Brass Bowl

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“Today’s Tampa was a war town, born of the conflict between the bold, young United States & the Native peoples for control of the land & its tremendous resources.  The Spanish Crown relinquished control of La Florida for the first time in 1763.  The British, overlords for a short 21 years between the 1st and 2nd Spanish Occupations, created two Floridas, East & West, for administrative purposes.  Then, they left in 1784, with the end of the American Revolution, & returned the land to the Spaniards.  But, by 1810, partly as a result of the Louisiana Purchase, the northern & western border of “the Floridas” had been defined & the new United States wanted the area, with its long, strategic shore line.  In 1821, “Florida” became a single U.S. Territory, with the shape that we know so well today.  The numbers of Euroamerican & African American settlers & slaves streaming into Florida began to increase rapidly.  In 1813-14, the Native peoples of Alabama had risen up against the white settlers & had been defeated badly by Andrew Jackson.  Several thousand of those warriors & their families moved southward & joined their cultural kinfolk, whom English speakers called the Seminoles & Miccusukees, across the interior & along the shores of what Americans now called Tampa Bay.  Once again, the stage was set for conflict over Florida’s vast land & resources, & Tampa would have yet another name - Fort Brooke, as well as a central role in the coming drama that would be played out across Florida.”