Lunch & Learn – From “Freedom Colony” to Maitland Subdivision

Historian Scot French of the University of Central Florida will discuss the intertwined stories of Maitland and the historic Black township of Eatonville, with a particular focus on the neo-abolitionist partnership between the formerly enslaved grove worker Joseph Clark, the philanthropist Lewis Lawrence of Utica, New York, and Union Navy veteran Josiah Eaton of Calais, Maine. French will talk about the distinctive demographics and political economy of Central Florida that gave rise to one of the first and oldest Black towns in the United States.