#Manatee County

[ausetkmt]

A Florida plantation that had slaves still stands today | wtsp.com

Tucked away on the side of a busy Manatee County road stands the vestige of a defining era in American history.

At its peak, the Gamble Plantation enslaved 190 men, women and children. Federal documents say they ranged in age from two months to 105 years old.

Their stories are not well known. In fact, few locals are even aware of a slave plantation in the Tampa Bay region.

Some historians say it's intentional.

A descendant says it's time for change.

Chandra's Gamble 'This is my history'

One of Chandra Carty's first visits to the Gamble Plantation was during her time as a high school student in Manatee County. 

"We didn't call it a plantation, we called it a mansion. I didn't know it was a plantation until maybe, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago," Carty, who is in her 60s, said. "Growing up, this was a mansion. So, they obscured what really happened here."

Interstate signs leading to the site make no mention of a plantation — only a mansion. It's only upon arrival that a sign reads, "Judah P. Benjamin Confederate Monument" at Gamble Plantation State Historic Park.

"How would the word change from plantation?" Carty asked.

However, Carty's quest for more information about the Gamble Plantation goes beyond the name. A family research project revealed she has direct connections to the site. Her great-great grandmother, Mariah, married Nelson Burton, who was enslaved at the plantation.

"The Manatee County historical records show in 1872, two freed ex-slaves being married, and that's where our family history picks up," she said.

It's history Carty and others who study the site say is missing from the Gamble Plantation, which now as a state park focuses heavily on its Confederate themes and memorial to Confederate cabinet member Judah P. Benjamin. He served as Secretary of State to the Confederacy and stayed at the plantation for a brief time on his escape from the country at the end of the Civil War.

"To be in line with how contemporary historians, contemporary museums, anthropologists try to interpret these public heritage sites, there needs to be a significant push to foreground the stories of the enslaved laborers here," Dr. Diane Wallman, associate professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida, said.

"As you know, somebody who studies history, and believes in, you know, the thorough and full telling of history, it makes me sad that the stories of particular people that lived here, died here, worked here, are not being told," she said.

Currently, there is little on the site that mentions the experiences of the enslaved. A visit to the plantation's information center does have a typewritten list of the names of all those enslaved. However, unlike other displays, there is no museum label to describe its significance.

"I want to see when I go into the little information booth, to see the story of specific slaves, to see Nelson Burton's story, because life is a story," Carty said. "We need to tell the story the best that we can. Where did the slaves live? What did their day to day activity consist of?"

A big Gamble The rise and fall of the Gamble Plantation

In the early 1840s, Robert Gamble of Tallahassee, Fla., used slave labor to establish a sugar plantation on about 3,500 acres of land along the Manatee River. 

Federal documents show he came to the area under the Florida Armed Occupation Act, which gave away 160 acres of land to settlers willing to develop the area and battle indigenous inhabitants.

According to paperwork filed with the National Park Service, those enslaved to Gamble lived in 57 slave cabins on the plantation. They are credited for the success of the plantation and sugar mill. 

Unable to keep up with "natural disasters and a fickle sugar market," information from Florida State Parks says Gamble was driven into debt by 1856 and sold the plantation in 1859.

A path forward Reconciling past with present

Documents filed with the National Park Service show in the 1920s, the United Daughters of the Confederacy purchased the Gamble Plantation mansion, restored it and made it a Confederate shrine.

10 investigates got records going back to the 1970s that show the UDC made an agreement with the state to limit the plantation's interpretation mostly to its Confederate themes.

When a state park leader proposed changes, he faced resistance. 

"There was pushback from the state government level. There's letters from senators...supporting the UDC and folks and trying to keep this focused on the Confederacy Judah P. Benjamin and Robert Gamble," Wallman said. "it's come up in the 90s, it's come up again now, where we're trying to have these conversations about expanding the narrative here and making it more inclusive."

John Sims, the late Sarasota-based artist who based some of his last projects on reimagining parts of the Gamble Plantation said he would like to see a memorial to the enslaved at the site.

“The state should consider…funding and even through legislation being able to support efforts to memorialize the history of enslaved folks and their relationship to the various slave plantations in the state of Florida,” the late Sarasota-based artist John Sims told 10 Investigates’ Emerald Morrow before his death in December 2022.

“Let’s look at some of these former slave plantations as places that really belong to all of us, particularly descendants of African slaves who have occupied those spaces,” Sims said.

Requests for on-camera interviews with the Judah P. Benjamin chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy were denied, but member Evelyn Hoskins said she believes others will be open to doing more at the Gamble Plantation to honor the enslaved.

"We are all looking for answers," she said. "The slaves were just as much of the Gamble story as anyone else."

10 Investigates also reached out to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the Gamble Plantation Historic State Park. A spokesperson denied our request for an interview, but said in a statement:

"The Florida Park Service is committed to providing resource-based recreation while preserving, interpreting and restoring natural and cultural resources, and the agency strives to do this in a positive and appropriate manner.

"Our agency is always evaluating how we communicate Florida's unique history across all state parks, including at Gamble Plantation Historic State Park."

Carty remains optimistic. She said her focus’s is not on removing what’s at the site. Instead, she wants to include what’s missing.

"I just want the complete story because this is my history," Carty said. "Why would I tear down my history? Nelson had to build this? Why would I destroy?"

So, she's calling on the UDC, the state park, lawmakers and even the governor to push a more balanced version of history—one she never wants to be forgotten. 

"I'm feeling hopeful," Carty said. "Hopeful that some I see the image of Nelson...the image of Mariah, and they say, 'job well done.' You finally got our story out so everybody can understand what it was like living here."

[hleeschuller]

$3,000.00 in Administrative Fees?!? That's what Florida Child Support just charged me.

[ncfcatalyst]

K-12 youth learn African American history through Manasota ASALH Freedom School

David Wilkins, president of the Manasota Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), has led the recent initiative to sponsor a Sarasota Freedom School. In an email interview, Wilkins told the Catalyst about the history of Freedom Schools, how Sarasota’s school runs and why it is an important addition to the community in the current cultural and political…

[conandaily2022]

Bond for Bradenton, Florida's Guadalupe Chapa Jr. set at $150k

Guadalupe Chapa Jr., 24, of Bradenton, Manatee County, Florida, United States is accused of sexually battering a teenager, 15, on September 22, 2023. He was known to the teenager’s family. On September 24, 2023, the teenager told a friend about the alleged crime. On September 25, 2023, detectives interviewed Chapa. During the interview, Chapa confessed to the crime. Manatee County Sheriff’s…

[paraparaparadigm]

[supportingeducation]

Censorship or Jail for Florida Teachers

Censorship or Jail for Florida Teachers

Censorship or jail is being offered to Florida teachers, told to remove ‘unvetted’ books from their classroom libraries or be charged with felonies. Governor Ron DeSantis and his fellow Florida Republicans pushed hard the narrative that teachers and libraries are using books to ‘groom’ students in dangerous ways. New laws and regulations in Florida restrict not only what books schools may…

[liberateddev]

[pixoplanet]

It's November 4th. 🧜🏽‍♀️ Manatee Awareness Month has just gotten underway in Florida, USA. In 1979, former Governor Bob Graham dedicated November to the Manatee and established Florida's first Manatee protection zones to protect Manatees and their aquatic habitats for future generations. Human activities were harming these dear creatures, so our compassion and actions were required to reverse the process.

Governor Graham's actions may have come just in the nick of time. Florida's Manatee population numbered only several hundred in 1979 and didn't begin to recover until around 1996. Their numbers peaked at 6,620 in early 2017, but have begun to decline again mainly due to increased recreational boating activity in Manatee habitats. A Manatee is no match for a motor boat's propeller.

You've probably heard stories of early sailors mistaking Manatees for mermaids (from a great distance, of course). These gentle giants aren't even remotely related to humans, though. They're actually related to elephants and spend most of their waking hours grazing on plants in warm, shallow, coastal waters. During the summer months, Florida's Manatees migrate up the coasts of Florida as far away as Texas and the Chesapeake Bay, only to return to Florida again in the winter.

Florida's Manatees belong to the West Indian species, whose members live throughout the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Two other species live in the Amazonian Basin and in West Africa. A more-distant relative, the Dugong, lives in East Asia. Please look out for these glorious “sea cows” when you're out boating in Manatee country. ☮️ Peace… Jamiese of Pixoplanet

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jacob Ogles at The Advocate:

Florida’s major bridges won’t be lit up for Pride Month this year. Instead, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants the Sunshine Skyway lit up in red, white and blue. Florida Transportation Secretary James Perdue recently announced on social media that as part of the state’s “Freedom Summer,” all bridges will be lit in patriotic colors from May 27 to Sept. 2. “As Floridians prepare for Freedom Summer, Florida's bridges will follow suit, illuminating in red, white, and blue from Memorial Day through Labor Day!” he wrote. “Thanks to the leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida continues to be the freest state in the nation.” The decision was announced as the DeSantis administration also touted a sales tax holiday and free access to state parks on Memorial Day weekend. So despite the governor’s abysmal record on LGBTQ+ rights, the decision didn’t seem to outwardly be motivated by a chance to pre-empt Pride.

But it did come after some Republican officials in the state objected to decisions in recent years to light up state bridges for certain causes. Manatee County Commissioner Mike Rahn, for example, emails the state Transportation Department objecting to lighting the Sunshine Skyway in St. Petersburg in rainbow colors for Pride Month and in orange for Gun Violence Awareness Day, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

There will be no bridges in Florida lighted up with the LGBTQ+ Pride Flag colors this year, as part of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Freedom Summer” initiative that all bridges be lighted up in the Red, White, and Blue all summer long.

This also continues a petty vendetta campaign against the LGBTQ+ community by DeSantis and his cronies.

[sbnkalny]

Manatee

[savingellerymae]

3/8/2024 PRESENT at court, JUDGE refused to appear- then issued a bench warrant for “not coming to court”

march 8, 2024 , Manatee county courthouse/judicial center 12th judicial circuit 9 to 10 AM proof of presence and refusal of the judge to appear himself, harassment by staff /agents/actors/administrators

Audio of my interactions with the entirety of the administrators in the courtroom, and then denying me to speak to the judge Frederick Mercurio : being uploaded shortly.

[edwincannan]

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[ncfcatalyst]

New College gets land donation over USF Sarasota-Manatee

The New College Board of Trustees (BOT has approved a nine-acre land donation from Manatee County, following the Manatee County Commission’s vote in October 2023 to give the land parcel to New College of Florida. The parcel was originally promised in 2020 to the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee (USFSM), which had planned to build student housing and an educational facility.   “We…