I’ve been doing some research on
Ancestry.com recently, where I
traced my family tree. After
learning more about my family
COMMAERNTTARY
The Roots
of Florida
history, I decided to go further and
research the history of Florida. I
found that this state can be, at times,
similar to a foreign country in that
its roots are deep and wide.
Since I was born in Virginia, I
always thought the first settlement
was in Jamestown, much as people
in Massachusetts think it was the
Plymouth Bay Colony. History,
however, reveals the real starting
point is Florida, a fact that is often
overlooked.
The first European settlement in the
New World was in Saint Augustine,
Florida, in 1565, 42 years before Jamestown
was established and 55 years before the
Pilgrims waded ashore at Plymouth
Rock in Massachusetts. Many history
courses either gloss over this fact or skip
it altogether. Yet, it was indeed Spain
that began our country’s settlement from
abroad, just as they had been responsible
for Christopher Columbus’ voyage in 1492
to the New World.
Ybor City’s Sant’ Yago parade is about
those Spanish Conquistadors, who
discovered the entire Southeastern United
States. This event comes to us from Richard
Gonzmart’s father César, who traced his
own ancestry to Spain and started the
tradition of a parade in 1972. Although
some believe this parade, like Gasparilla,
is about pirates, it is not. It began after
112 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE
By John Wilson
Gonzmart was honored as a Knight of Sant’
Yago by the King of Spain, Juan Carlos.
Sant’ Yago (Saint James) is the patron saint
of Spain. Therefore, it is fitting that the
family’s famous Columbia Restaurant is
a National Historic Landmark and the
largest and oldest Spanish restaurant in
America.
Just as Spain brought the first settlements
to the New World in the 1500s, 350 years
later Ybor City was developed by Spanish
immigrants who left Cuba for Key West
and then fled to Tampa to avoid the tropical
storms that plagued the southernmost tip
of our country. The Spanish Conquistadors
brought the first orange trees, horses
and cattle to Florida; explorers such as
Pánfilo de Narváez and Hernando De
Soto discovered and named the waters
of Tampa Bay Bahia del Espiritu Santo,
The Bay of the Holy Spirit. It is told that
De Soto’s daughter, Sara, fell in love with
| JULY/AUGUST 2016
a Calusa Indian, but died from fever
and was buried in a bay south of
Tampa that was then given her name
and is known as Sarasota Bay. This
story is similar to the “Pocahontas”
legend in Virginia but in reverse.
Hernando De Soto went as far north
as the Chesapeake Bay on the East
Coast and then up the Mississippi
and on to Texas and Arkansas.
Our own Ybor City owes its existence
to Vicente Martinez Ybor, Gavino
Gutierrez and the Tampa Board
of Trade, who gave Ybor $5,000 so
that he could acquire 40 acres of
land that was mostly swampland
one mile outside the city. If they had not
done so, Ybor would have taken his cigar
making business to Galveston, Texas. As
a result, thousands of Spanish and Cuban
immigrants and scores of others from Italy,
Germany, Romania and China began
streaming into Tampa Bay to make cigars
in what eventually grew into 200 factories.
Here, they created a unique multiethnic
community that has become the very heart
of the city of Tampa. The cigar factories
are almost all gone, but Ybor City has
reinvented itself and still reminds us of
our Spanish heritage and the importance
of that country to our state. 9
EDITOR’S NOTE: John Wilson ended
50 plus years of radio and television news
broadcasting with his final goodbye on
WTVT Fox 13 on November 26, 2014, the
day before Thanksgiving.
John Wilson
/Ancestry.com