Some of the first orange groves in Central Florida were sown by African Americans seeking refuge in the Spanish-owned Territory after escaping the early 19th-century slave states. Although slavery existed for many, some escaped slaves enjoyed a productive co-existence with the Spanish and the region's Seminole Indians for decades, until the United States' acquisition of Florida in 1821 when slavery consumed their lives once again.
Freedom prevailed with the end of the Civil War in 1865. By 1884, Orange County's population was 1,162 white and 504 black. On August 18, 1887, 27 registered African American voters met and approved a proposal to incorporate the town of Eatonville, 10 miles north of Orlando. Eatonville, now a historic district listed in the National Register of Historic Places, became one of the first incorporated African-American towns in the United States. The strength and character of the Eatonville community found expression in the works and words of its most famous resident, Zora Neale Hurston. Decades after her death in 1960, Hurston is acclaimed worldwide as a writer, anthropologist, and folklorist whose books and stories often reflect her life and times in Eatonville and Florida in the first half of the 20th century.
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