going to school at Punta Blanca before it burned up over
there.
E: Was Tarvia a fish ranchero? Did he run one of the fish
rancheros? Did he smoke the mullet on the beach or buy it?
RC: It was salted. They told me the way they did it. They
would get these mangrove poles and put about six of them
together about twenty-five feet high. Then they put a tarp
over the top of them. They would put a fellow in it. If he
saw a bunch of mullet down there he would start waving a
sheet or something. Then another one up here would see it.
They had a lot of things. He would see it, and the other
one would wave it. They would be down there somewhere with
a seine. They would haul all of these fish ashore, see. I
have an idea (I do not know for sure) that five thousand
pounds of mullet would have been a hell of a lot of mullet
back in those days. I do not know how much they could haul,
but they would get a schooner load and take it to Cuba and
sell them. They would split them and take them back to
their ranches.
E: They would salt them?
RC: Dry salt them.
E: Would they burn them off, too?
RC: No.
E: Just dry salt them and stack them in drums?
RC: Yes.
E: Who were the people that caught the fish?
RC: Well, he had a crew there that would catch the fish, old man
Tarvia Padilla. I do not think he had twenty or twenty-five
men.
E: He did not do the fishing himself?
RC: Not a whole lot. He was a boss. He would see if they were
split and all of that.
E: That crew that he had: were there Seminole Indians?
RC: No, I do not think. They were mostly Spanish or Cubans.
They would put them in these schooners and take them to
Cuba. They would trade a lot of them for whiskey and
provisions.
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