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What Games Were Available to Play in Florida of 1800s?

Florida of the 1800s was not the holiday paradise that it is today. Florida did not become an American state until 1845, decades after being acquired from Spain. Life at the time required long hours of backbreaking work sometimes just to survive. Lack of time does not equal lack of incentive or ingenuity, however, and the people of 19th-century Florida had diversions like games and toys to keep them occupied.

Seminole Games
- Equipment for the game of lacrosse, similar to the Seminole game of stickball.
  
  The Seminole Nation was a federation of indigenous tribes from both Georgia and Florida that included Creek, Hitchiti, Miccosukee and Oconee people. When the daily chores were done, the children of these tribes had wooden toys and traditional palmetto dolls to play with. Boys played team sports like stick-ball, similar to the Iroquois game of lacrosse except that it was played around a single central pole in a large open space -- instead of two poles on the opposite ends of a long field.
Gambling
- Gambling came to Florida in the 1800s.
  
  Games of chance and taking bets are as old a practice in Florida as the state itself. Bold entrepreneurs like Henry Flagler were building hotel casinos as early as 1888, even before the state had legalized gambling. Flagler already had built a similar gambling empire in California and his projects in Florida followed the same pattern of lavish hotels for wealthy guests and a church to appease the local morality police.
Board Games
- Games like Risk and Monopoly were many decades away, but it was in the early 1800s that their genesis began in the United States. The first board game created in America was called "The Mansion of Happiness" and was produced by the W.&S.B. Ives Co. Its theme was a moral one, in which players advanced their pieces by doing good deeds. Games like Around the World, which dates from 1873, were aimed at the growing American middle class and incorporated themes like international travel. Milton Bradley produced The Checkered Game of Life in 1860, a game still played to this day.
Learning Games
- Archery games helped the people of early Florida practice their aim.
  
  Games were not only played for fun but also teach basic life skills that were important for survival at the time. An example of this was Quoits, a game in which children had to throw stones in and through rope hoops. This helped improve the aim and hand-eye coordination of the children, skills that were crucial to essential 19th-century activities like hunting, construction and farming. As the century progressed, games like puzzles and models were also developed along with board games.

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