The Rosewood Massacre

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Settled in 1845 Rosewood Florida was mainly used for lumber where it got its town name from a red color cut of cedar wood. Rosewood had both African American and caucasian settlers. In 1890 the pencil mill closed down because of Rosewood losing its population of trees. Most of the caucasian settlers moved to Sumner where they farmed citrus and cotton. In 1900 almost all of Rosewoods population was African Americans. And almost all of Sumner’s population was caucasian. The two towns were ok they basically just kind of stayed out of each other's way. In Rosewood there were two African American Families that were the most powerful in Rosewood. The Goins family was one of them. They brought the Turpentine industry to Rosewood. They became the …show more content…

It started when a white woman from Sumner said that she was assaulted by an African American. Her name was Frances Taylor. Fannie was 22 years old and her husband James Taylor was 30 years old in 1923. James was a millwright and he was working for Cummer and sons in Sumner. Fanny wasn’t the most social girl in the town barely anyone knew anything about her. People say that all she did was clean her floors with bleach to keep them stone white and take care of her two young children. On January 1, 1923 Fannies neighbor said that she heard screaming and grabbed a revolver to go investigate. She found Fanny on the ground beaten with marks all over her body. Fanny told the neighbor to go check on the baby because an African American had bust open her door and beaten her and that the African American was inside the house. Fanny original report said that the African American just beat her and didn’t rape her. But rumors started going all over the town and people believed he did rape her. Philomena Goins said that she saw John Bradley with Fanny and she said that they were together and that day they got into a fight and he beat her. Then when John Bradley left Fanny house he went to …show more content…

He learned that Jesse Hunter an African American escaped his chain gang. People from Cedar helped him find Jesse to talk about the attack on Fanny. Over 400 men helped with this case Sheriff Walker even put some of them on duty as officers. They used dogs also to help them. The dogs led them to the home of Aaron Carrier. They dragged him outside where his mother begged them not to kill Aaron. They tied Aaron up and drove him to Sumner. Walker put Aaron in protective custody in Bronson to keep the other men away from him. Because a lot of them were drinking and thought they had all of the authority. Walker also urged Black employees to stay at the turpentine mills for their

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