Pre-Explore for Sarasota Bay Rancho!Background history on Sarasota Bay, the rancho industry, and the video games

Introduction:A bay is a body of water partially enclosed by land but with a wide mouth affording access to the sea. Sarasota Bay is a 56-mile long coastal lagoon, with rich marine life, an estuary with three "passes" giving access from the Gulf of Mexico. The largest body of water between Charlotte Harbor and Tampa Bay, there is a rich history on its shores. Archaeologists can trace more than ten thousand years of history in the region. One of the most important chapters in the modern history of Sarasota Bay is known as the rancho era. The rancho video games will give students a chance to imagine the lives of the fishermen, Native Americans, and maroons who lived on Sarasota Bay’s shores in the late 18th to early 19th centuries.

1

Sarasota Bay and its WatershedSarasota Bay Estuary Program

http://sarasotabay.org/

Background 2The Rancho Industry 3The Explore 5 Instructions for the Rancho Race Game 6Instructions for the Sarasota Bay Rancho Game 7

Background:Between the Spanish Entrada and the American territorial period for Florida, it might seem like nothing happened around Sarasota Bay. The Spanish expeditions to Florida are famous: Ponce de León names La Florida in 1513, reaching Charlotte Harbor in 1521; in 1539 Hernando de Soto began another expedition in search of gold and silver, starting somewhere in Tampa Bay. In 1559 Tristán de Luna y Arellano set up a settlement at Pensacola Bay, but it failed after two years; Pedro Menéndez de Avilés arrived in 1565 at a place he called San Augustín and established the first permanent European settlement, but Pensacola and St. Augustine are far from Sarasota.

There were many peoples living around Sarasota Bay as the Spanish set up settlements in northern Florida. Native Americans, including the Calusa, Tocobaga, and Pojoy thrived across central Gulf Coast Florida when the Spanish arrived. Their descendants mixed with Creek, and ultimately Seminoles, who hunted, traded, and lived in southern Florida. While the details of their lives are only available via archaeology, we do know that Creeks and other Native Americans came near Sarasota Bay to trade with fishermen from Cuba. Those fishermen from Cuba set up camps on the Gulf shores, including Sarasota Bay, to fish its mullet, pompano, sea trout, redfish, and sharks. Known as the rancho fishing industry, Cuban fishermen exploited the marine resources for the Havana market, starting around 1765, with the industry expanding during British rule (1763-1783), and ending by 1840 with the Second Seminole War (1835-1842).

Looking from Havana, the distance to Sarasota is not great, less than three hundred miles (or about two hundred and fifty nautical miles). For Native Americans, canoes could race from the Florida Keys to Havana in twenty four hours. Travel between Gulf Coast Florida and Cuba was a regular feature of early nineteenth-century life.

Florida and CubaGoogle Maps

2

The Rancho Industry:After the rancho industry developed, the Spanish Empire implemented regulations. The fishermen were not allowed by Spanish law to boil sea water for salt; they had to purchase salt from the King’s warehouse at Havana. They would also recruit a crew and purchase other supplies in Havana for their stay on Sarasota Bay.

When the fishermen arrived at the ranchos, they usually prepared their nets and built huts or repaired old ones; they erected racks, on which the fish were cured in the sun by hanging them on silk grass lines, with the lines strung to wooden hooks and stakes.

The Rancho’s Huts probably looked like this fisherman's palmetto shackhttp://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/10942

The fishing industry season lasted from September through March, so that the fishermen could bring the fish back to Havana for Lent and before hurricane season began. The primary fish caught with nets were mullet, redfish (also known as red drum), grouper, pompano, and sea trout; they also processed shark liver for oil and drum roe.

The fishermen at the ranchos would use nets including gill nets, dip nets, cast nets, and more (the nets made of cotton and flax; only in 1960 replaced by monofilament). They salted and dried the fish to preserve them. Over time, some ranchos became year-round hamlets; some grew vegetables and fruit trees; they relied on fish, their crops, and trade with the Seminoles and maroons (escaped slave communities) of the interior.

The fishing ranchos become interesting communities with Cubans, Native Americans, and African Americans living at the small villages. The rancho children were taken to Cuba to be baptized and other Catholic lifecycle rites. They were Spanish subjects.

Accounts of the Ranchos:As small communities on the frontiers, there is little about the ranchos in history books; none of the rancho owners seemed to have written about their lives. One of the most important visitors to the ranchos was John Lee Williams who described Toampa Island, south of Boca Grande, in The Territory of Florida, his famous 1837 book. He describes the rancho as having eighteen to twenty palmetto houses, two small schooners for runs to Havana with fish and turtle, and a

3

garden with cocoanut, limes, and oranges. There are three other fishing establishments in the bay, according to Williams, with the Spanish and Indians cultivating small quantity of corn, beans, and melons but principally fish.

John Lee Williams was describing the Charlotte Harbor rancho of Caldez. Until 1821, the Caldez family had a rancho at the mouth of the Manatee River but moved the operation south to Charlotte Harbor when Florida became part of the United States. Another visitor to the Caldez rancho described palmetto huts used for 15 dwellings and storehouses at the main rancho and that the rancho did good business sending the salted fish to Havana. The other famous rancho belonged to William Bunce, who came from Baltimore in 1834 and established a rancho, with 150 men, at the mouth of the Manatee River. That rancho was elaborate, with sleeping quarters, a store, a blacksmith shop, a carpenter’s shop, and 30-40 huts of palmetto-thatched sides and roofs. In 1836 he moved the rancho to Palm Island in Tampa Bay; the US Navy destroyed the rancho during Second Seminole War.

Other individuals with ranchos on Sarasota Bay included Luis Fatio Pacheco, who ran the Pacheco Trading Post near today’s downtown Sarasota; Manual Olivella, who had a rancho just north of today’s Whitaker’s Bayou and became a Hillsborough County Clerk of the Circuit Court; Philippi Creek in Sarasota is named after Phillippi Bermudez, who ran a rancho just south of the creek.

Not only did some of the rancho owners lend their names to our map (Phillippi Creek and Bunce’s Pass) but they also encouraged the Anglo-American pioneers who continued the settlements at the Manatee Mineral Spring (where the Angola maroon community was located) and Yellow Bluffs (near Centennial Park). Archaeologists have found traces of their lives across the region.

4

The Explore:

I. The Rancho Racing Game – the game is a race between two players (named after two of the Sarasota Bay rancho owners, William Bunce and Jose Caldez). The players start in Havana and sail north to Sarasota Bay. In the Bay, the player collects fish and, just before hurricane season, they race back to Havana. The combination of arriving first and the number of fish produces a winner. The game gives geographic information for the Gulf of Mexico, Sarasota Bay as a source of fish for Havana, some sailing challenges, and the seasonality of the fishing industry.

A Scene from the Rancho Race Game

II. Sarasota Bay Rancho! – rather than a competition, the player needs to strategize over crew, salt, and supplies in Havana, travel up to Sarasota Bay, set up a hut, a vegetable field, the fishing equipment, and a drying rack and salting station. There is trade with the Seminoles and maroons and many more decisions to make in this role playing game.

A Scene from the Sarasota Bay Rancho Game

5

Instructions for the Rancho Race Game

Instruction Page for Rancho Race Game

6

Instructions for the Sarasota Bay Rancho GameThere are three parts to the role playing game1. Purchasing supplies in Havana for the rancho 2. Sailing north to Sarasota Bay and decisions over trading with Seminoles3. Setting up the rancho to prepare for fishing

Instruction Page for Setting up the Rancho

AcknowledgementsThe  rancho  history  for  Sarasota  Bay  is  still  being  pieced  together  by  archaeologists  and  historians.  Inspiration  to  create  the  video  game  came  from  support  by  the  Arts  and  Cultural  Alliance  of  Sarasota  County.  The  Sarasota  Rancho  games  were  developed  by  Uzi  Baram,  Director  of  the  New  College  Public  Archaeology  Lab,  assisted  by  Sherry  Svekis,  President  of  Time  Sifters  Archaeological  Society,  and  designed  by  Jameson  Wilkins.  A  New  Florida  Initiative  Grant  to  New  College  of  Florida  for  the  project,  "Our  Southwest  Florida  Coastal  Watersheds:  A  Collaborative  Integration  of  Research,  Education,  and  Policy  Outreach"  provided  funds  for  the  rancho  race  game.  Funds  from  EdExploreNext  created  the  Sarasota  Bay  Rancho  game.  The  games  are  available  for  download  at  EdExploreSRQ.com.

                                                                                                                         

7