Наполеон Бонапарт Брауард: Губернатор Флориды и освоение Эверглейдс

American politician

Napoleon Bonaparte Broward (April 19, 1857 – October 1, 1910) was an American river pilot, captain, and politician. He was elected as the 19th governor of the U. S. state of Florida, serving from January 3, 1905, to January 5, 1909. He was most widely known for his major project to drain the Everglades, to recover land for agricultural cultivation. As governor, he built alliances with the federal government to gain funds for this project. In 1915, the newly formed Broward County was named in his honor. Broward previously served as the sheriff of Duval County, Florida and in the Florida House of Representatives. He was allied with the Straightouts, Populist leaning elements of the Democratic Party in the state.

Broward established his reputation as a good pilot and captain. In January 1888, a major prison break disgraced the city's sheriff, who was subsequently removed from office. The county Democratic leadership convened and nominated Broward as the best man to become the new sheriff. The governor appointed him to the post on February 27. In less than a month, Broward gained statewide notoriety for breaking up gambling operations in the city. Broward soon took an active part in city politics. In the early 1890s, the Democratic Party in Florida was undergoing some internal strife. Two factions developed in Jacksonville that eventually became the major statewide camps, the Antis and the Straightouts. The Antis were conservative and pro business, whereas the Straightouts were allied with Populists and agrarians. Broward joined the Straightout camp. In this period, Populists, sometimes in biracial alliances with Republicans, won numerous states in the South. The Democratic Party struggled to regain power in state legislatures. In the election of 1892, the Straightouts, under Broward's leadership, swept the city offices: Broward's close friends, John N. C. Stockton and John M. Barrs, became city attorney and councilman, respectively, while Broward retained the sheriff's office. (He was an indicted felon when elected.) The Antis continued to struggle for power and two years later, the split between the two camps became even more severe. The Antis the Straightouts accused each other of voter fraud, complaining to the secretary of state and the governor. Anti sympathizers held most of the state offices, and the Antis won out. Broward was replaced by a new appointee when the Antis regained power in the city.

In 1895, Broward, his brother, and an associate began building a new steamboat, The Three Friends. Located on Fort George Island, the proprietors of the boat building company were John Joseph Daly and Charles Scammell. During the construction, Cuban insurgents began fighting for independence from Spain. Broward was approached by a prominent member of Jacksonville's Cuban community about shipping a load of munitions and some Cuban expatriates from Nassau to Cuba. Broward agreed, and in January 1896, The Three Friends shipped out of Jacksonville on her maiden voyage, bound for Cuba. Broward continued this military filibustering operation until President William McKinley declared war on Spain. Several times Broward was nearly caught and destroyed by Spanish gunboats. Aware of Broward's identity, the Spanish ambassador to the United States demanded that the American be stopped and his ship impounded. U. S. authorities tried to catch him, but Broward eluded them by loading The Three Friends under cover of darkness in secluded locations, hiding her behind larger ships as she left the St. Johns, and picking up Cubans and munitions from other ships at various points near the mouth of the river. Except when trying to evade capture, Broward never pretended not to be a filibusterer. He gained notoriety around the state for his daring deeds. However, Broward did take precautions against having his cargo intercepted by the Spanish, such as concealing arms and munitions inside shipments of groceries to the island.

In 1896, the Straightouts offered to nominate Broward for sheriff, but he was busy with his filibustering operation and declined. In 1900, the war ended and his filibustering days were over. Broward accepted the Democratic nomination for the State House and was elected almost without opposition. In the House, Broward supported many progressive initiatives, including a state dispensary bill and a law allowing insanity as grounds for divorce (at the request of powerful developer Henry Flagler). The most important law he supported was the Primary Election Law. Broward had long supported a primary election system to replace the state's convention system, which was controlled by a small clique headed by Flagler. A strong law was drawn up in the House, which Broward enthusiastically supported, but after the Senate weakened the bill substantially, he withdrew his support. The bill passed anyway. Broward was not naïve when it came to politics. As a Straightout and a supporter of the "common man," Broward naturally opposed Flagler's control of the party nominating system in the state. It tended to produce Democratic candidates from the Anti faction. As Florida had disfranchised most blacks and was essentially a one party state, Anti control of the party nominating system effectively meant Anti control of the state government. Broward was smart enough to sponsor Flagler's requested divorce bill, but still wanted to wrest power from the big man.

Broward's biggest push as governor was for drainage of the Everglades, then considered useless swamp, as white settlers did not understand its ecology or relation to water table and habitat. Early in his term, Broward was attacked often and by many different people for his drainage program and for the land tax he instituted to pay for it. One newspaper noted, "The treasury will be drained before the Everglades." As drainage progressed, Broward began taking his fiercest opponents for "ocular displays" in the Glades, showing them the work that had been done and how it was progressing. John Beard, one of Broward's most effective opponents, was eventually convinced by one of these trips that the land was fertile and that drainage was working. Broward retaliated against Frank Stoneman, publisher of the predecessor of the Miami Herald who opposed the drainage, by refusing to certify his election as circuit judge. Broward gained national prominence through this massive program. As his administration progressed, Broward became more involved with legislators and officials in Washington, gaining federal funds for the drainage project. Eventually, he brought President Teddy Roosevelt down to the Glades for a trip through the drainage areas. Roosevelt was an avid supporter of drainage and became an important advocate for the program. Broward tackled other problems, as well – he worked to emphasize education and upgrade the state universities. His appointees assessed them as not offering much beyond the high school level. He also helped guide a reorganization bill through the legislature that closed some of the schools and set up a commission to determine where the remaining schools should be located. A fight ensued about where to locate the major state university, which at the time was in Lake City. The Control Board (consisting of Broward and the cabinet) eventually selected Gainesville as the new site for the flagship state university. Residents in both cities complained that the commission members had been bought off. Broward introduced a bill to the legislature in 1905 directing the state to provide life insurance for its citizens, and setting up an Insurance Commission and a cabinet level post to go along with the program. The legislature voted the bill down with little debate. Broward supported measures to create a state textbook commission, reform the state hospital system, regulate the accounting profession, and make the state's Railroad Commission permanent. In December 1907, U. S. Senator Stephen R. Mallory, Jr. died suddenly and Broward appointed William James Bryan, Mallory's campaign manager and already a candidate for the seat, to fill the vacancy. Newspapers criticized his selection of Bryan, who was only 31 at the time. The Tampa Tribune wrote, "If Mr. Bryan has given any symptoms of being worthy of this distinction then we are utterly at a loss to know it; it must be a weighty secret hidden in the governor's brain."

Called "An arms smuggler as well as a racist," in 1907 Broward proposed that every black person be physically evicted from the state." These remarks prompted a series of voices to call for removal of the statue of Broward from the Broward County Courthouse. County Mayor Barbara Sharief said she "would be open to discussion about renaming the county if it's what people want to do," although she said shortly afterward that "we're not considering that at this time" and "I don't even want to go down that road." The statue was removed during the night of October 18–19, 2017, and placed in storage.