MORE HISTORY OF SANIBEL AND AREA

During 16-18th Centuries,  the English, Spanish and French governments attempted to colonize Florida,  the Caribbean and Mexico. This brought an enormous amount of shipping to the area. Pirates were paid by one country to plunder goods from another. It's estimated that 30-50% of those pirates were black--perhaps these pirates were led by Black Augustus, Black Caesar or Jose Gaspar.

In the late 1880s, Black Americans settled in Punta Gorda and by the 1920s two families arrived on Sanibel and worked as sharecroppers. Isaiah Gavin and his family were the first on Sanibel. The Johnsons, Walkers, Mitchells, Hursts, Bohers,Preschas and Whitcarrs followed. Unfortunately, their children had to cross the waters to school in Ft. Myers. The families searched for a building to use as a school(1-8). And empty Baptist Church on Tarpon Road informally opened its door to Black children as early as 1924---but in 1927 the school was officially opened.

In 1929, Lee County bought the building from the Florida Baptist Church for $1500. To keep the school open, the school board required at least 7 children in attendance. With WWll and the depletion of the fertile farm land after the hurricanes of 1926, many islanders --- who now numbered only 100 --- left the island. The little school had to close and the children were ferried across to Dunbar.

Even though a new school was opened in 1962, the black families still had to send their children across to the mainland. In 1964/65, parents convinced the school board to allow integration at the Sanibel School --- thus making Sanibel the first integrated school in Lee County.