Ye mystic krewe of historical revisionists: The origins of Tampa's Gasparilla Parade

Abstract

Ignoring borders, which are constructs, nineteenth-century Tampa was not Southern. Instead, it was home to a polyglot society that survived frontier conditions through cooperation. In the last decade of the century, however, and especially after the Spanish-American War of 1898, Tampa's multicultural coalition gave way to New South pressures. Although whites remained a minority, they had by then acquired the socioeconomic resources to take political control of what was quickly becoming a New South city. In an effort to "sanitize" local history and celebrate their own superiority while appeasing the non-white majority, Tampa's white civic elite devised and actuated the Gasparilla Parade, which is still held annually. Most modern-day parade spectators and participants, however, remain ignorant of the parade's original purposes, a testament to the organizers' successful revision of local history.