The Bellamy Road was the first major U.S. federal highway in early territorial Florida. It was completed in 1826. Laborers included slaves.
The Bellamy Road was the first major U.S. federal highway in early territorial Florida. It was completed in 1826. Laborers included slaves.
Land travel and transportation in Florida prior to its acquisition by the United States was by foot over trails. The Spanish used existing Native American trails to reach missions established in the interior of Florida. The main route from St. Augustine to the Apalachee Province was known as el Camino Real, the Royal Road. [1] In the latter part of the 17th century the Spanish tried, with limited success, to improve the Royal Road to allow use by ox carts. [2]
In 1824, three years after Florida became a United States territory, the United States Congress authorized the construction of a road connecting Pensacola to St. Augustine. The law specified crossing points for the Choctawhatchee River, Econfina Creek (using the natural bridge there) and the Apalachicola River. From Tallahassee the road was to follow the old Spanish Road (Camino Real) to St. Augustine, crossing the St. Johns River at Picolata. Congress authorized US$20,000 for the project. The Army, which was responsible for constructing the road, solicited proposals to build the eastern portion of the road. John Bellamy of Monticello, with the endorsement of Florida Territorial Governor William Duval, offered to construct the road between the Ochlockonee River and St. Augustine for US$13,500. The Army contracted with Bellamy, and the Ochlockonee River to St. Augustine section became known as Bellamy's (or Bellamy) Road. [3] [4] [5]
Bellamy built the road using equipment and slaves from his plantation, and completed his portion of the road in 1826. The congressional act stated that the road was to be 25 feet (7.6 m) wide, but the contract with Bellamy required that the road only be 16 feet (4.9 m) wide. Tree stumps were to cut as close to the ground as possible, in order to clear a wagon's axles. Travelers quickly complained that the road was not always wide enough to let two wagons pass, that the bridges were inadequate, and that some stumps ("stump knockers") were too tall, jolting passengers and breaking axles. [4] [5]
The Bellamy Road followed the general route of the Spanish Royal Road (el Camino Real) or Old Mission Trail, used by Native Americans and Spanish missionaries, running from Mission San Luis de Apalachee near Tallahassee to St. Augustine. It headed eastward through present-day Jefferson County, and then crossed the Aucilla River by ferry into Madison County. The road continued eastward most of the way across Madison County until close to the Suwannee River, turning south into Lafayette County. The road crossed the Suwannee River by ferry into Suwannee County and ran southward close to the Suwannee River. It then passed into Columbia County, running past the Fig Springs mission site on the Ichetucknee River and entering Alachua County using the natural bridge of the Santa Fe River at O'Leno State Park. The road continued across northern Alachua County to near Lake Santa Fe. From there, the route of Bellamy Road forms the current boundary between the northwest part of Putnam County and the southwest part of Clay County. The road then crossed southeast Clay County, crossed the St. Johns River at Picolata, and continued through St. Johns County to St. Augustine. [5]
Neil Coker, a former slaved interviewed by the WPA, describes the Bellamy Road and its history, including stating that Mr. Bellamy exploited it as a toll road. [6]
In 1979, the road was designated as a Florida Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. [7]
El Camino Real is the name that the Spanish gave to a trail they cleared in the 1680s, mostly over the traditional trails of Native Americans, from St. Augustine westward to the Spanish missions in north Florida. Before this time, transpeninsular traffic in La Florida between the western mission settlements and the capital depended on water routes from Apalachee to St. Augustine. Agricultural commodities produced in Apalachee were carried by canoes to the Gulf of Mexico and southward on the coast to the mouth of the Suwanee River, then upriver to a location on the Santa Fe River. There they were loaded onto pack animals or the backs of Indian burderners (porters) for the remainder of the overland trip. Provisions and funds from the real situado were sent on the same route in reverse.
The Apalachee were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, specifically an Indigenous people of Florida, who lived in the Florida Panhandle until the early 18th century. They lived between the Aucilla River and Ochlockonee River, at the head of Apalachee Bay, an area known as the Apalachee Province. They spoke a Muskogean language called Apalachee, which is now extinct.
Tocobaga was the name of a chiefdom of Native Americans, its chief, and its principal town during the 16th century. The chiefdom was centered around the northern end of Old Tampa Bay, the arm of Tampa Bay that extends between the present-day city of Tampa and northern Pinellas County. The exact location of the principal town is believed to be the archeological Safety Harbor site. This is the namesake for the Safety Harbor culture, of which the Tocobaga are the most well-known group.
State Road 20 is a 358.154-mile-long (576.393 km) east-to-west route across northern Florida and the Florida Panhandle in the United States.
Apalachee Bay is a bay in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico occupying an indentation of the Florida coast to the west of where the Florida peninsula joins the United States mainland. It is bordered by Taylor, Jefferson, Wakulla, and Franklin counties.
The Tallahassee Railroad, headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida, was one of the first two railroads in Florida, starting operations in 1836 or 1837. It did not successfully use steam locomotives until 1855, with trains being pulled by mules for more than 20 years. The principal source of traffic on the railroad for many years was carrying cotton bales from Tallahassee to seaports on the St. Marks River.
The Alachua culture is a Late Woodland Southeast period archaeological culture in north-central Florida, dating from around 600 to 1700. It is found in an area roughly corresponding to present-day Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. It was preceded by the Cades Pond culture, which inhabited approximately the same area.
The history of Leon County, Florida, much like the History of Tallahassee, dates back to the settlement of the Americas. Beginning in the 16th century, the region was colonized by Europeans, becoming part of Spanish Florida. In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty ceded Spanish Florida, including modern-day Leon County, to the United States. Named for Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, Leon County became an official U.S. county in 1824; the American takeover led to the county's rapid expansion as growing numbers of cotton plantations began to spring up nearby, increasing Leon County's population significantly.
Newnansville, Florida was one of the first American settlements in the interior of Florida. It became the second county seat of Alachua County in 1828, and one of the central locations for activity during the Second Seminole War, during which time it was one of the largest cities in the State. In the 1850s, the Florida Railroad bypassed Newnansville, resulting in the county seat being moved to the new town of Gainesville in 1854. Consequently, Newnansville began to decline, and when a second railway bypassed the town in 1884, most of its residents relocated and formed the new City of Alachua. By 1900, Newnansville was deserted.
The Big Bend of Florida, United States, is an informally named geographic region of North Florida where the Florida Panhandle transitions to the Florida Peninsula south and east of Tallahassee. The region is known for its vast woodlands and marshlands and its low population density relative to much of the state. The area is home to the largest single spring in the United States, the Alapaha Rise, and the longest surveyed underwater cave in the United States, the 32-mile (51 km) Wakulla-Leon Sinks cave system.
Beginning in the second half of the 16th century, the Kingdom of Spain established a number of missions throughout Spanish Florida in order to convert the Native Americans to Roman Catholicism, to facilitate control of the area, and to obstruct regional colonization by other Protestants, particularly, those from England and France. Spanish Florida originally included much of what is now the Southeastern United States, although Spain never exercised long-term effective control over more than the northern part of what is now the State of Florida from present-day St. Augustine to the area around Tallahassee, southeastern Georgia, and some coastal settlements, such as Pensacola, Florida. A few short-lived missions were established in other locations, including Mission Santa Elena in present-day South Carolina, around the Florida peninsula, and in the interior of Georgia and Alabama.
Santa Fe de Toloca was a Spanish mission that existed near the Santa Fe River in the northwestern part of what is now Alachua County, Florida, United States during the 17th century. It became an important place on the camino real connecting St. Augustine with Apalachee Province, which was centered on the site of present-day Tallahassee, Florida. The site that the Santa Fe de Toloca mission occupied in the first half of the 17th century was partially excavated in the 1980s.
Ahaya was the first recorded chief of the Alachua band of the Seminole tribe. European-Americans called him Cowkeeper, as he held a very large herd of cattle. Ahaya was the chief of a town of Oconee people near the Chattahoochee River. Around 1750 he led his people into Florida where they settled around Payne's Prairie, part of what the Spanish called tierras de la chua, "Alachua Country" in English. The Spanish called Ahaya's people cimarones, which eventually became "Seminoles" in English. Ahaya fought the Spanish, and sought friendship with the British, allying with them after Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain in 1763, and staying loyal to them through the American Revolutionary War. He died shortly after Britain returned Florida to Spain in 1783.
The Indigenous peoples of Florida lived in what is now known as Florida for more than 12,000 years before the time of first contact with Europeans. However, the indigenous Floridians living east of the Apalachicola River had largely died out by the early 18th century. Some Apalachees migrated to Louisiana, where their descendants now live; some were taken to Cuba and Mexico by the Spanish in the 18th century, and a few may have been absorbed into the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes.
The Northern Utina, also known as the Timucua or simply Utina, were a Timucua people of northern Florida. They lived north of the Santa Fe River and east of the Suwannee River, and spoke a dialect of the Timucua language known as "Timucua proper". They appear to have been closely associated with the Yustaga people, who lived on the other side of the Suwannee. The Northern Utina represented one of the most powerful tribal units in the region in the 16th and 17th centuries, and may have been organized as a loose chiefdom or confederation of smaller chiefdoms. The Fig Springs archaeological site may be the remains of their principal village, Ayacuto, and the later Spanish mission of San Martín de Timucua.
The Yustaga were a Timucua people of what is now northwestern Florida during the 16th and 17th centuries. The westernmost Timucua group, they lived between the Aucilla and Suwannee Rivers in the Florida Panhandle, just east of the Apalachee people. A dominant force in regional tribal politics, they may have been organized as a loose regional chiefdom consisting of up to eight smaller local chiefdoms.
The Battle of Flint River, also called the Spanish-Indian Battle (1702) or the Battle of the Blankets , was a failed attack by Spanish and Apalachee Indian forces against Creek Indians in October 1702 in what is now the state of Georgia. The battle was a major element in ongoing frontier hostilities between English colonists from the Province of Carolina and Spanish Florida, and it was a prelude to more organized military actions of Queen Anne's War.
Tomás Menéndez Márquez y Pedroso (1643–1706) was an official in the government of Spanish Florida, and owner, with his brothers, of the largest ranch in Spanish Florida. He was captured by pirates in 1682 and held for ransom, but was rescued by the Timucua.
The Suwannee Valley culture is defined as a Late Woodland Southeast period archaeological culture in north Florida, dating from around 750 to European contact. The core area of the culture was found in an area roughly corresponding to present-day Suwannee and southern and central Columbia counties. It was preceded by the McKeithen Weeden Island culture and followed by the Spanish mission period Leon-Jefferson culture.
The La Chua ranch was the largest cattle ranch in Spanish Florida in the 17th century. Cattle ranching became an important part of the economy of Spanish Florida over the course of the 17th century. The La Chua ranch was founded in the middle of the 17th century, and by the end of that century accounted for one-third of the cattle in the colony. Raids by the English of the Province of Carolina and their native allies led to the abandonment of the La Chua ranch early in the 18th century.