{"id":7594,"date":"2020-01-10T17:07:18","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T22:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.statutesandstories.com\/blog_html\/?p=7594"},"modified":"2020-01-17T16:57:42","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T21:57:42","slug":"history-of-religious-freedom-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.statutesandstories.com\/blog_html\/history-of-religious-freedom-in-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"History of Religious Freedom in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

History of religious freedom in Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida has a checkered, but ultimately proud history when it comes to religious freedom. This post explores the history of religious freedom in Florida, beginning before the sparsely settled territory joined the United States. The story continues through 1947, when Miami Beach adopted a first of its kind \u201cAnti-Bias Sign Ordinance.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historic Miami Beach ordinance outlawed discriminatory advertising within city limits. The trail blazing ordinance was adopted at the urging of Jewish veterans returning from World War II. As described below, Miami Beach would set precedent across the nation, prior to the adoption of federal civil rights laws. The ordinance also preceded attorney Thurgood Marshall\u2019s seminal United States Supreme Court case of Shelley v. Kraemer<\/em> which held that discriminatory deed restrictions were unenforceable in the courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spanish control of La Florida<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1564, more than fifty years before the Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower, French Huguenots established the settlement of Fort Caroline near present-day Jacksonville. At the time, La Florida was largely controlled by the Spanish, who were Catholic. The French Huguenots, who were Protestants, were fleeing religious persecution, including the particularly deadly French Wars of Religion which began in 1562. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, within a year, Spanish commander Pedro Men\u00e8ndez de Avil\u00e8s would write to Spanish King Phillip II that all of the Huguenots in Fort Caroline had been successfully eliminated. According to de Avil\u00e8s\u2019s report, he hanged \u201call those we found\u201d in Fort Caroline because \u201cthey were scattering the odious Lutherance doctrine in these Provinces.\u201d St. Augustine was established as a forward operating base by the Spanish and was used to remove the Huguenots. Two years later, the French recaptured Fort Caroline, this time slaughtering its Spanish defenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is no surprise then that when Alexander Hamilton\u2019s French Huguenot maternal grandparents arrived in the New World in 1658, they selected the British controlled island of Nevis in the British West Indies. Hamilton\u2019s grandfather, Dr. John Faucett, and other French Huguenots were themselves fleeing religious discrimination following the revocation of the Edit of Nantes by King Louis XIV of France in 1685. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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King Louis XIV who revoked the Edit of Nantes in 1685<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

To its credit, Spanish controlled La Florida served as a refuge for runaway slaves from the American colonies. As long as they converted to Roman Catholicism and agreed to military service for Spain, runaway slaves were welcomed into Spanish Florida beginning in 1687. Of course, it was no surprise that Spain wanted loyal, freed slaves living in the area, where they served as a front-line defense against English attacks from the north and pirates by sea. Importantly, the first settlement of freed slaves in North America was established in 1738. Fort Mose (originally known as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose) was strategically located two miles north of St. Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also useful to recognize that the native American Indian tribes never invited any European settlers to Florida. The largest group of indigenous peoples living in North Florida before Columbus were the Timucua. While the Catholic missionaries that eventually spread out across Florida were likely working with noble intentions on behalf of Spain, the Timucuan Rebellion of 1656 did not end well. It is estimated that the pre-Columbian population of Timucuan was approximately 200,000. By 1700, the population had been reduced to less than 1,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Treaties of Paris (1763 and 1783)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Following the American Revolution, American settlers gradually migrated west across the Appalachian Mountains and south into Florida. The trend began with the 1763 Treaty of Paris<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, under which Spain surrendered Florida to the British. After France lost the French and Indian War (otherwise known as the Seven Years War) lasting from 1754-1763, France surrendered its North American territories to Britain and Spain surrendered Florida. Spain would regain Florida from Britain two decades later under the 1783 Treaty of Paris<\/a>,<\/span><\/strong> following the American Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n

As Britain was taking control of territories inhabited by largely Catholic populations in 1763, it wisely agreed to respect the religious freedoms of Catholic inhabitants in Canada and Florida. Section XX of the Treaty of Paris promised to grant \u201cthe liberty of the Catholick religion\u201d and \u201cconsequently, give the most express and the most effectual orders that his new Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish church, as far as the laws of Great Britain permit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Section XX further provided as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n

His Britannick Majesty farther agrees, that the Spanish inhabitants, or others who had been subjects of the Catholick King in the said countries, may retire, with all safety and freedom, wherever they think proper; and may sell their estates, provided it be to his Britannick Majesty’s subjects, and bring away their effects, as well as their persons without being restrained in their emigration, under any pretence whatsoever, except that of debts, or of criminal prosecutions.<\/p>\n\n\n

The American Revolution ended in 1783 with yet another Treaty of Paris. Negotiated by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay, the 1783 Treaty of Paris did not specifically address religious liberties, but did attempt to protect British loyalists. Of course, both the loyalists who elected to remain in the newly liberated states and the victorious Americans largely shared similar religious views. Most British colonists and their American brothers and sisters were generally Protestants, with the exception of the large Catholic populations in Maryland.<\/p>\n\n\n

In Article V of the 1783 treaty, the Confederation Congress promised to \u201cearnestly recommend to the several states a reconsideration and revision of all acts or laws regarding the premises, so as to render the said laws or acts perfectly consistent not only with justice and equity but with that spirit of conciliation which on the return of the blessings of peace should universally prevail.\u201d Article 5 also required the Continental Congress to “earnestly recommend” that the state legislatures recognize the rightful owners of all confiscated lands and “provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to British subjects.\u201d Not until the new federal Congress was established in 1789 would aspirational treaty obligations truly be binding on the states. Click here for a discussion of the legal battle to protect loyalists from discrimination and Alexander Hamilton\u2019s legal representation of loyalist clients in New York.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Adams-Onis Treaty<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States acquired Florida from Spain with the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty. As evidenced by its name, the Treaty was negotiated by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and signed by President James Monroe. <\/strong>Under Article 5 of the treaty, the United States guaranteed \u201cfree exercise of religion without any restriction\u201d in the former Spanish territory, which became the provinces of East and West Florida, until they were merged together in 1822.<\/p>\n\n\n\n