murderers.” Feeling unable to attack St Augustine, de Gourgues returned to France.
The Spanish settlements experienced many vicissitudes. The Indians were hostile and the missionary efforts among them failed. In 1586 St Augustine was almost destroyed by Sir Francis Drake and it also suffered severely by an attack of Captain John Davis in 1665. Not until the last decade of the 17th century did the Spanish authorities attempt to extend the settlements beyond the east coast. Then, jealous of the French explorations along the Gulf of Mexico, they turned their attention to the west coast, and in 1696 founded Pensacola. When the English colonies of the Carolinas and Georgia were founded, there was constant friction with Florida. The Spanish were accused of inciting the Indians to make depredations on the English settlements and of interfering with English commerce and the Spanish were in constant fear of the encroachments of the British. In 1702, when Great Britain and Spain were contending in Europe, on opposite sides, in the war of the Spanish Succession, a force from South Carolina captured St Augustine and laid siege to the fort, but being unable to reduce it for lack of necessary artillery, burned the town and withdrew at the approach of Spanish reinforcements. In 1706 a Spanish and French expedition against Charleston, South Carolina, failed, and the Carolinians retaliated by invading middle Florida in 1708 and again in 1722. In 1740 General James Edward Oglethorpe, governor of Georgia, supported by a naval force, made an unsuccessful attack upon St Augustine; two years later a Spanish expedition against Savannah by way of St Simon’s Island failed, and in 1745 Oglethorpe again appeared before the walls of St Augustine, but the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 prevented further hostilities. Pensacola, the other centre of Spanish settlement, though captured and occupied (1719-1723) by the French from Louisiana, had a more peaceful history.
By the treaty of Paris in 1763 Florida was ceded to England in return for Havana. The provinces of East Florida and West Florida were now formed, the boundaries of West Florida being 31° N. lat. (when civil government was organized in 1767, the N. line was made 32° 28′), the Chattahoochee, and the Apalachicola rivers, the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi Sound, Lakes Borgne, Pontchartrain and Maurepas, and the Mississippi river. A period of prosperity now set in. Civil in place of military government was instituted; immigration began; and Andrew Turnbull, an Englishman, brought over a band of about 1500 Minorcans (1769), whom he engaged in the cultivation of indigo at New Smyrna. Roads were laid out, some of which yet remain; and in the last three years of English occupation the government spent $580,000 on the two provinces. Consequently, the people of Florida were for the most part loyal to Great Britain during the War of American Independence. In 1776, the Minorcans of New Smyrna refused to work longer on the indigo plantations; and many of them removed to St Augustine, where they were protected by the authorities. Several plans were made to invade South Carolina and Georgia, but none matured until 1778, when an expedition was organized which co-operated with British forces from New York in the siege of Savannah, Georgia. In the following year, Spain having declared war against Great Britain, Don Bernardo de Galvez (1756-1794), the Spanish governor at New Orleans, seized most of the English forts in West Florida, and in 1781 captured Pensacola.