Dr. Canter Brown, Jr. and Barbara Gray Brown present the second of a series of biographical sketches of African American families of Hillsborough County, Florida in their recently published More Genealogical Records of the African American Pioneers of Tampa and Hillsborough County.
The "Introduction" is a primer on the obstacles, including birth dates, encountered by researchers on black families and further contains a recommended list of books containing background information on Florida slavery and the role of pioneer Negro families on the Tampa Bay frontier.
Featured in More Genealogical Records are twenty-six families , i.e., Alexander, Anderson, Blair, Brown, Cook, Crews, Evans, Grant, Hamilton, Henderson, Houston, Jackson(2), Johnson, Jones, Lewis, Manuel, McKinney, McLeod, Mills, Niblack, Roach, Savage, Smith, Spotford (aka Spotswood), and Starke.
The profiles feature relevant statistics of the families, as well as, places of origin, occupations, legal descriptions of homesteads, and civic and church memberships.
Many in the 1870s had sought refuge in Hillsborough County from racial violence in Polk County, while Richmond Crews, former slave of Dempsey D. Crews, Sr. of present-day Hardee County, had fled the racial intolerance of a mixed marriage. He there joined his brother, Joseph Crews, married to the daughter of Richmond’s wife.
The individuals vary from farmers, most of whom homesteaded on government land, to successful businessmen, e. g., James Henry Blair and Steward Jackson, to Robert Johnson, a Baptist minister.
Unlike today when nearly all African Americans adhere to the Democratic Party, they then were nearly all Republicans. A number held public offices, including Robert Johnson, who was a county commissioner and a deputy sheriff.
An exception was Lewis Henderson, who avowed the cause of the Democratic Party, which led to his alienation from the black community and even a fist fight on the streets of Tampa.
This booklet, like its predecessor, Genealogical Records of the African American Pioneers, is a genealogical and historical gem and fills a void in the history of this region.
More Genealogical Records is a 5 1/2"X8 1/2" 72-page paperback with bibliography and notes. Also included are eight urls of web sites useful to researchers.
It can be ordered from the Tampa Bay History Center, 225 South Franklin Street, Tampa, FL 33602, 813-228-0097. You may e-mail them at Tampa Bay History Center.
This review was written on March 5, 2001 and published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) on March 29, 2001.
March 29, 2001& link = October 18, 2001