The Stowe wintered in Florida, a former slave state

Since 1688, fugitive slaves from the British North American colonies had been drawn to Spanish Florida. The Spanish liberated the slaves in Florida if they converted to Roman Catholicism; males of legal age had to serve in the military. Near St. Many moved to Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first free black community in North America. The Stowe were able to buy a winter residence in Mandarin, Florida, in 1867 thanks to the income generated by Uncle Tom's Cabin and the end of the Civil War. For a well-known abolitionist to purchase 30 acres in a former slave state so soon after the war may have sounded odd—and dangerous. In spite of this, six years after the acquisition, she complained to a local media that "in all this time I have not had even an inclination from any native Floridian."

“The white population of Florida at the time was divided into different groups in terms of social origin,” says Foster. “The oldest group in Florida would have been the Menorcans, associated with the seafood industry and primarily St. Augustine. A different group would have been ‘cracker’ Florida. These are frontier and country people drifting in from Georgia primarily. This, of course, would be a main theme of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ famous novels. Lastly, there would be ‘planter’ Florida in the region east and west of Tallahassee. These were people replicating the Old South in terms of slavery.”