Life and Island Times – June 9 2016
A Sovereign State of Mind
Key West’s reputation as a quirky, go it alone place is well known to moderns, since its tongue-in-cheek secession in 1982 was covered by national print and broadcast media outlets. Back then, Conchs rebelled against the Federal government’s road block quarantine of the island chain during its ham-handed war on drugs.
The United States Border Patrol set up a roadblock and inspection point on US 1 just north of the merger of Monroe County Road 905A/Miami-Dade County Road 905A onto US 1 (they are the only two roads connecting the Florida Keys with the mainland), in front of the Last Chance Saloon (no, Marlow is not making this up) just south of Florida City.
Vehicles were stopped and searched for narcotics and illegal immigrants. The Key West City Council complained repeatedly about the 3 to 4 hour long backups for car travelers to and from Key West, claiming that it hurt the Keys’ important tourism industry.
When the City Council’s complaints went unanswered by the U.S. federal government and attempts to get an injunction against the roadblock failed in court, as a form of protest Mayor Dennis Wardlow and the Council declared Key West’s independence on April 23, 1982. In the eyes of the Council, since the U.S. federal government had set up the equivalent of a border station as if they were a foreign nation, they might as well become one. As many of the local citizens were referred to as Conchs, the nation took the name of the Conch Republic.
As part of the protest, Mayor Wardlow was proclaimed Prime Minister of the Republic, which immediately declared war against the U.S. (symbolically breaking a loaf of stale Cuban bread over the head of a man dressed in a naval uniform), quickly surrendered after one minute (to the man in the uniform), and applied for one billion dollars in foreign aid.
The faux secession and the events surrounding it generated great publicity for the Keys’ plight – the roadblock and inspection station were removed soon afterward.
The roots of this southernmost state of mind trace back to the days when Key West was the only southern city to remain in Union hands throughout the Civil War As with all history, events began years in advance building up to the Civil War. An editorial written about Federal control of the island in 1832 in a Key West newspaper eerily portended actions to come 150 years later:
“We have always thought that the value of our Union consisted in affording equal rights and equal protection to every citizen; when, therefore. its objects are so perverted as to become a means of impoverishment to one section, whilst it aggrandizes another, when it becomes necessary to sacrifice one portion of the States for the good of the rest, the Union has lost its value to us; and we are bound, by a recurrence to first principles, to maintain our rights and defend our lives and property/ If we are oppressed, it is a matter of perfect indifference whether that oppression be inflicted by a foreign power or our next door neighbor. Upon the same principle we are compelled to resist both – ‘even unto death.’”
A Conch Republic flag hanging from a balcony.
Most islanders could give fewer than two sh*ts about the ongoing foolishness in our Imperial City. However, if the Feds begin acting up again, we may blow up the bridges the next time.
Copyright © 2016 From My Isle Seat