The Tampa Bay History Center gives a brief look at the influential role Hispanics played in Tampa Bay.
Spanish explorers stopped here back in the 1500s.
"Some of the earliest Spanish-sponsored explorations of what we think of as a new world North America really started here in the Tampa Bay area," said Rodney Kite-Powell, Historian at the Tampa Bay History Center.
But it's the area's more recent history that most will notice that brought the Hispanic community to Tampa Bay.
"That Hispanic Heritage continues and really blossomed in the late 1700s and early 1800s. In what is today's Hyde Park neighborhood, there was a place called Spanish Town in Spanish Town Creek. And there were Cuban fishermen who lived here seasonally; they fished in the waters of Hillsborough Bay and Tampa Bay, and salted their catches and sent it back to Cuba. And so we have that connection. And then the one that everybody's familiar with, which is, of course, the cigar industry. And that started in the 1880s with the founding of Ybor City, followed by the founding of West Tampa," said Kite-Powell.
Look around Tampa, especially Ybor City and West Tampa, and you'll notice many nods to the Hispanic culture starting with food and architecture.
"It really blossomed in the early 20th century, and we still have a very strong Hispanic population today. And there's, you know, kind of the new Hispanic population, the original course is, right from Spain, or from Cuba, and an Afro-Cuban influence as well. But you know, there's lots of new immigrants coming in from Central America, South America, a lot of folks from Puerto Rico, also living in the Tampa Bay area as well," explained Kite-Powell.
But don't forget, even the legend of Jose Gaspar has Hispanic influence.
"Gasparilla, you know, Jose Gaspar, our pirate was supposed to be Spanish. And then thinking about all of the leaders that we've had in the community. Whether they're civic leaders, business leaders, political leaders, a lot of them come from the Hispanic community as well. And we see that you know in place names, street names, school names, things like that," said Kite-Powell.
"Our roots are so tied into Spain and Cuba. The cattle industry started, you know, in the 1800s was shipping Florida cattle down to Cuba through Tampa. You know, our connections, you know, with Cuba, of course, tied into the cigar industry, so many people moving here. In fact, the the early years of the cigar industry in coinciding with the early years of modern Tampa in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Spanish may actually have been the majority language spoken here because there were so many new immigrants coming, particularly from Cuba, for the cigar industry. And so you had really a number of people coming in from the American South coming pouring into Tampa, as the city really began to grow and kind of flipped the situation again, but there probably was a little narrow piece of time, when more than half the population actually spoke Spanish," explained Kite- Powell.
Many of the stories can be found in our own communities today; just take a little walk through some of the oldest areas of Tampa.
"Go to Ybor City, go down Seventh Avenue, go to West Tampa, you know, on Main Street or even Columbus Drive, and there's so many places where you can taste the history, literally, you can hear the history. And you can see that that that modern Hispanic presence as well."
The Tampa Bay History Center offers a look into the area's rich Hispanic history. Click here to find more information.
