The earliest known identification of the area known today as Sarasota, Florida, was identified on a sheepskin Spanish map from 1763 with the word "Zarazote" written over the location of present-day Sarasota and Bradenton. The municipal government of Sarasota was established when it was incorporated as a town in 1902. Incorporation under the city form of government followed in the next decade. In 1921, Sarasota County was formed out of Manatee County, with Sarasota city serving as the county seat.
Early history
Prehistory
Fifteen thousand years ago, when humans first settled in Florida, the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico was one hundred miles farther to the west. In this era, hunting and gathering was the primary means of subsistence. This was only possible in areas where water sources existed for hunter and prey alike. Deep springs and catchment basins, such as Warm Mineral Springs, were close enough to the Sarasota area to provide campsites, but too far away for permanent settlements.
As the Pleistocene glaciers slowly melted, a more temperate climate began to advance northward. Sea levels began rising; they ultimately rose another , resulting in the Florida shoreline of today, which provided attractive locations for human settlements.
Archaeological research in Sarasota documents more than ten thousand years of seasonal occupation by native peoples. For five thousand years while the current sea level existed, fishing in Sarasota Bay was the primary source of protein and large mounds of discarded shells and fish bones attest to the prehistoric human settlements that existed in Sarasota and were sustained by the bounty of its bay.
People living in the area of the present boundaries of Sarasota were part of the Manasota culture, an archaeological culture that existed in the area from Pasco County to Sarasota County from about 500 B.C. until about 900. The Safety Harbor culture, which developed out of the Manasota culture around 900, covered much of the same area. Safety Harbor sites continued to be occupied after the Spanish reached Florida, as European artifacts have been found in the sites. Safety Harbor people built temple mounds in the primary towns of their chiefdoms. About twenty temple mound sites are known, including the Whitaker Mound that used to stand near Sarasota Bay in what is now downtown Sarasota, "Mound Street" being named for it. The Whitaker Mound, and a number of other mounds in what is now Sarasota, were destroyed in the twentieth century to make room for development. Others were convenient sources of shell used in road paving.
Early historical records
Spanish exploration
Europeans first explored the area in the early sixteenth century. The first recorded contact was in 1513, when a Spanish expedition landed at Charlotte Harbor, just to the south. Spanish was used by the natives during some of the initial encounters, however, providing evidence of earlier contacts.
In 1539, Spanish Conquistador Hernando de Soto sailed into South Tampa Bay and made landing at Little Manatee River. On early maps, the smaller bay along the coast to the south and the areas of contemporary Bradenton and Sarasota were identified as Zara Zota, Zara Sota, Sarazota, or Sarasota on maps.
Earliest European settlement
The sheltered bay and its harbor attracted fish and marine traders. Soon there were fishing camps, called ranchos, along the bay that were established by both Americans and Cubans who traded fish and turtles with merchants in Havana. Florida changed hands between the Spanish, the English, and then the Spanish again. There were three claimants to Spanish land grants in and around Sarasota Bay, which were not confirmed by the United States. Following the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, some of the black and Seminole allies of the defeated British retreated to south Florida. At least some of them established a farming community on Sarasota Bay. With the Treaty of Moultrie Creek in 1823, most of the remaining Native Americans who had lived in the area were pushed to a reservation in the interior of Florida.