The City That Almost Wasn’t
A Timeline of Early Florida and the Development of Tampa

The Evolution of Tampa
The Tocobaga Indians, a sub-tribe of the Timucua, lived peacefully in the Tampa area despite occasional skirmishes with the Calusa Indians in the south. In the early 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors came to Florida to take advantage of the natural resources such as mining gold and silver.

1539
Hernando De Soto, the Spanish explorer, sailed from Havana to Florida with a fleet of nine vessels. His intent was to capture a few Floridians and force them into being guides for the upcoming Spanish invasion.

1567
Acuera, one of the caciques, or Indian chiefs of the Tocobaga, stated that his men would not stop fighting even in the face of complete extinction. The Tocobaga repelled the Spanish attempts at colonization as long as they could. Eventually the Spaniards retreated to Spain, leaving disease and destruction behind.

1738
Fort Mose, the nation’s first Black community, was established in St. Augustine in time to defend it against the British. At the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, England gives Cuba back to Spain, prompting the Black residents of Fort Mose to head to Cuba.

1754
The French and Indian War began and Spain ransoms Cuba by giving Florida to the English. Eventually England lost Florida to the United States. By this time, the U.S. government forcibly removed the Seminole tribes from their land in the Tampa area.

Early 1880’s
The Tampa area was in a depression following the American Civil War. This era ended when Henry Plant brought a rail road to Tampa which connected Tampa to the north. This addition brought the rest of the U.S. industrial world to the Tampa area.

1824
A monument was created around the natural spring at Fort Brooke. This spring is designated as a Governmental Spring and was used as a landmark to establish the settlement of white people in the Tampa area.

1842
The great Seminole Wars ended in this year. The losses were great for both sides. The Seminoles were forced further south thus vacating the Tampa area. During this time several Cuban fishermen started making their way up the coast towards the Tampa area in addition to other immigrants of Italian, German, Spanish and Afro Cuban descent.

1848
Early Tampa settlers braved severe epidemics of yellow fever in order to establish their communities. On top of their hardships, a terrible hurricane destroyed the Tampa area and the early settlers had to rebuild their city.

1885
Vincente Martinez Ybor purchased and cultivated large tracts of land on the outskirts of Tampa where he built factories. Born in Spain, he moved to Cuba to work in the growing cigar industry, but due to revolution, Ybor fled Cuba and made his way to Key West, Florida to set up cigar factories. Following several labor disputes, he moved his business to Tampa in an area he named Ybor City. Within a few years time, Ybor City became the cigar capital of the world.

1886
Ybor’s partner, a man named Ignacio Haya, opened his own cigar factory during this year. At that time cigar workers from Key West began making their way to Tampa. Among them were Afro-Cubans who would contribute to the Black population that eventually made up fifteen percent of Ybor City’s population.

1891
Jose Martí visited Tampa and delivered his famous speech: “Para Cuba Que Sufre” (“For Cuba Who Suffers”). Martí was one of the most well known Hispanic writers in the world, as well as one of the staunchest advocates for Cuban independence from Spanish rule.

1895
February 25th the Cuban Revolution begins. This war lasted for three years and was agitated by U.S. involvement in Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain. The message to start the revolution was sent to Cuban rebels in a cigar rolled in West Tampa.
May 19th Jose Martí was killed in battle.

1896
Florida Brewing Company, Florida’s first brewery, is incorporated. It utilizes water from the nearby Government Spring.

1899
Workers in the Ybor-Manrara factory went on strike when scales are introduced in the factory. These protests are believed to have been instigated by the idea of the machines replacing the workers.

1901
A four month strike from the cigar industry breaks out in July of this year. Tampa’s elite residents resorted to vigilante violence against the workers on strike to resolve the conflict.

1904
A fire broke out in Tampa consuming 130 buildings including some cigar factories. Four years later, Tampa’s worst fire in history ravaged seventeen blocks in the Ybor City area. In 1918, just a decade later, another fire tears through West Tampa claiming over 100 buildings.

1910
Another cigar factory strike takes place in Tampa and West Tampa. This time vigilante tactics are used to force workers back to the factories, including the lynching of two Italian men in West Tampa.

1912
West Tampa’s population has grown to 10, 000 by this point and is Florida’s fifth largest city. As the cigar industry expanded, the salaries became competitive among skilled workers.

1933
Largely in response to the Great Depression, factory owners introduced machines to keep up with the growing demands of consumers and the competition from other factories. With this move toward industrialization, lectors, who had been hired to read to workers while they rolled cigars, were removed from the cigar factories. The removal of lectors marked the end of a long tradition. (see “The Lector” section of this guide for more information)

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