The History of Florida (4 page)

proof

one at the Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site.

Smal , triangular stone points were used by the Safety Harbor people to

tip arrows. Similar points—suggesting bow and arrow use—are common in

the contemporary Fort Walton, Suwannee Valley, and Alachua cultures in

northern Florida.

The colonial-period Uzita, Mocoso, Pohoy, Tocobaga, and possibly the

Ocale Indians all were Safety Harbor groups, and at least some of them—

those living from Tampa Bay north—spoke Timucua. Like other north

Florida native societies, all of these people of the Tampa Bay region people

were in contact with Spanish expeditions in the sixteenth century.

The lifeways of the various regional cultures of southern Florida also were

well established by 500 B.C., the end of the late Archaic period. Although

some beliefs and symbols were shared with the agricultural cultures farther

north in Florida, the nature of the south Florida precolumbian cultures re-

flects their reliance on coastal and freshwater wetlands for their subsistence.

The vast savannah around Lake Okeechobee, cal ed by Florida natives

Lake Mayaimi, was the home of the Belle Glade culture. By as early as 400

B.C., shortly after the end of the late Archaic period, the Belle Glade peoples

evidently grew small amounts of maize. But the practice seems to have been

14 · Jerald T. Milanich

abandoned by A.D. 500 or so, possibly because of increasingly wet condi-

tions. The Bel e Glade peoples built a remarkable series of vil ages, each

containing mounds and earthen embankments and other earthworks, some

in geometric shapes. They also dug ditches and canals. One such complex

site is Fort Center in Glades County, where numerous wooden carvings of

animals were found preserved in a pond.

Belle Glade vil agers continued to live around the lake and in the Kissim-

mee River drainage into early colonial times. The wetlands and savannahs

provided them with a rich assortment of fish, birds, turtles, al igator, and

other animals, as well as plants. The Belle Glade culture was one of the most

distinctive in all of Florida.

Along the mangrove coasts and estuaries of southeast Florida, the coasts

of the Ten Thousand Island region, and the coast of Monroe County north

of the Florida keys, a distinctive regional culture developed. Hunter-gather-

ers, these Glades culture people lived by fishing, gathering shel fish, and col-

lecting plants and other animals. Numerous Glades sites also are found in

the Everglades and other areas of interior Florida south of the Okeechobee

Basin.

Glades archaeological sites once blanketed the shores of the Florida Gold

Coast; where huge precolumbian shell heaps once dotted Biscayne Bay, to-

proof

day there are high-rise buildings. Scattered sites are stil visible in a few

places, such as along the Miami River.

At Key Marco, a site on Marco Island excavated in the late nineteenth

century, archaeologists recovered nets, net floats, and other fishing gear

along with beautiful y carved and painted wooden masks and animal figu-

rines and depictions, providing us with a glimpse into the rich culture of

these precolumbian coastal dwellers. These southern Florida native peoples

used bows and arrows along with a variety of other tools made of shell and

wood. Stone is not as common in southern Florida as it is farther north, and

the precolumbian peoples used other raw materials for their artifacts.

In Dade County, the colonial-period descendants of the Glades popula-

tions were the Tequesta natives. To the north were groups like the Boca

Ratones and Santaluces, names given the natives by the Spaniards.

Another coastal-oriented culture, the Caloosahatchee, occupied the

southwest coast from Charlotte Harbor south into Collier County. The larg-

est shell mounds in Florida are found there today, as well as large and small

shell heaps on nearly every coastal island and the adjacent mainland, espe-

cial y in Charlotte Harbor, Pine Island Sound, and San Carlos Bay.

Original Inhabitants · 15

proof

Aerial photograph showing the linear embankments and other earthworks, including

a circular ditch, at Fort Center, a Belle Glade culture archaeological site in the Lake

Okeechobee Basin. The site covers approximately one mile along the creek bank

(
north is to the right
).

The extensive shell middens contain the remains of hundreds of thou-

sands of native meals: fish, sharks, oysters,
Busycons,
and other mol usks.

The size and contents of the mounds attest to the antiquity of the Indian

cultures of the region and their reliance on marine resources.

The Caloosahatchee peoples, ancestors of the Calusa Indians, also built

mounds of shel and earth to serve as the bases for temples. They dug ditches

and canals similar to those of the Lake Okeechobee Basin, a region to which

they were connected by the Caloosahatchee River, a canoe highway.

16 · Jerald T. Milanich

These were the major native cultures of precolumbian Florida. When

Juan Ponce de León sailed the coastline in 1513, the native population num-

bered 350,000, including 50,000 Apalachee, 150,000 Timucua speakers, and

150,000 other people in the western Panhandle and central and southern

Florida. But as we shall see in subsequent chapters, the European presence

brought diseases and slaving raids that severely reduced and ultimately de-

stroyed Florida’s original inhabitants. By the late eighteenth century, they

were no more.

Bibliography

Carr, Robert S., and John G. Beriault. “Prehistoric Man in South Florida.” In
Environments

of
South
Florida:
Present
and
Past,
2d ed., edited by P. J. Gleason, pp. 1–14. Miami Geological Society Memoir 2. Coral Gables, 1984.

Daniel, I. Randolph, Jr., and Michael Wisenbaker.
Harney
Flats:
A
Florida
Paleo-Indian
Site.
Farmingdale, N.Y.: Baywood Publishing, 1987.

Doran, Glen H., and David N. Dickel. “Multidisciplinary Investigations at the Windover

Site.” In
Wet
Site
Archaeology,
edited by B. A. Purdy, pp. 263–89. Caldwel , N.J.: Telford

Press, 1988.

Dunbar, James S. “Resource Orientation of Clovis and Suwannee Age Paleoindian Sites in

Florida.” In
Clovis:
Origins
and
Adaptations,
edited by R. Bonnichsen and K. Turnmier,

pp. 185–213. Corvallis: Center for the First Americans, Oregon State University, 1991.

proof

Gilliland, Marion S.
The
Material
Culture
of
Key
Marco,
Florida.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1975.

Goggin, John M.
Space
and
Time
Perspectives
in
Northern
St.
Johns
Archeology,
Florida.

Yale University Publications in Anthropology No. 47. New Haven, 1952.

Griffin, John W., Sue B. Richardson, Mary Pohl, Carl D. McMurray, C. Margaret Scarry,

Suzanne K. Fish, Elizabeth S. Wing, L. Jill Loucks, and Marcia K. Welch.
Excavations

at
the
Granada
Site
. Vol. 1 of
Archaeology
and
History
of
the
Granada
Site.
Tal ahassee: Florida Division of Archives, History and Records Management, 1985.

Jones, B. Calvin. “Southern Cult Manifestations at the Lake Jackson Site, Leon County,

Florida: Salvage Excavation of Mound 3.”
Midcontinental
Journal
of
Archaeology
7

(1982):3–44.

Marquardt, Wil iam H., ed.
Culture
and
Environment
in
the
Domain
of
the
Calusa.
Institute of Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies, Monograph 1. Gainesvil e: Florida

Museum of Natural History, 1992.

Milanich, Jerald T.
Archaeology
of
Precolumbian
Florida.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994.

———.
Florida
Indians
and
the
Invasion
from
Europe.
Gainesvil e: University Press of Florida, 1995.

Milanich, Jerald T., Ann S. Cordel , Vernon J. Knight, Jr., Timothy A. Kohler, and Brenda

J. Sigler-Lavelle.
McKeithen
Weeden
Island:
The
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Northern
Florida,
A.D.
200–

900.
Orlando: Academic Press, 1984.

Original Inhabitants · 17

Purdy, Barbara A.
The
Art
and
Archaeology
of
Florida’s
Wetlands.
Boca Raton: CRC Press, 1991.

———
.
Florida’s
Prehistoric
Stone
Tool
Technology.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1981.

Sears, Wil iam H.
Fort
Center:
An
Archaeological
Site
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the
Lake
Okeechobee
Basin.

Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1982.

Widmer, Randolph E.
The
Evolution
of
the
Calusa:
A
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Southwest
Florida
Coast.
Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1988.

Willey, Gordon R.
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proof

2

First European Contacts

Michael Gannon

The first encounters between the indigenous peoples of Florida and the Eu-

ropeans who traveled the Atlantic in the wake of Christopher Columbus

occurred nearly five centuries ago. The documents and maps are unclear

on the point, but it appears that the initial contacts preceded the famous

voyage of Juan Ponce de León in 1513 by a number of years. After the turn

of the sixteenth century, Spain launched an ever-widening circle of voyages

from bases in the Caribbean Sea. Some of those were slaving expeditions in

search of island natives to replace the native laborers of La Española and,

proof

later, the Isla de Cuba, where, owing to the Spaniards’ introduction of harsh

work practices and European diseases, indigenous populations were rap-

idly col apsing. Probably one or more of those expeditions happened upon

the Florida peninsula, which may account for the hostility that the natives

demonstrated toward Juan Ponce upon his arrival there, as well as for his

discovery on the lower Gulf coast of “an Indian who understood the Span-

iards.” In any event, the historian can speculate what must have been the

wonderment, perhaps terror, that passed through the original Floridians’

minds when they beheld the ultimate artifact of European technology, the

sailing ship, with its huge hul , masts and shrouds, spread canvas sails, and

white, bearded seamen.

Tantalizing suggestions of those first contacts appear in maps and charts

as early as 1502, the date of a Portuguese world map known by the name of

its owner, Italian nobleman Alberto Cantino. Where it depicted the Span-

ish Caribbean discoveries, there appears a narrow landmass that is possibly

the Florida peninsula but is more likely the coast of Central America. More

striking, a map of the islands and shores of the New World was published in

1511 by Peter Martyr (Pietro Martire d’Anghiera), an Italian priest-humanist

in the Spanish court of Fernando II of Aragón. Drawn from oral and written

· 18 ·

First European Contacts · 19

reports of navigators, this map shows a long shoreline “to the north” of Cuba

which he labeled “Isla de beimeni parte” (Island of Bimini). With the Grand

Bahama Bank directly abutting them, the land features of Bimini, and what

appear to be keys descending from them, could be Florida.

It was this island of Bimini that Juan Ponce de León was authorized to

seek in an
asiento
(charter) issued him by the Spanish Crown on 23 Febru-