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History of Tampa in the Years of 1500 to 1899 |
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The name first appears in the Memoir of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda (1575), the author of which had spent 17 years as a Calusa captive. He calls it Tanpa and describes it as an important Calusa town. While Tanpa is the apparent basis for the modern name Tampa, archaeologist Jerald Milanich places the Calusa village of Tanpa at the mouth of Charlotte Harbor, the original Bay of Tanpa. Later Spanish explorers, having failed to locate Charlotte Harbor, umed that the large bay they did find was the Bay of Tanpa, and the name stuck with the current Tampa Bay.
In April of 1528, the ill-fated Narváez Expedition landed near Tampa with the intention of starting a colony. After being told by the natives of better riches to the north, they abandoned their camp after only a week. A dozen years later, a surviving member of the expedition named Juan Ortiz was rescued by Hernando de Sotos expedition. A peace treaty was conducted with the local Indians and a short-lived Spanish outpost was established, but this was abandoned when it became clear that there was no gold in the area, and that the local Indians were not interested in converting to Catholicism and were too skilled as warriors to easily conquer.
When Great Britain acquired Florida in 1763, the bay was named Hillsborough Bay, after Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Spain transferred Florida to the United States in 1821 (see Adams-Onís Treaty). An Indian reservation was established in what is now North Tampa. As part of efforts to firmly establish United States control over southern Florida, then a vast swampy wilderness with sparse Seminole Indian population, a military outpost (Cantonment Brooke) was established at what is now the Tampa Convention Center in Downtown Tampa in 1823 by Colonels George Mercer Brooke and James Gadsden. In 1824, the post was renamed Fort Brooke. It was a vital military et in the Seminole Wars. The village of Tampa began to grow up around the fort, which was decommissioned in 1883. Except for two cannons now on the University of Tampa campus, all traces of the fort are gone.
Tampa was incorporated on January 18, 1849 with 185 inhabitants (excluding military personnel stationed at Fort Brooke). The citys first census came in 1850 when Tampa-Fort Brooke accounted for 974 residents. Tampa was reincorporated as a town on December 15, 1855, and Judge Joseph B. Lancaster became the first Mayor in 1856. During the Civil War, Fort Brooke was occupied by Confederate troops, and martial law was declared in Tampa. In 1862, a Union gunboat shelled the city during the Battle of Tampa. Union forces took Fort Brooke in May of 1864, and occupied the town for the next year.
Phosphate was discovered in the Bone Valley region near Tampa in 1883. Tampa is now one of the worlds leading phosphate exporters. Henry B. Plants railroad reached the town shortly thereafter, enabling the commercial fishing industry to thrive.
In 1885, the Tampa Board of Trade persuaded Vicente Martinez Ybor to move his cigar manufacturing operations to Tampa from Key West. The Ybor City district was built to accommodate the factories and their workers. Tampa soon became a major cigar production center. Thousands of Italian (the majority coming from Alessandria Della Rocca and Santo Stefano Quisquina, two small Sicilian towns which Tampa maintains strong ties with) and Cuban immigrants came to Tampa to work at the factories.
Tampa Bay HotelHenry B. Plant built a lavish luxury hotel called the Tampa Bay Hotel in the city in 1891, which became the foundation of the University of Tampa when it was established in 1933 becoming Tampas first institute of higher learning. Tampa was an embarkation center for American troops during the Spanish-American War. Lieutenant Colonel Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were part of the 30,000 troops stationed in Tampa for training.
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