Talk:Prospect Bluff Historic Sites

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I would like to see some more sources for this information.

Rebuilt fort

Confused. The last section says that the U.S. built a new fort on the site of the old Negro Fort in 1818, and named it Fort Gadsden. However, when they destroyed it two years earlier it was in Spanish territory. According to Wikipedia's History of Florida, the U.S. didn't cut a deal for Florida until 1819 and didn't take ownership until 1821. So ---- did we just up and build a fort on foreign territory? If so, it seems to me that would require an explanation, like "In spite of Spanish ownership of the grounds, the U.S. built ...... etc." Or is the date wrong? Whatever it is, it seems like there's more of a story to be told regarding the politics of how Ft. Gadsden came to be built. 69.229.127.207 13:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. Referencing and appropriate inline citation guidelines not met. --dashiellx (talk) 15:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

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Requested move 23 December 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: There was a consensus to split the article into two articles, and one of them to be named Negro Fort, and the other to be named Fort Gadsden Historical Site. I've moved this article to Fort Gadsden Historical Site, as that appeared to be where consensus was trending. Editors can use their discretion as to what should be split. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:13, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

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Fort Gadsden → Negro Fort – most common and most useful name, per Wikipedia:Article titles#Use commonly recognizable names. Note there is a Battle of Negro Fort article, but not one on the Negro Fort. Historians, and this article, talk about Negro Fort much more than about Fort Gadsden. There was never a battle at Fort Gadsden. It’s far less important. deisenbe (talk) 11:56, 23 December 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. ToThAc (talk) 15:15, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:52, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• I know nothing about this article, but this one screams controversial move. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:08, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
• @Deisenbe and In ictu oculi: queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:54, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

"Negro Fort", in capitals, used in Florida Historical Quarterly, 1937 (http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/fl/negrofort.html) deisenbe (talk) 14:56, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Neutral, but can see case for support as I said, I knew nothing about the subject, prior to seeing it listed at "uncontroversial moves". Fort Gadsden gets far more book results total, and particularly results since 2000. However I am sympathetic to the move from the US fort name after ethnic cleansing to the freedman name Negro Fort after the British left. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support Editors interested in the backstory of this article may wish to read Talk:Fort Blount Revolt#Fort Gadsden and "Fort Blount"?. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:35, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
• Here are some more examples of the use of Negro Fort, in capitals:
  • Letter of Secretary of War John C. Calhoun to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Febtuary 1, 1819, “in virtue of which the Negro Fort, in the territory of East Florida, was destroyed in July 1816”. http://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu%3A36850#page/Title+page+verso/mode/2up p. 3.
  • In the same volume p. 5 a letter from the prior Secretary of War, William H. Crawford, to Major General Andrew Jackson, March 13, 1816: “the Negro Fort... has been strengthened”. Plus in several other letters in that volume.
  • A Florida state museum: http://www.flhistoriccapitol.gov/Pages/ExhibitsAndCollections/ArchivalExhibits/CoastalFortifications.aspx
  • The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission: http://myfwc.com/viewing/recreation/wmas/lead/apalachicola-river/history/
• Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Negro_Fort and see how many links there are to the non-existent article on Negro Fort.

deisenbe (talk) 21:56, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• "Fort Gadsden" is the official name but Fort Gadsden itself seems to be afterthought vis-à-vis the British and Negro forts. —  AjaxSmack  20:34, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

I beg to differ. Fort Gadsden is not the official name of Negro Fort. It is the name of another fort built next to where it had been. There is an official “Fort Gadsden Historic Site”, but that's the name of the site, not the Fort. deisenbe (talk) 01:17, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have said "official name of the historic site". And I agree with your point. —  AjaxSmack  18:03, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

• Move to Fort Gadsden Historical Site, until enough content is added to justify two separate articles, one for each fort located at the site.--Aervanath (talk) 06:14, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I was thinking to split it into two articles, one on Negro Fort and the other on Fort Gadsden. Anyone have a problem with this? deisenbe (talk) 11:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Ideally we would have three articles: this one would move to the historical site as-is, and then two separate articles, one for each fort.--Aervanath (talk) 09:09, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
    • As suggested below, Fort Gadsden itself may not be sufficiently notable to have its own article, in which case I would be fine with a split into Negro Fort and Fort Gadsden Historical Site, with Fort Gadsden as a redirect to the Historical Site article.--Aervanath (talk) 23:15, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• Move to Fort Gadsden Historical Site. Negro Fort and Fort Gadsden were two separate historically significant forts on this land. This name covers both. No objections to creating separate articles, but I think wee need to have one solid main article on the historical site first.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:21, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

• Here's a new idea: The bottom line, for me, is that there has to be an article on Negro Fort. That is of major importance to African-American history. I’m going to go to the mat on this one. Not having one is going along with Jim Crow Florida in celebrating Fort Gadsden instead. Ask any historian. Negro Fort is about ten times as important as Fort Gadsden. It’s also ten times as importaant as Fort Gadsden Historic Site.

• • Here's a new idea:

1. Rename Battle of Negro Fort to Negro Fort. I was going to propose a merger anyway.
2. Rename Fort Gadsden to Fort Gadsden Historic Site. In it say that it contains remains of two forts, have about a paragraph on each fort, with a hatnote to see the main article on Negro Fort for more info on it.

• • If this meets with your approval, I’ll volunteer to do the scut work in getting the two articles in shape. deisenbe (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Good idea, but which is more notable, the battle or the fort itself? Maybe the Negro Fort title should redirect to Battle of Negro Fort instead. —  AjaxSmack  18:03, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
• Split. Negro Fort and Fort Gadsden Historical Site are both notable. Historical articles should link to the former, parks articles to the latter. Battle of Negro Fort is also notable as the particular battle, and shouldn't be subsumed.--Pharos (talk) 18:06, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
• Above I indicated my support for moving the article. I would also support splitting the article as suggested, into Negro Fort and Fort Gadsden Historical Site. Fort Gadsden should redirect to the historical site, because nothing noteworthy happened at the fort (which was abandoned less than five years after it was built). — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:31, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I have renamed this article, as you see. If someone would move Battle of Negro Fort to Negro Fort, I'll get to work on the revisions. If this is done I want to withdraw my request to rename Fort Gadsden as Negro Fort. I would appreciate it if someone could inform what privileges I need to request to do this, in the future, by myself; this sort of thing has come up before. deisenbe (talk) 18:44, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

@Deisenbe:, We can see you renamed the article. However, as the requested move discussion has not yet been closed by an uninvolved editor, please reverse the moves until the process is properly completed. There is no rush.--Aervanath (talk) 18:50, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Done. The redirects are messed up, I'll fix them once this discussion is closed.

In the process I stumbled on this quote about Fort Gadsden: "An aide to General Andrew Jackson reported to his superior in August of 1818 that Fort Gadsden was 'a temporary work, hastily erected, and of perishable materials, without constant repair, it could not last more than four or five years.' Today, only the earthen outlines of both structures are visible." There follows the best discussion I've seen of Negro Fort.(https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/72000318.pdf) deisenbe (talk) 19:25, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

• This article is a broad-concept covering two differently named forts, and the NRHP site that now encompasses them both. Thus, the article needs to be sufficiently broadly titled to cover both forts and the NRHP site. If there is sufficient content to justify a split, then sub-article(s) may be established for one or both forts. However, while this article has already been temporarily moved to Fort Gadsden Historic Site, and now Fort Gadsden Historical Site is proposed, the actual name per National Register of Historic Places listings in Franklin County, Florida and https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/72000318 is Fort Gadsden Historic Memorial. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:17, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I modified the lead section to more accurately reflect the content of the article. See Wikipedia:Summary style for the related guideline. Deisenbe, did you object to that change simply due to its timing, or do you have any substantive issues with it? wbm1058 (talk) 14:57, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

• • I didn’t even look it from point of view of content. It’s timing. I’ve said my piece, I’m for Fort Gadsden Historic Site/Memorial — Negro Fort. I’m waiting for the discussion to be closed and see if others agree. deisenbe (talk) 18:20, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Working on these articles

I'm going to make the changes referred to above. Some of Fort Gadsden Historic Site will be moved to Battle of Negro Fort > Negro Fort. Give me a week, there's a bit to do. deisenbe (talk) 03:47, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Re: recent edit warring

Quirkle's changes are correct, respect WP policy, and improve the article. Good riddance to the non-neutral point-of-view content and original research he removed, which was self-defeating to its intended purpose. I actually agree with the sentiments expressed in the quote of Elizabeth Ann Usherwood's (not Isherwood's) A Reanalysis of the Negro Fort 1814-1816, but her undergraduate paper is not that good and not a reliable source.

The historian Canter Brown Jr. wrote something good in his rather exuberant review of The Maroons of Prospect Bluff and Their Quest for Freedom in the Atlantic World, by Nathaniel Millett:

"Until recent decades, Florida historians minimized, misrepresented, or ignored the contributions and experiences of Africans and African Americans. Beginning in the 1960s with the work of Joe M. Richardson, however, that situation slowly began to change. Over the following decades, excellent scholarship from Daniel L. Schafer, Jane L. Landers, Larry E. Rivers, and others has altered perspectives in dramatic fashion. Progress has come so far as to spark a backlash of sorts, with commentators here and there insisting that emphasis on black agency and black involvement has been overblown. Within the community of Florida scholars, this reaction seems to reflect a response similar to the one that occurred within the political sphere after Barack Obama’s election as president."

This applies as well to scholarship concerning the momentous events that occurred at the Negro Fort, events of far more import to the future development of the United States than the attempts by a savage Andrew Jackson to erase that history. This article should respect that scholarship, but there are far better sources than Usherwood. Carlstak (talk) 04:18, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

A couple minor cavils:

As Millett observes, correctly IMO, Jackson and Nicolls were two sides of the same coin, Ulster Scots, both with an ambiguous relationship to British society as a whole, whose different circumstances led them in radically different directions. What they shared, though, was a remarkably...forthright, let’s say?...approach to problem solving. Nicolls was no less likely to use violence and deception against enemies, real or perceived, than Jackson. Calling one savage is wrong; Nicolls deliberately created a violent no-man’s-land along the US Spanish border rather reminiscent of the Anglo-Scottish marches, and did so after hostilities had formally ended. Savage enough, that.

Next, the idea that Jackson tried to erase the history is wrong, ludicrously. What he did was to completely interpret it from the only viewpoint he felt mattered, i.e., his own. Garson/Garçon stayed alive in history, often in a rather cartoonish way, and as “Garcia”, well into the twentieth century.

Finally, and this is a general comment, not directed at you or any of the sources particularly, history is very seldom like science, in which an old model is often completely discarded for a new one, it’s a series of reinterpretations that often overshoot the mark away from the old conventional view. That has to be kept in mind. Qwirkle (talk) 16:00, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Recent reversion

The area of the fort was just described as both two and seven acres, and some speculation about time zones as a sign of remoteness was just restored. neither belong in the article. While it is possible to source remarks about 15 foot high parapets, there was no such thing in the strict sense. Loose or metaphorical usage should not be linked to a stricter definition. Qwirkle (talk) 13:56, 22 August 2018 (UTC)