His father was a colonel in the Confederate Army who played an instrumental role in defending South Carolina during the American Civil War after he had been a Cuban revolutionary leader who opposed the oppressive Spanish rule.
Although he had no formal education after 17, Ambrose Gonzales became the telegraph operator in Grahamville, South Carolina, in October 1874, to help support his large extended family.
The newspaper supported a number of progressive causes; its editorials called for an end to lynching, the reform of child labor laws, and women's suffrage.
[4] In 1903, James H. Tillman, Benjamin's nephew, killed Narciso in broad daylight but was acquitted for self-defense in a trial that was widely considered to be rigged.
[citation needed] Gonzales grew up speaking Gullah with the slaves (and later freedmen) who worked on his family's rice plantations, and his knowledge of the language was to be considered extraordinary by other members of the Low Country planter class.