Florida cracker

Florida Cracker refers to the original colonial era American pioneer settlers of the State of Florida. The first Florida Crackers arrived in 1763 when Spain traded Florida to Great Britain. The British divided the territory into East Florida and West Florida, and began to aggressively recruit settlers to the area, offering free land and financial backing for export-oriented businesse.

Historical usage

The term "cracker" was in use during Elizabethan times to describe braggarts. The original root of this is the Middle English word crackfn|1 meaning "entertaining conversation" (One may be said to "crack" a joke); this term and the alternate spelling "craic" are still in use in Ireland and Scotland. It is documented in Shakespeare's "King John" (1595): "What cracker is this ... that deafes our ears / With this abundance of superfluous breath?"

By the 1760s the English, both at home and in the American colonies, applied the term “Cracker” to Scots-Irish settlers of the remote southern back country, as noted in a passage from a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth: "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode." The word was later associated with the cowboys of Georgia and Florida, many of them descendants of those early frontiersmen.

Modern usage

The term is used as a proud or jocular self-description. Since the huge influx of new residents into Florida from the northern parts of the United States, and Latin America, in the 20th century, "Florida Cracker" is used informally by some Floridians to indicate that their family has lived there for many generations; and/or that they were born and raised in the state of Florida. It is considered a source of pride to be descended from "frontier people who did not just live but flourished in a time before air conditioning, mosquito repellent, and screens." [ [http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=CLAIRS05 University Press of Florida: Cracker ] ]

Notable Florida Crackers

*Christopher Booth
*Lawton Chiles
*William Cooley
*Ben Hill Griffin Jr. - "A Cracker millionaire from Frostproof, Fla." [ [http://www.theledger.com/static/top50/pages/griffin.html] ]
*Bone Mizell [ [http://www.historynet.com/bone-mizell-cracker-cowboy-of-the-palmetto-prairies.htm Bone Mizell: Cracker Cowboy of the Palmetto Prairies » HistoryNet - From the World's Largest History Magazine Publisher ] ]
*Bill Nelson
*Adam Putnam
*Tim Dorsey

Quáqueros

Spaniards in Florida called these early English speaking settlers “Quáqueros,” a corruption of the English word “Quaker,” which the Spanish used to contemptuously refer to any Protestant. [ [http://www.rootsweb.com/~flbaker/gene3.html
Gene Barber Articles of 2003
] ]

ee also

*Florida
*Florida Cracker Trail
*Georgia cracker
*Vaquero

References

External links

* Victor Milt's Documentary Film: "Cracker Cowboys" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg4OoCYuIU0]
* [http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/photos/arts/crackr/crackr.htm Example of a Florida Cracker Homestead]
* [http://www.crackertrail.org/ Florida Cracker Trail Association]

Further reading

* [http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=CLAIRS05 Book: Cracker Culture in Florida History]