Welcome to our
website home! |
|
History is being reborn in our community with the
programs and projects of the Jackson County Historical and
Genealogy Society. Attendance at our monthly meetings continues
to grow, nurtured by a diversity of entertaining and educational
programs.
We have enjoyed each other’s fellowship as we
learn about our local history and identify ways to protect the
heritage of our past. We are a publishing society with an annual
journal (free to members), and in 2009 we published a Cemetery Book that
celebrates the lives of 45,000 citizens in a format valuable to
genealogists and historians.
We meet the fourth Tuesday of each month at 6
p.m. in the meeting room at Pascagoula Public Library. Meetings
last about an hour and we regularly have refreshments and a free door prize
drawing for a historical book. Meetings and
membership are open to the public. We serve all of Jackson
County's communities and municipalities. |
|
|
|
Tuesday, July 27, Program, 6 p.m.
Lost and Found - The History of Spain and the
Mississippi Sound
 Martin
Britt (pictured), program director of Home of Grace Christian
Addiction Recovery Program and a licensed and ordained minister who
has written various Christian educational books, is planning to
release his first purely history book at year's end. On Tuesday,
July 27, 6 p.m., he will present a program on his work, titled
"Lost and Found: The History of Spain and the Mississippi Sound," at
the monthly meeting that is open to the public of the Jackson County
Historical and Genealogical Society.
This 1810 map shows East and West Florida, the territories that
formed Spanish Florida. Jackson County was a part of West Florida,
a region on the north shore of the
Gulf of Mexico,
which underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during
colonization.
Two-volume history nears publication
New study focuses on Spanish colonization
of Jackson County during West Florida era
Ten different flags flew over Jackson County from
1540 to present as its history was shaped by colonization, the
American Revolution, statehood and the Civil War Between the States.
The Spanish flag flew here from 1540-1630 and 1780-1810 during the
West Florida period. Not much has been written on Jackson County's
place during the Spanish periods, but the Jackson County Historical
and Genealogical Society leadership is noticing a reversal in that
trend.
Martin Britt, who majored in history at the University
of Southern Mississippi -Gulf Coast, has spent more than 35 years
studying the history and archaeology of the Spanish colonial empire
with special interest in Florida and the Gulf South.
At year's end, he plans to release his first historical
work, a two-volume history, giving the untold and neglected story of
the Spanish period along the Mississippi Sound, beginning with the
earliest explorations and ending with the U.S. seizure of Dauphin
Island, the last of the Sound islands under Spanish rule in 1813.
"This book was born out of frustration at the fact that
the history of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast during the Spanish colonial
period is completely ignored and left out of our textbooks," Britt
said.
In 2003 Martin pledged to himself to find that history
and during the past seven years, after hundreds of hours of
researching more than 6,000 documents and scores of primary source
material, he has put together a story of life in the Sound under
Spain and events that impacted the period.
"It is my hope that this history, titled 'Spain and the
Mississippi Sound,' will promote a awareness of the importance of
the Spanish period to our unique history by promoting local events
featuring re-enactors and exhibits to further enlighten the public,
and eventually offer material for use by Mississippi school teachers
on the colonial period and its importance in our national memory,"
Britt said.
Society President Barry McIlwain hails the pending
publication. "It will be welcomed by residents, students and
scholars," he said.
"It is high time that someone picks up the challenge of
our colonial history," said Society president, Tommy Wixon,
"especially today when more and more information is becoming
available. We have a couple of pioneers in this field who have
created a base that hopefully more writers and researchers will
build on."
Sherry Owens of Pascagoula Public Library's Local
Genealogy and History Department is encouraged by the new interest
in researching the Spanish period. "We still have a great deal to
find out about the Spanish on the Gulf Coast because the Spanish
were excellent archivists and kept better records than the English
or French," she said. "There are still many bundles of archives from
the 'Papeles de Cuba,' in Seville, Spain, that need to be
translated."
The Pascagoula Public Library's collection on the
subject numbers 37 reference works and seven rolls of microfilm
containing various records from Spanish West Florida. "Those vary
from censuses to land records," said the department's Renee Hague.
|
