African Americans in Big Cypress

Soon after the Tamiami Trail was completed in 1928, the logging industry began within the Big Cypress Swamp. Many of the people that were involved in this industry were of African American descent. They helped to shape and develop southwest Florida into much of what it is today.

Below are excerpts from AFRICAN AMERICANS and THE SAWMILLS of BIG CYPRESS — A BRIEF HISTORY by Audrey and Frank Peterman, but you can read the full report here!

 

Forgotten to History

"Like shadows of history, black sawmill workers and loggers in the area that is now part of the Big Cypress National Preserve and its environs, made a way of life laboring in fearful and dangerous circumstances. They raised families, worshiped in harmony, and then disappeared with little notice taken of their presence, their passing or their contributions. In less than five decades, a way of life, and many of the people who lived it, has been dispersed from public memory."

Logging Families

"The deep woods were quiet at 2:00 A.M. as a lone black woman stirred in her small wooden shack, a company house built by the Lee Tidewater Cypress Company. By lamplight she moved deliberately around her kitchen, preparing her husband’s breakfast and lunch before she dressed for work. Frances Hodge moved to Copeland with her husband Monroe, who was a “steel man” working on the railroad tracks. It was his skills as a “steel man” that brought them to Copeland. They came to the little company town in 1947 in the peak of the Cypress logging era. Mr. Hodge steel driving job extended the tracks further and further into the Giants of the Swamp. Finishing her preparations at home she dressed and headed for the company complex...By the time the company whistle blew at 5:00 a.m. and Mr. Hodge began getting ready for work, Frances had already fixed breakfast and started dinner for the 30 or more white workers"

Working Conditions

"The loggers worked from “cain’t see to cain’t see.” During the long daylight hours the screaming morning whistle came awfully quick after a 15-hour workday. World War II was over but the demand for the “wood eternal” had not slackened. America’s housing market was taking off and Europe was rebuilding. Much of the cypress cut from the l940s through the end of the war in 1945 was used in boat building and other military uses."

"In the early logging period the loggers worked 5 days per week but, as the demand for cypress grew while at the same time pressure mounted to preserve what was left of the ancient trees, the logging pace quickened. The advent of the power saw increased the pace even more and workers began working seven days per week."

"Danger began the moment he jumped down form the train car at the site where they were to cut that day. The footing on the bed of the swamp of decaying vegetation, oozing matter and slippery marl made for precarious footing while carrying heavy equipment and sharp tools. Felling the trees was an added risk."

"An angry female alligator or an irritated moccasin did not present a challenge as great as staying on one’s feet. The chopping and sawing was done in water from waist deep to neck deep. It was reported in The Saturday Evening Post as the toughest logging job in America in 1955. The work was truly a “team effort.” It took everything from the train engineers, steel drivers, cruisers, and markers, men who bore holes in the trees to drain them before cutting and the loggers to make logging cypress profitable."

"A 150-foot tree, twenty feet in circumference, weighing several tons, crashing to earth in the thickets of the swamp, was an event dangerous to both man and other beasts. It wasn’t the mere misdirection of the path of the tree’s fall; it was all of the subsequent and consequential events that could follow. Tree limbs flying in all directions as shot from bows; splintering wood fragments piercing the air in random directions, and smaller trees and saplings becoming missiles. All this could happen in a split second. It was like a domino effect from hell. With little maneuverability in the chest high water and the soggy footing, even these were not the greatest dangers"

Community Living

"As a company town, Copeland was organized along racial lines as most southern communities were at that time. Copeland had its black side and its white side. By community here we are referring to the black community. It is important to note that there was a Seminole Indian settlement nearby both African Americans and The Sawmills of 19 Big Cypress — A Brief History communities. The Indians preferred to live on their own. They worked in the cypress with much of their work consisting of boring the trees prior to cutting, so the water could drain and make the tree easier to handle. The community was purely southern in every aspect with the African American loggers coming from the Deep South states of Alabama, Georgia and North Florida."

"Medical help was in Everglades [City]. For more serious matters it was in Fort Myers or Miami. There was an infirmary that treated minor injuries or illnesses. Unfortunately what professional help that was available locally was dispensed on the basis of color rather than by need. There were instances of injuries to black loggers that were either not treated or treated with less professionalism purely on the basis of their color"