Joseph E. Oates was a carpenter and politician in Florida, United States.
He was born in Sumter County, Georgia[1] and was enslaved.[1] He was owned by Florida Governor David Shelby Walker of Florida and was literate. He was chosen to attend the National Negro Congress in Washington, D.C. in February 1866 as part of a delegation that met with U.S. president Andrew Johnson. Histories disparaging the Reconstruction era recount a story of him absconding with money from his political supporters.[2] Accounts of him and his African American colleagues in the state legislature are also degrading.[3]
Oates represented Leon County and Wakulla County at Florida's 1868 Constitutional Convention.[4] He was one of the signers of the constitution it produced.[5]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b Brown, Canter (June 3, 1998). Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867-1924. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 9780817309152 – via Google Books.
- ^ Davis, William Watson (June 3, 1913). The Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida. Columbia Univ. ISBN 9780722201985 – via Google Books.
- ^ Stephenson, Wendell Holmes; Coulter, Ellis Merton (June 3, 1947). "A History of the South: Coulter, E. M. The south during reconstruction, 1865-1877". Louisiana state University Press, Littlefield fund for southern history of the University of Texas – via Google Books.
- ^ Freedom's Lawmakers by Eric Foner, Louisiana State University Press (1996) page 163
- ^ Florida, State Library and Archives of. "Constitution of the State of Florida, 1868". Florida Memory.
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