Captain Bunce had busy rancho at the Manatee River’s mouth

Florida fishing ranchos were a lucrative business along the Gulf Coast throughout the 1700 and 1800s.

Started by Cuban fishermen looking to supplement their exhausted waters, seasonal camps were set up along our shores to catch a variety of seafood, dry it, and take it back to Cuba near the time of Lent to sell. Throughout their time here, the fishermen developed a life along Florida’s shores and many intermarried with the local native tribes and started families.

Most of the ranchos met their end around the time of the Second Seminole Wars when a cholera outbreak occurred in Havana and tensions between the U.S. military and the Native Americans in Florida reached a head.

It was during this turbulent period that Captain William Bunce came to our shores and became one of the few Americans to operate a rancho.

Bunce was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and spent time on the water as a seaman. In the mid 1820s, he made his way along the coast to Key West where he opened up a mercantile store. Nearly a decade later, Bunce was employed as a United States Customs Inspector.

Being an inspector, Bunce was in charge of inspecting of every ship that stopped in Key West on its way to Cuba. Requiring all U.S. ships on their way to Cuba to stop in Key West for inspection was nearly impossible but, during this time, Bunce made trips up the coast and became familiar with Charlotte Harbor north to the Manatee River. It was here that he encountered the Spanish fishermen and their families.

Bunce resigned his role and established a rancho at the mouth of the Manatee River. Soon he was operating approximately six boats and had a workforce of Spanish fishermen and Spanish-speaking natives. The relative peace that was established was not to last long however, as the U.S. government declared their intention to relocate the native populations to reservations in Oklahoma.

Although many of the workforce on the ranchos were part Spanish, it wasn’t long before there was a call for the removal of anyone suspected of being a native.

Bunce made pleas to General Wiley Thompson to let them at least work out the season, stating that even the Spanish fishermen “(had) Indian families, and some (had) children and grandchildren.” His request was granted but a series of attacks against the military and reports of natives threatening to “destroy the fisheries in the bay” caused Bunce to move his rancho to Passage Key and, later, to Mullet Key searching for a safe haven.

Despite being a respected member of the area, Bunce was suspected of advising natives to resist removal which prompted military retaliation. Bunce’s rancho was burned and the military ordered that anyone with native blood should be removed. Bunce died shortly afterward.

For more information on ranchos, the Florida Maritime Museum’s exhibit “Cuban Ranchos of Tampa Bay” is on exhibit until Dec. 16. For more information see FloridaMaritimeMuseum.org. Supplemental information for this article was found in “The Singing River” by Joe Warner.

The Historical Records Library is open to the public Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information please call (941) 741-4070.

This story was originally published December 3, 2017 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Captain Bunce had busy rancho at the Manatee River’s mouth."