Bunce's Fishing Rancho — Home to Cubans, Seminoles, and Blacks

William Bunce was one of the earliest Anglo-Americans to join the lucrative fishing business on the southwest Florida coast. In 1834, Captain Bunce, a seaman from Maryland, acquired a large fishing rancho, located at De Soto Point, and possible named "Angulo." It encompassed thirty or forty palmetto-thatched houses, a blacksmith shop, a carpenter shop, and a store. Bunce employed Spanish fishermen and Spanish-speaking Indians for his business. Cubans, Seminoles, and African Americans lived, worked, and intermarried at the rancho; fishing, mending nets, and tending crops.

With the outbreak of the Second Seminole War in 1835, conflicts between Spanish descendents and the United States government began. The Spanish fishermen were soon accused of aiding the Seminole Indians, who had been ordered to move to reservations in present-day Oklahoma. The Government pressured Captain Bunce to remove the Indians he employed, along with all other local Indians. Bunce protested against the ruling and eventually was permitted to keep the Spanish speaking Indians on his rancho. After additional political conflict in 1836, Captain Bunce relocated his rancho operations to Passage Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay. A Naval squadron burned Bunce's rancho on the Manatee in late 1837, and in 1838, during Bunce's absence, the United States Army raided the rancho on Passage Key and seized all who they judged showed any Indian ethnicity.


 
Example of early fishing rancho.
Photo from the Florida State Photographic Archives courtesy of Southeast Archeological Center

 


 
Seminole bride and groom.
Photo from the Florida State Photographic Archives courtesy of Southeast Archeological Center

 

Document: William Bunce Letter
Letter written by William Bunce to General Wiley Thompson, Indian Agent for Florida, attempting to delay the seizure of the Indians who worked at his rancho.

Tampa, January 9, 1835

Sir:

     I was disappointed in not meeting you at Tampa. I made every exertion to get there from my fishing place at Manatee River the moment I heard the agent and troops had arrived, to enable me to state to you verbally my situation, and the present state of the Indian population on the coast, as well as my fishing rancho. I request your attention and answer to enable me to act correctly. I have consulted Judge Steele and Major Zantsinger, and they have advised me to communicate with you.

     At my rancho, or fishing place, I have in my employment about ten Spaniards and twenty Spanish Indians, most of the latter have been born and bred at the rancho on the coast, speak the Spanish language, and have never been in the country ten miles in their lives; their only mode of living is by fishing with the different Spanish companies, from August until March; during summer they cultivate some small spot of land in the neighborhood of their working place. They do not hunt, and depend upon their cast nets for support; there are many more at the other ranchos, say Caldes, Cayo, Pelow, Ponte Rasa and Eslava; only myself and Caldes have worked this season on account of the dull sale of fish at Havana, owing to the late cholera. All my white Spaniards have Indian families, and some have children and grandchildren. Many of the Spanish Indians have wives from the Nation. There are several Indians that have been temporarily employed from the country during the running of the fish, and are now discharged.

     My season will close the first day of March, when all hands will be paid off, except for my foreman, who takes care of the place. There are also many visiters (sic) occasionally at my rancho. I will order them up to their nation.

     Will you please instruct me what I can do to forward the views of the government, and if possible not to break up the rancho before the season is out. I remain your humble servant,

            William Bunce

Document: General Wiley Thompson Letter
Correspondence from General Wiley Thompson, Indian Agent for Florida, to the War Department, January 19, 1935. This correspondence is subsequent to the January 9th letter from William Bunce.

Sir, in my report to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Florida, now in your office, made on the 1st of January, 1834, I adverted to the existence of several unauthorized settlement of negros, Indians, and Spaniards (lawless bands) on the peninsula of Florida." General Thompson enclosed Bunce's letter and request, but goes on to say that he thinks Bunce's Indians should be removed forcibly.

Captain William Bunce (Bunce's Pass) / compiled by Walter P. Fuller. Typescript (photocopy) from the papers of Carl D. King. Eaton Room, Bradenton Central Library

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