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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 119/340

The Era of Reconstruction

by Hart as covering some four and a half square miles with some
500 acres planted in corn and 350 acres in cotton. The plantation
was owned by a South Carolina man named Myers and was located
some fifteen miles south of Lake City encompassing a “strip of
hummock [sic] land commencing about the head of Echotucknee
[sic] Spring and running down to the Santa Fe River.” About half
of the cultivated land was worked by blacks who owned their own
mules and rented the land for $2.50 an acre. Each family with a
mule usually worked 25 to 35 acres, but some larger families with
two mules worked bigger tracts. Hart described the blacks on the
plantations as “absolutely destitute of money,” and not having even
enough to buy tobacco. Hart lamented that he did not have $500 or
$1,000 in cash for he felt he could double or triple it by lending it to
Negroes and taking a lien on their crop for security. Hart regarded
it as “perfect bosh” any consideration that Negroes were being
treated unfairly in the South in their new period of freedom.11
What was regarded as “perfect bosh” by the young New
Yorker was not accepted in other sections of the country, as
problems between the freedmen and the white community de­
veloped in the Reconstruction period. In November 1865, a dis­
turbance developed between black soldiers and Lake City whites.
The original cause of irritation arose when Negroes were ap­
pointed to supervisory positions on election day. Whites attacked
one of these officials at his post on the town square, and black
soldiers stationed in Lake City threatened revenge. The incident
passed when the federal commander Colonel John T. Sprague
removed the soldiers as he regularly did in such situations.12 Even
the Conservative Lake City Press found praise for Colonel Sprague
who made it a practice to meet with Negro church groups to whom
he advocated moderation and responsible voting.13

’’Hart to Brother Willie, April 19,1868, Hart to Mother, May 11,1868, Hart to
Sister Lou, May 24, 1868, Letters of Ambrose B. Hart.
12Richardson, The Negro in the Reconstruction of Florida, p. 128.
1:‘Shofner, Nor Is It Over Yet, p. 168.

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