The colonization of British East Florida in 1763 did not occur in a vacuum. Colonizers formulated different settlement plans based on their experience in the colonies and the Atlantic world in general. The most obvious differentiation was in their choice of labor. Some men chose to base their settlements on slave labor. Others imported white laborers either as indentured servants or tenant farmers. Historians have looked at this differentiation in labor as an important element in the downfall of the colony, but the key question should be: why did each man choose the labor and settlement scheme he did? The answer to this question goes to the nature of the British Empire and the different ideas that developed in the center and peripheral areas of the imperial system. Based on a close analysis of correspondence, official records and petitions, this study examines four different men who were involved in colonizing early East Florida: Colonial governor James Grant, Atlantic merchant Richard Oswald, former member of parliament Denys Rolle, and Scottish physician Andrew Turnbull. Each man dealt with the problems of colonization in different ways. This study is about how each man dealt with the many different influences regarding colonization and labor.

Enlightenment philosophers had long feared the effects of crisscrossing boundaries, both real and imagined. Such fears were based on what they considered a brutal ocean space frequented by protean shape-shifters with a dogma of ruthless exploitation and profit. This intellectual study outlines the formation and fragmentation of a fluctuating worldview as experienced through the circum-Atlantic life and travels of merchant, slaveowner, and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley during the Era of Revolution. It argues that the process began from experiencing the costs of loyalty to the idea of the British Crown and was tempered by the pervasiveness of violence, mobility, anxiety, and adaptation found in the booming Atlantic markets of the Caribbean during the Haitian Revolution. Tracing Kingsley’s manipulations of identity and race through his peripatetic journey serves to go beyond the infinite masks of his self-invention and exposes the deeply imbedded transatlantic dimensions of power.

Enlightenment philosophers had long feared the effects of crisscrossing boundaries, both real and imagined. Such fears were based on what they considered a brutal ocean space frequented by protean shape-shifters with a dogma of ruthless exploitation and profit. This intellectual study outlines the formation and fragmentation of a fluctuating worldview as experienced through the circum-Atlantic life and travels of merchant, slaveowner, and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley during the Era of Revolution. It argues that the process began from experiencing the costs of loyalty to the idea of the British Crown and was tempered by the pervasiveness of violence, mobility, anxiety, and adaptation found in the booming Atlantic markets of the Caribbean during the Haitian Revolution. Tracing Kingsley’s manipulations of identity and race through his peripatetic journey serves to go beyond the infinite masks of his self-invention and exposes the deeply imbedded transatlantic dimensions of power.

A seasonal and long-term analysis of the vertical structure of currents in the nearshore is conducted to determine the role of the wind in driving currents and consequently affecting littoral transport processes. Approximately ten years (January, 2002 – October, 2011) of nearshore current profiles are examined using the data collected with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) installed off of Spessard Holland North Beach Park located in Melbourne Beach, Florida. Additionally, wind data collected with a directional anemometer from September, 2002, until October, 2008, are used to further characterize the long-term hydrodynamic forcing. With the shoreline oriented nominally 17o west of magnetic north, both the current profiles and the wind vectors have been rendered into longshore and cross-shore components. The water level record from a NOAA tide station located at the Trident Pier at nearby Port Canaveral is utilized in establishing the water depth and conditioning the data for statistical analysis. Monthly mean vertical profiles reveal that during the winter months the surface currents are usually toward the south, and toward the north in the summer. In spring and fall, they are mixed, demonstrating a clear seasonality in both direction and intensity of the longshore current. Subjecting the longshore and cross-shore current data to Empirical Orthogonal Function Analysis reveals that the first spatial Eigenfunction accounts for more than 98% of the variability in the vertical profile of the longshore current, and more than 86% of the variability in the profile of the cross-shore current. However, there is a rotation of the current to the right (clockwise) with the rotation angle increasing and the variance decreasing with depth below the surface. The spiral structure of the water column follows a surface Ekman veering, but for very shallow water. The upper layer of the current is almost aligned with the direction of the wind. Monthly correlations between 2-hour average time series of longshore current and 2-hour average time series of wind speed reveal the seasonal patterns of the wind and longshore current in which the upper layer of the water column is highly correlated with the longshore component of the wind speed for most of the year and slightly less correlated for the lower layer of the water column. Most importantly, on average, wave height (Hmo) is larger when the longshore current is heading to the south (Hmo=0.95 m) than when the current is going to the north (Hmo=0.73 m). Additionally, there is a stronger correlation between southerly directed currents and incident wave energy flux than northerly directed currents and wave energy flux. These results indicate that the net long-term north-to-south sediment transport known to characterize the region is heavily influenced by wind-driven currents.