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The Reconstruction era in Florida is often misunderstood. Historians generally focus on the Civil War and the post-Reconstruction era to emphasize how the South has changed, but the Reconstruction era remains in shadow. To rectify this gap, this research provides more information about the Reconstruction era in Florida, specifically the impact of violence. To achieve this, I primarily used the testimonies gathered from the Joint Select Committee's investigation of violence during the Reconstruction era and the testimonies given to the Federal Government after the 1876 Presidential Election. The testimonies in these documents allow me to demonstrate how conservative whites used violence to reestablish white supremacy after the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. This study affirms that the violence exhibited during the Reconstruction era significantly impacted People of Color and white Republicans and changed the course of Florida history. This study is critical because it connects the lawlessness of the territorial days of Florida before the Civil War to the organized and targeted violence of the Reconstruction era, which lived on well into the 20th century. While this study builds upon what modern scholars have dubbed one of the most progressive eras in history, it also exposes the reality of day-to-day life in Reconstruction era Florida, which was rife with bloodshed and disorder for People of Color and white Republicans.

This is a study of public opinion, political organizing and military experiences in the coastal cities of Early America. I argue that, collectively, seaport towns constituted a "maritime frontier"—a frontier being defined as a zone of a polity exposed to outside attack. Historians usually think of frontiers as rough, impoverished and politically peripheral—this frontier was urbane, prosperous and influential—yet it was still a zone of profound danger. Menaced, raided and bombarded by foreign pirates, raiders and navies, coastal frontier people demanded protection from colonial governments. My dissertation excavates the forgotten but significant military experiences of urban, coastal people, the frontier consciousness these experiences instilled and the political campaigns they undertook to gain fortifications, which they believed would secure them against such dangers in the future—and sometimes rose to the level of armed revolt. Together, this complex of experience, identity and demand constituted a frontier—a maritime, urban frontier.