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"An Island in the South": The Tampa Bay Area as a Cultural Borderland, 1513-1904

Bell, Gregory J
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396454119

Abstract Details

2014, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: History.
Although physically part of North America, peninsular Florida extends southward into the Caribbean. This geographic proximity resulted in a reciprocal relationship with Cuba that long transcended geopolitical borders. Much of the peninsula was also socioeconomically tied to the continent, but the Tampa Bay area was not. Rather, a number of variables delayed its Americanization and southernization until the beginning of the twentieth century. Initially, the Tampa Bay area was a Caribbean periphery. Its original inhabitants came from the Caribbean and maintained a maritime lifestyle. After the Columbian Exchange and subsequent warfare led to their extinction, southeastern Amerindians moved in and made adaptive shifts, including establishing strong relationships with Hispanics in Cuba and at fishing ranchos along the Gulf coast. Although both the Spanish and the British intruded in local affairs, they were unable to break these ties. With the formation of the United States, the Tampa Bay area soon became a borderland caught between competing cultural hearths— American and Caribbean. White Americans grew increasingly frustrated over Florida’s status as a refuge for fugitive slaves, who established a community in the Tampa Bay area and began trading with Cuba. Florida’s Amerindians, then known collectively as Seminoles, began harboring these fugitives and incorporating them into their society. In response, the United States took possession of Florida in 1821 and removed the Seminoles from all but the southernmost peninsula. Hispanics, allowed to remain in the Tampa Bay area, maintained and even strengthened its Caribbean connection. White rural Crackers largely filled the void left by the Seminoles, selling cattle to the Cuban market. Southern planters also moved to the area but achieved little economic success. As a result, slavery failed to establish an adequate foothold, and the Bay area remained a diverse cultural frontier for the remainder of the antebellum period. The Civil War and the subsequent Union naval blockade of Florida temporarily disrupted the Cuban cattle trade, but Bay area residents turned to blockade running to the Caribbean as a means of survival. During Reconstruction, Cuba served as an economic lifeline for the Tampa Bay area, providing an eager market for local lumber, seafood, and cattle. The Bay area remained largely isolated from the United States until the 1880s, when the “Plant System” connected Tampa to the South via the railroad and the Caribbean via steamships. This transportation network opened the area to development and created economic opportunities that led to a multicultural population boom. Cubans and black Americans moved to the area, finding employment. Whites became a minority, which delayed the implementation of Jim Crow segregation until after the Spanish-American War, when the Tampa Bay area embraced the New South trinity of industrialization, racial segregation, and Lost Cause mythology. The southernized white civic elite then rewrote the area’s history, nearly erasing its multicultural past. Despite their efforts, Tampa’s sizeable and economically influential Hispanic population infused the city with an undeniable Latin character, making it unique within the American South.
Christopher Phillips, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
James L Roark, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Wayne Durrill, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Willard Sunderland, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
543 p.
History
Cuba; Florida; Tampa; Hispanic; South; Caribbean

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bell, G. J. (2014). "An Island in the South": The Tampa Bay Area as a Cultural Borderland, 1513-1904 [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396454119

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bell, Gregory. "An Island in the South": The Tampa Bay Area as a Cultural Borderland, 1513-1904. 2014. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396454119.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bell, Gregory. ""An Island in the South": The Tampa Bay Area as a Cultural Borderland, 1513-1904." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396454119

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.