
The Letters of George Long Brown
A Yankee Merchant on Florida's Antebellum Frontier
University Press of Florida
Published on 31. July 2019
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-8130-5638-8 (ISBN)
Description
In 1840, twenty-three-year-old George Long Brown migrated from New Hampshire to north Florida, a region just emerging from the devastating effects of the Second Seminole War. This volume presents over seventy of Brown's previously unpublished letters to illuminate day-to-day life in pre?Civil War Florida.
Brown's personal and business correspondence narrates his daily activities and his views on politics, labor practices, slavery, fundamentalist religion, and the local gossip. Having founded a successful mercantile establishment in Newnansville, Brown traveled the region as far as Savannah and Charleston, purchasing sea island cotton and other goods from plantations. He also bartered with locals and circulated among the judges, lawyers, and politicians of Alachua County.
The Letters of George Long Brown provides an important eyewitness view of north Florida's transformation from a subsistence and herding community to a market economy based on cotton, timber, and other crops, showing that these changes came about in part due to an increased reliance on slavery. Brown's letters offer the first social and economic history of one of the most important yet little-known frontiers in the antebellum South.
A volume in the series Contested Boundaries, edited by Gene Allen Smith.
Brown's personal and business correspondence narrates his daily activities and his views on politics, labor practices, slavery, fundamentalist religion, and the local gossip. Having founded a successful mercantile establishment in Newnansville, Brown traveled the region as far as Savannah and Charleston, purchasing sea island cotton and other goods from plantations. He also bartered with locals and circulated among the judges, lawyers, and politicians of Alachua County.
The Letters of George Long Brown provides an important eyewitness view of north Florida's transformation from a subsistence and herding community to a market economy based on cotton, timber, and other crops, showing that these changes came about in part due to an increased reliance on slavery. Brown's letters offer the first social and economic history of one of the most important yet little-known frontiers in the antebellum South.
A volume in the series Contested Boundaries, edited by Gene Allen Smith.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Florida
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
581 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8130-5638-8 (9780813056388)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

James M. Denham | Keith L. Huneycutt
The Letters of George Long Brown
A Yankee Merchant on Florida's Antebellum Frontier
E-Book
05/2024
University Press of Florida
€26.49
Available for download

Unknown | James M. Denham | Keith L. Huneycutt
Letters of George Long Brown
A Yankee Merchant on Florida's Antebellum Frontier
E-Book
06/2019
1st Edition
University Press of Florida
€385.99
Available for download
Persons
James M. Denham is professor of history and director of the Lawton M. Chiles Jr. Center for Florida History at Florida Southern College. He is the author or editor of several books, including Fifty Years of Justice: A History of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.