The Florida Crackers: Florida's Original Cowboys

Florida has a diverse history. Though not in any particular order listed herein, Florida has been home to: the first native Americans, the Seminole; Civil War; the Spaniards landing on the coast to claim land and pillage resources; and some fateful Spanish ship wrecks that dumped treasure at the bottom of the ocean where seasoned hunters would later find it.

What people outside of the state don't know about Florida is that there were men who are as legendary in these parts as out West. There was a time period in the nineteenth century when the American cowboy was the epitome of man, a rugged individual who staked claim on land and animal, breaking in wild horses, cattle and the like. But there was a group of individuals in Florida called the cowmen or "crackers," for they would use a bull-whip to herd the Spanish cattle that roamed throughout central Florida. One could hear the whip cracking, and thus, the term cracker came into being.

These cowmen traveled the rugged terrain through floods, storms, intense heat, mosquitoes wild prey to herd their cattle, often wearing yellow slickers when it rained, their whips by their sides. The Florida cowmen were a hard working lot, but could also be a rowdy bunch. There is documented history of drunken brawls, where like in the saloons in Texas, gunfights would break-out, only poker or women weren't involved, the fighting was usually over cattle. Some men branded their animals, so if they were stolen, they could identify their property.

There were some thieving people, unscrupulous in nature, who would try to steal cows from rival cowmen. Often one could hear many an angry shotgun being fired to scare off the thieves, if anything. There has been a lot of controversy regarding the character of the cowmen, especially from multi-generation crackers that continue the trade and know first-hand of the hard work involved in being a Florida cowman.

Frederic Remington, famous for his drawings and sculptures of the mighty Texan cowboy, came to Florida in the eighteen hundreds, and was shocked by what he saw. To paraphrase Remington, he described the Florida cowmen as a "a drunken, droopy lot" and could not find any noble traits to their character. Maybe this was because of men like "Bone" Mitzell, a fighting, rowdy cowman, who was the anti-cowboy to Remington's Texan God. Remington painted Mitzell in what was called "Cracker Cowboy". He stayed in Florida for a while making sketches of other cowmen he saw, but was only too happy to return to the west. Needless to say, Remington had captured in a time before the regular use of photographs, a moment in Florida history that holds quite a lot of significance, regardless.

Source:

Jr., Akerman, Joe A. Florida Cowmen, A History of Florida Cattle Raising. Kissimmee, Florida: Florida Cattlemen's Association, 1976.

Meisel, Tony and Frank Appel. Edited Tales of Old Florida. Secaucus, New Jersey: Castle, 1987.

Stamberger, Linda. Antiquing in Florida. Edgewater, Florida: Pinkster Press, 2002-2007.