Dublin Core
Title
Judah P. Benjamin Monument
Subject
Judah B. Benjamin, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Antebellum Architecture, Plantations, Slavery
Description
The Judah B. Benjamin Confederate Memorial was originally a 3,400-acre sugar plantation with at least 190 slaves built by Robert Gamble between 1845 and 1850.[1] Gamble was able to gain the property at no cost due to the Florida Armed Occupation and Settlement Act of 1842 which was designed to occupy areas which the indigenous Seminole people had fled to with plantations with armed militia to end any existing resistance.[2] The plantation would serve as a hiding place for Judah B. Benjamin Confederate Secretary of War as he fled from Union forces at the war's end and left the country for England where he became a prominent lawyer. The area would eventually come under the ownership of the Judah B. Benjamin chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in 1925. The UDC later deeded the land to the State of Florida, and it is currently operated by the Division of Recreation and Parks, Department of Environmental Protection.
This monument serves to drive the connection between the erection of seemingly apolitical monuments and the maintenance of a particular perception of the past. Most of the monuments in this archive are obvious in their nature as memorials but this entry serves to upend this trend and reveal the underlying reasoning for the raising of monuments to the Confederacy and its related figures. The plantation discussed here has a history that extends before and beyond the Civil War yet emphasized in its name and usage is its association with the Judah B. Benjamin and the Confederacy.[3] This is done to push the ahistorical narrative of the Lost Cause in which the Civil War in the Confederacy in a manner that ignores that slavery was the main reason the southern states seceded from the Union and presents the Confederacy as a noble entity an inheritor of the will of the Founding Fathers.[4] Slavery plays only a small role in how the plantation is presented to the public which is especially strange considering what period it is associated with in its name. The site still serves as a place for events led by the UDC who began the project of presenting the plantation as a memorial to the Confederacy rather than as a place to consider the implications of slavery and how it functioned in the United States.
The value of this entry is how it illustrates the changing perception of Confederate monuments and the expansion of what can be considered a Confederate monument. What constitutes a monument is not just what it was specifically built for but how the physical entity itself is used and what historical narratives its presentation supports. This monument does not follow the models of most of the entries in this archive, most of which are structures in towns and cities specifically constructed to memorialize figures or events associated with the Confederacy. This site was built as a plantation, not a memorial yet it is used for similar ideological goals and so falls into the category of the sort of objects this archive seeks to record. It should be kept in mind this archive is not only for objects but for how these objects are used, removed, and seen by the public. Conflicting ideas of how this monument shows how all objects in this archive are neither eternal nor fixed, their continued existence dependent upon the will of the public who witness and interact with them.[5]
This monument serves to drive the connection between the erection of seemingly apolitical monuments and the maintenance of a particular perception of the past. Most of the monuments in this archive are obvious in their nature as memorials but this entry serves to upend this trend and reveal the underlying reasoning for the raising of monuments to the Confederacy and its related figures. The plantation discussed here has a history that extends before and beyond the Civil War yet emphasized in its name and usage is its association with the Judah B. Benjamin and the Confederacy.[3] This is done to push the ahistorical narrative of the Lost Cause in which the Civil War in the Confederacy in a manner that ignores that slavery was the main reason the southern states seceded from the Union and presents the Confederacy as a noble entity an inheritor of the will of the Founding Fathers.[4] Slavery plays only a small role in how the plantation is presented to the public which is especially strange considering what period it is associated with in its name. The site still serves as a place for events led by the UDC who began the project of presenting the plantation as a memorial to the Confederacy rather than as a place to consider the implications of slavery and how it functioned in the United States.
The value of this entry is how it illustrates the changing perception of Confederate monuments and the expansion of what can be considered a Confederate monument. What constitutes a monument is not just what it was specifically built for but how the physical entity itself is used and what historical narratives its presentation supports. This monument does not follow the models of most of the entries in this archive, most of which are structures in towns and cities specifically constructed to memorialize figures or events associated with the Confederacy. This site was built as a plantation, not a memorial yet it is used for similar ideological goals and so falls into the category of the sort of objects this archive seeks to record. It should be kept in mind this archive is not only for objects but for how these objects are used, removed, and seen by the public. Conflicting ideas of how this monument shows how all objects in this archive are neither eternal nor fixed, their continued existence dependent upon the will of the public who witness and interact with them.[5]
Creator
Robert Gamble, enslaved workers
Source
Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Judah P. Benjamin Confederate Memorial at Gamble Plantation Historic State Park. April 21, 2015. https://floridadep.gov/sites/default/files/JPBGamblePlantation_Approved%20Plan_April2015_5mb.pdf.
Stuart, John. Society of Architectural Historians. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/FL-01-081-0017.
Sims, John. “Here’s the slave memorial I have imagined for Florida’s Gamble Plantation” Tampa Bay Times August 28, 2020. https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/08/28/heres-the-slave-memorial-i-have-imaged-for-floridas-gamble-plantation-column/.
Bardes, John. “‘Defend with True Hearts unto Death’: Finding Historical Meaning in Confederate Memorial Hall.” Southern Cultures 23, no. 4 (2017): 29–45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391717.
Young, James Edward. The Stages of Memory: Reflections on Memorial Art, Loss, and the Spaces Between. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016.
Stuart, John. Society of Architectural Historians. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/FL-01-081-0017.
Sims, John. “Here’s the slave memorial I have imagined for Florida’s Gamble Plantation” Tampa Bay Times August 28, 2020. https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/08/28/heres-the-slave-memorial-i-have-imaged-for-floridas-gamble-plantation-column/.
Bardes, John. “‘Defend with True Hearts unto Death’: Finding Historical Meaning in Confederate Memorial Hall.” Southern Cultures 23, no. 4 (2017): 29–45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391717.
Young, James Edward. The Stages of Memory: Reflections on Memorial Art, Loss, and the Spaces Between. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016.
Date
1842-1845
Contributor
Samuel McMillan
Language
English
Type
Antebellum Plantation
Identifier
HIST 402 Fall 2023
Coverage
Gamble Plantation, FL