General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Crazy ass cracker" [View all]Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)The screened-in porch was important (some completely enclosed the house!), providing a cooler place to sleep (family members dragged mattresses out onto the porch to escape the hot kitchen where the wood-burning stove was always in use). The first Crackers arriving in Florida were highly nomadic & usually on foot and traveled with their livestock on pathworks & trails. These destitute people often could not make a living under the slave regime, and fled to Florida where slave culture was not as widespread beyond N. Florida, bookkeeping was bad, and no one wished to track you down for debts, crimes and CSA draft-dodging. Being nomadic, their "housing" didn't rate cracker-builts, but were make-shift lean-tos. If discovered squatting on private land, they had to move on if share-cropping could not be agreed to. Some reached frontier land where they could quit-claim as late as the 1920s.
Their living conditions were very harsh, and they suffered displacement frequently.
Ever heard of a cracker cart? A 2-wheeled cart drawn by a horse or other livestock, with the driver riding the animal. A text (1870) referenced similar vehicles in the St. Augustine area as "go-carts."