Industry in Ruins: Studies on the Gamble Plantation, Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "African Diaspora in Florida" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Gamble Plantation dates to 1844 when North-Florida planter Robert Gamble established a sugar plantation along the Manatee River. Utilizing his seemingly inexhaustible financial assets Gamble built, and rebuilt, successive plantation mills on his new site implementing expensive, cutting-edge industrial technologies and vast reserves of slave labour to produce little to no sugar.

The mill structure, the ruins of which are still visible in parts today, represent one of very few visible symbols of slave labour in the region. Archaeological investigations into the site, beginning in 2019, have worked to understand the nuanced history and methodological and structural formation of this industrial area. This has included a spatial and diachronic examination of site utilisation and transformation, production methodologies and possible enslaved labourer material culture in production sites

This research creates an opportunity to integrate industrial archaeology with major social themes of slavery and the intersections of power and space.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African Diaspora in Florida   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 318