Essay Questions

How would Florida be categorized in the context of Eco-criticism?

Smith expounds, “The rumble of a coming civil war had already been felt in Georgia when Tobias left the clay hills and headed south to seek a new life in an unknown land…There was nothing in the Florida wilderness worth fighting over.” Smith overtly describes Florida as ‘a wilderness’. Furthermore the omnipresence of hogs in the area is an affirmation that Florida is an archetypal wilderness.

In chapter two, how does legislation validate bigotry towards Natives?

Smith writes, "One of the men said, "They stole a calf and butchered it, so we're going to teach them a lesson about rustling. And besides that, it's against the law for an Indian to be in Florida now. They're all criminals and ought to be in Oklahoma. That's the law." Palpably, laws permit the outright uprooting of Natives from Florida which is tantamount to overt racism. The makers of the law are immigrants who deem the Natives unfit to occupy Florida. Equating the Native Indians to criminals illustrates how they are criminalized due to the race that is regarded as undeserving.