Lake Hancock is north of

Bartow, Florida Bartow ( ) is a city and the county seat of Polk County, Florida, Polk County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1851 as Fort Blount, the city was renamed in honor of Francis S. Bartow, the first brigade commander of the Confederate Army to di ...

in Polk County,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. It is ecologically important.

Lake

Lake Hancock is located in the Polk Upland area between the Winter Haven Ridge and Lakeland Ridge. As part of the upper

Peace River The Peace River () is a river in Canada that originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows to the northeast through northern Alberta. The Peace River joins the Athabasca River in the Peace-Athabasca Delta to form the ...

watershed, the lake has ecological importance throughout southwest Florida according to the Southwest Florida Water Management District. At , it is one of the largest lakes in Polk County; the center of the cities of Bartow, Lakeland, and Winter Haven roughly form an equilateral triangle with sides of and Lake Hancock forms over 25% of that triangle. The lake is shallow, with an average depth of and a maximum depth of .

Flora and fauna

The lake is surrounded by cypress forests, with the understory primarily red maple and black willow. The open areas of the lake are relatively free from native vegetation, although hydrilla can occasionally be an issue and algae is abundant. There is a substantial American alligator presence along the shoreline feeding on one of the largest colonial wading bird rookeries in central Florida. Although many lakes in Polk County are utilized by sports fishermen, Lake Hancock has not been used for recreational fishing in decades. The dominant fish in the lake are

blue tilapia The blue tilapia (''Oreochromis aureus'') is a species of tilapia, a fish in the family Cichlidae. Native to Northern and Western Africa, and the Middle East, through introductions it is now also established elsewhere, including parts of the Un ...

and threadfin shad, and suckermouth catfish.

Settlement history

The

maroon Maroon ( , ) is a brownish crimson color that takes its name from the French word , meaning chestnut. ''Marron'' is also one of the French translations for "brown". Terms describing interchangeable shades, with overlapping RGB ranges, inc ...

settlement of Minatti (meaning "

manatee Manatees (, family (biology), family Trichechidae, genus ''Trichechus'') are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivory, herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing t ...

") was established on the south shore of the lake east of

Saddle Creek Saddle Creek Records is an American record label based in Omaha, Nebraska. Started as a college class project on entrepreneurship, the label was founded by Mike Mogis and Justin Oberst in 1993 (as Lumberjack Records). Mogis soon turned over his ...

after the

First Seminole War The Seminole Wars (also known as the Florida Wars) were a series of three military conflicts between the United States and the Seminoles that took place in Florida between about 1816 and 1858. The Seminoles are a Native American nation which co ...

. Oponay, an Ocmulgee

Lower Creek The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language; English: ), are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands Here they waged war again ...

Chief, allied with

Red Stick Red Sticks (also Redsticks, Batons Rouges, or Red Clubs)—the name deriving from the red-painted war clubs of some Native American Creek—refers to an early 19th century traditionalist faction of Muscogee Creek people in the Southeastern Uni ...

leader

Peter McQueen Peter McQueen (c. 1780 – 1820) ( Creek, Muscogee) was a chief, prophet, trader and warrior from ''Talisi'' ( Tallassee, among the Upper Towns in present-day Alabama.) He was one of the young men known as Red Sticks, who became a prophet for ...

, lived across the lake about two miles away from the village of ''Minatti''. He originally lived on the

Flint River The Flint River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 15, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Georgia. The river drains of western Georgia, flowing south from th ...

in Southwest Georgia prior to the First Seminole War and was an associated of Neamathla. He allied with the British during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

and was part of the general migration into the

Spanish Florida Spanish Florida () was the first major European land-claim and attempted settlement-area in northern America during the European Age of Discovery. ''La Florida'' formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and th ...

peninsula that followed the First Seminole War. The

maroons Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery, through flight or manumission, and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with Indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into ...

with him were likely those from the Flint River with whom he had been associated prior to the Seminole Wars. Fort Fraser was established nearby in 1837. The Native American and maroon settlements were destroyed by the end of the

Second Seminole War The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between the United States and groups of people collectively known as Seminoles, consisting of Muscogee, Creek and Black Seminoles as well as oth ...

in 1842. The first American settlements in the area occurred in 1849, when small farms were established in the area as a result of migration from the Tampa Bay Hurricane of 1848. The Polk County Sheriff's Office's Burnham-McCall Training Center occupies a site in front of the former settlement site. The

Circle B Bar Reserve The Circle B Bar Reserve is an area of protected lands in Polk County, Florida, United States. Consisting of near Lakeland, the restored wetlands site is managed by the Polk County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), which co-owns it with th ...

is located on the lake.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hancock Lakes of Polk County, Florida Lakeland, Florida Populated places in Florida established by African Americans