"The history of Alachua County cannot be told without including the story of the enslaved Africans who labored on local plantations and farms. Enslaved laborers were brought to Alachua County with white planter families from South Carolina, Georgia and elsewhere at different times, but especially between the 1820s and 1850s. Alachua County became a major county in Florida's cotton belt, producing cotton, rice, vegetables, and other crops. The economy was based on the labor of enslaved people who worked as builders, carpenters, cooks, blacksmiths, midwives, herbalists, domestics, crop cultivators and more."

                                                 Dr. Patricia Hilliard-Nunn

This exhibit is in remembrance of Dr. Patricia Hilliard Nunn, a founding board member of CCMCC who organized the original "In the Shadows of Plantations" panel in 2007 at the Matheson Museum.

Sponsors include: The Bob Graham Center, the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, The Matheson Museum