Whose History?

Abstract

This article examines the contested versions of history, defined as a kind of discourse, surrounding the attempt to establish a museum in Tampa, Florida. As part of a strategy of urban redevelopment, white elites in Tampa in the early 1990s attempted to attract a museum with a piracy theme based on artefacts recovered from The Whydah Galley, an 18th-century pirate ship — the piracy image fitting well with their own `invented tradition'. However, when it was discovered that the ship was originally used in the slave trade, local African American civic leaders mounted a protest, using a counter-discourse that challenged interpretations of `history' by addressing issues of identity, partially through references to slavery and utilizing a rhetoric of cultural authenticity, questioning the elites' cultural and class ascendancy. The project was eventually cancelled.