Tracing Florida Journeys

Discover Florida’s unique places across
time through writings from history



How has
Florida’s land changed across five centuries? What has stayed the same, and
what remains only in memory? In Tracing
Florida Journeys, Leslie Poole
delves into the stories of well-known explorers and travelers who came to the
peninsula and wrote about their experiences, looking at their words and the
paths they took from the perspective of today.

In
these pages, John Muir and Harriet Beecher Stowe write about their visits to Florida,
reflecting their expectations of a place that was touted to be “paradise.” John
James Audubon finds riches of bird life in the Keys. Zora Neale Hurston travels
to turpentine camps and sawmills documenting the stories and music of workers
and residents. Jonathan Dickinson and Stephen Crane recount shipwrecks along a sparsely
populated coastline. Members of Hernando de Soto’s violent
1539 expedition of conquest describe their struggles with dense swamps,
forests, and rivers, and resistance from the Native people they exploited.

Using
journals and articles by these and other authors that date back to the early European
exploration of the region, Poole retraces their steps. The land they write
about is often hard to imagine in today’s Florida, a top destination for
tourists filled with almost 22 million residents. These stories show the
evolving history of the state and the richness of its natural resources.
Poole’s comparisons also point to the people who have been displaced and the
ecosystems that have been dramatically altered by exploration and development.

Highlighting
the Florida that was and the Florida that exists now, Poole brings together historical
research, interviews with experts, and her personal experiences to tell a
revealing story of the state’s natural history.



Funding for this publication was provided through a grant from Florida
Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any
views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication
do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National
Endowment for the Humanities.