Copyright © 2000 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
| Spring is coming, and that means some folks are already planning summer
vacations. For many people in Georgia, that means going even further south, to
Florida, an even hotter state, with even hungrier mosquitoes, in pursuit of a
sandy beach (as if Georgia didn’t have some great beaches) and a certain
rodent who shall remain nameless here. If you are going to Florida and want to
take a break from the sand and the mice, make a little detour down US 301 to the
quaint little town of Ellenton, where you’ll surprise yourself by finding an
antebellum plantation house. |
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The
Gamble Plantation, or the Judah P. Benjamin Confederate Memorial, is part of the
Florida parks system that packs some intriguing lessons and stirs up some old
memories in a state that most tourists don’t think of as a place for lessons
and memories—except, perhaps, Kodak moments. In fact, most people have trouble
thinking of Florida as a southern state at all. Since this time of year about
half the cars on Florida highways sport tags from the wrong side, I mean, the
other side of the Mason-Dixon Line, Gamble Plantation is a necessary reminder
that Florida is, after all, closer to Georgia than to New York.
The
crop of choice for south Florida plantations in the first half of the nineteenth
century was sugar cane, still a major crop in south Florida, still dependant
upon human labor. Robert Gamble, son of a wealthy planter family near
Tallahassee, established what would eventually become a plantation of over three
thousand acres, with over a hundred slaves engaged in the very demanding work of
raising sugar cane.
The center of the plantation and the most visible reminder of a way of life that is gone with the mule is the mansion. Built of brick and tabby (a mixture of sand, seashells, and lime familiar to loyal Georgians who have explored the ruins of early English settlements along the Georgia coast), the outer walls are nearly two feet thick.
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They
remind me of the walls of old buildings I’ve seen in Mexico, built for
the same reason, to keep the inhabitants cool. The two-story
house is surrounded on three sides by porches on both floors. All ten rooms of
the house have cross ventilation from windows always shaded by the porches. The
house is elegantly furnished, but the guides admit that only one dish is part of
the original furnishings of the house. |
It
was not a bad life for those who lived in the mansion. Most of the people who
lived on the plantation lived elsewhere, and there are no ruins of the houses
they lived in. The interpretive center in the park is honest in its discussion
of the slaves and their labor. There is a haunting list of the names of the
slaves, and a reference to slaves ranging in age from three to over a hundred.
But, there is no more, only a dark shadow on a sunny afternoon.
Two
names are associated with this park, that of Robert Gamble, who began the
plantation, and that of Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State of the
Confederacy. But Gamble was forced to sell the plantation in 1856, and Benjamin
spent his few legend-swaddled days at the mansion nine years later, as he was
fleeing from Union soldiers before his escape to England, where he created a new
life and a new career for himself.
The
mansion had several owners, and by 1925, it was an uninhabited ruin, when it was
purchased by the Judah P. Benjamin Chapter of the United Daughters of the
Confederacy and presented to the state of Florida. Interestingly, the
controversial battle flag of the Confederacy is not flown at Gamble Plantation.
Instead, the true flag of the Confederacy flies alongside the flags of the
United States and of Florida. A tattered example of it is displayed in a room
where there is also a portrait of Robert E. Lee, whom, the guide reminded us,
was the only person ever to graduate from West Point without a single demerit.
Before
the War Between the States, Judah P. Benjamin was the first Jewish member of the
United States Senate. Later he served as Attorney General, Secretary of War, and
finally Secretary of State of the Confederacy. To learn more about him, look at
this page from a fascinating library of information about great Jewish
Americans. Mosey on over to the Gamble
Plantation State Historic Site for the latest news, hours, fees, and special
events.
I
visited Gamble Plantation on one of its open house days, held twice a year, when
free tours of the mansion are given. I happened to stand in line ahead of a
young man who, to these jaded American eyes, appeared black, and his mother who,
to these same eyes, appeared white. In many ways, they were any mother and any
son enjoying an outing together—an outing with extra credit from the history
teacher, by the way. But the young man’s joking about how they would have been
received at the mansion many years ago reminded me of Nietszche’s famous
remark that every laugh is a cry for help. Keep your feet dry as you stand in
the long lines of life and your heart full of noble thoughts, even when faced
with ignoble elements of our past, and your eyes open to see everybody in line
with you as someone you have more in common with than you may think.
