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Area History: A Historical Perspective of the Sarasota Area

Sarasota, Fla. – Evidence remains today of the native Americans who lived along the waterfront of Sarasota and Southwest Florida. Middens and mounds are silent testaments to the people who made their home here more than 3,000 years ago, when Sarasota Bay was fertile with fish and thick palmetto brush and cedar forests covered most of the land.

The first European explorers came to “La Florida” in the 1500s – Ponce de Leon, Panfilo Narvaez and most notably Hernando De Soto landed on the Gulf Coast in search of gold and silver treasures. To the dismay of the natives, the Spanish conquistadors brought disease and demands of food and gold. The natives greeted the Spaniards with drawn bows and arrows of fishbone and stone, fighting to keep their land and for their lives – as slave hunters searched for strong natives to trade at the rapidly expanding trading posts.



In 1821 the United States acquired the territory of Florida and at the time a handful of citizens built “ranchos,” or fish camps, which they operated every fall to spring, supplying salted fish and live turtles for export to Cuba.

In 1824 the Armed Occupation Act allowed for private ownership of land along Sarasota Bay – but only for incoming settlers; the native Seminoles were precluded from citizenship and land ownership and were pushed even further south. In 1855 a backyard war between the settlers and the Seminoles served as the final victory for Florida’s newest residents.