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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 first people arrived in Florida before the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. Human remains and/or artifacts have been found in association with the remains of Pleistocene animals at a number of Florida locations. A carved bone depicting a mammoth found near the site of Vero man has been dated to 13,000 to 20,000 years ago. [1] [2] Artifacts recovered at the Page-Ladson site date to 12,500 to 14,500 years ago. [3] Evidence that a giant tortoise was cooked in its shell at Little Salt Spring dates to between 12,000 and 13,500 years ago. [4] Human remains and artifacts have also been found in association with remains of Pleistocene animals at Devil's Den, [5] Melbourne, [6] Warm Mineral Springs, [7] and the Cutler Fossil Site. [8] A Bison antiquus skull with an embedded projectile point has been found in the Wacissa River. Other important Paleoindian sites in Florida include Harney Flats in Hillsborough County, [9] the Nalcrest site, and Silver Springs. [10]
Florida's environment at the end of the Pleistocene was very different from that of today. Because of the enormous amount of water frozen in ice sheets during the last glacial period, sea level was at least 100 metres (330 ft) lower than now. Florida had about twice the land area. Its water table was much lower and the climate was cooler and much drier. There were few running rivers or springs in what is today's Florida. The few water sources in the interior of Florida were rain-fed lakes and water holes over relatively impervious deposits of marl, or deep sinkholes partially filled by springs. [11]
With water available only at scattered locations, animals and humans would have congregated at the water holes to drink. The concentration of animals would have attracted hunters. Many Paleoindian artifacts and animal bones showing butchering marks have been found in Florida rivers, where deep sinkholes in the river bed would have provided access to water. Sites with Paleoindian artifacts also have been found in flooded river valleys as much as 17 feet (5.2 m) under the Gulf of Mexico, and suspected sites have been identified up to 20 miles (32 km) offshore under 38 feet (12 m) of water. Half of the Paleoindian sites in Florida may now be under water in the Gulf of Mexico. Materials deposited in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene in sinkholes in the beds of rivers were covered by silt and sealed in place before the water table rose high enough to create running rivers, and those layers remained undisturbed until excavated by archaeologists. These deposits preserved organic materials, including bone, ivory, wood, and other plant remains. [12]
Archaeologists have found direct evidence that Paleoindians in Florida hunted mammoths, mastodons, Bison antiquus , and giant tortoises. The bones of other large and small animals, including ground sloths, tapirs, horses, camelids, deer, fish, turtles, shellfish, snakes, raccoons, opossums, and muskrats are associated with Paleoindian sites. [13]
Organic materials are not well preserved in the warm, wet climate and often acidic soils of Florida. Organic materials that can be dated through radiocarbon dating are rare at Paleoindian sites in Florida, usually found only where the material has remained under water continuously since the Paleoindian period. Stone tools are therefore often the only clues to dating prehistoric sites without ceramics in Florida. [14] [15]
Projectile points (probably used on spears, the bow and arrow did not appear until much later) have distinctive forms that can be fairly reliably assigned to specific time periods. Based on stone artifacts, Bullen divided pre-Archaic Florida into four periods, Early Paleo-Indian (10000-9000 BCE), Late Paleo-Indian (9000-8000 BCE), Dalton Early (8000-7000 BCE), and Dalton Late (7000-6000 BCE). [16] Purdy defined a simpler sequence, Paleo Indian (10000-8000 BCE, equivalent to Bullen's Early and Late Paleo-Indian) and Late Paleo (8000-7000 BCE, equivalent to Bullen's Dalton Early). [17] Later discoveries have pushed the beginning of the Paleoindian period in Florida to an earlier date. The earliest well-dated material from the Paleoindian period in Florida is from the Page-Ladson site, where points resembling pre-Clovis points found at Cactus Hill have been recovered from deposits dated to 14,588 to 14,245 calibrated calendar years BP (12638-12295 BCE), about 1,500 years before the appearance of the Clovis culture. [18] Milanich places the end of the Paleoindian period at about 7500 BCE. [19] During the early Paleoindian period in Florida, before 10,000 years ago, projectile points used in Florida included Beaver Lake, Clovis, Folsom-like, Simpson, Suwannee, Tallahassee, and Santa Fe points. Simpson and Suwannee points are the most common early Paleoindian points found in Florida. In the late Paleoindian period, 9,000 to 10,000 years ago (8000-7000 BCE), Bolen, Greenbriar, Hardaway Side-Notched, Nuckolls Dalton and Marianna points were in use, with the Bolen point being the most commonly found. [16] [20]
Most projectile points associated with early Paleoindians have been found in rivers. Projectile points of the late Paleoindian period, particularly Bolen points, are often found on dry land sites, as well as in rivers. [21]
Paleoindians in Florida used a large variety of stone tools besides projectile points. These tools include blades, scrapers of various kinds, spokeshaves, gravers, gouges, and bola stones. Some of the tools, such as the Hendrix scraper of the early Paleoindian period, and the Edgefield scraper of the late Paleoindian period, are distinctive enough to aid in dating deposits. [22]
A few underwater sites in Florida have yielded Paleoindian artifacts of ivory, bone, antler, shell, and wood. A type of artifact found in rivers in northern Florida is the ivory foreshaft. One end of a foreshaft was attached to a projectile point with pitch and sinew. The other end was pointed, and pressure-fitted into a wood shaft. The foreshafts were made from mammoth ivory, or possibly, in some cases, from mastodon ivory. A shell "trigger" may be from an atlatl (spear-thrower). Other tools include an eyed needle made from bone, double pointed bone pins, part of a mortar carved from an oak log, and a non-returning boomerang or throwing stick made from oak. [23]
The Archaic period in Florida lasted from 7500 or 7000 BCE until about 500 BCE. Bullen divided this period into the Dalton Late, Early Pre-ceramic Archaic, Middle Pre-ceramic Archaic, Late Pre-ceramic Archaic, Orange and Florida Transitional periods. Purdy divided it into a Preceramic Archaic period and an Early Ceramic period. Milanich refers to Early (7500-5000 BCE), Middle (5000-3000 BCE) and Late (3000-500 BCE) Archaic periods in Florida. [16] [17] [24]
Several cultures become distinguishable in Florida in the middle to late Archaic period. In northeast Florida, the pre-ceramic Mount Taylor period (5000-2000 BCE) was followed by the ceramic Orange culture (2300-500 BCE). The Norwood culture in the Apalachee region of Florida (2300-500 BCE), was contemporary with the very similar Orange culture. The late Archaic Elliott's Point complex, found in the Florida panhandle from the delta of the Apalachicola River westward, may have been related to the Poverty Point culture. [25] The area around Tampa Bay and southwest Florida (from Charlotte Harbor to the Ten Thousand Islands) each had as yet unnamed late Archaic regional cultures using ceramics. [26]
Pre-historic sites and cultures in the eastern United States and southeastern Canada that followed the Archaic period are generally placed in the Woodland period (1000 BCE – 1000 CE) or the later Mississippian culture period (800 or 900–1500). The Woodland period is defined by the development of technology, including the introduction of ceramics and (late in the Woodland period) the bow and arrow, the adoption of agriculture, mound-building, and increased sedentism. These characteristics developed and spread separately. Sedentism and mound building appeared along the southwest coast of Florida (cf. Horr's Island) and in the lower Mississippi River Valley (cf. Watson Brake and Poverty Point) well before the end of the Archaic period. Ceramics appeared along the coast of the southeastern United States soon after. Agriculture spread and intensified across the Woodland area throughout the Woodland and Mississippian culture periods but appeared in north central and northeastern Florida only after about 700 and had not penetrated the middle and lower Florida peninsula at the time of first contact with Europeans. [27] [28] [29]
Defined culture | Time range | Geographic range | |
Belle Glade culture | 1050 BCE – Historic | Lake Okeechobee basin and Kissimmee River valley | |
Glades culture | 550 BCE – Historic | Everglades, southeast Florida and Florida Keys | |
Manasota culture | 550 BCE – 800 CE | central peninsular Gulf coast of Florida | |
St. Johns culture | 550 BCE – Historic | east and central Florida | |
Caloosahatchee culture | 500 BCE – Historic | Charlotte Harbor to Ten Thousand Islands | |
Deptford culture – Gulf region | 500 BCE–150/250 CE | Gulf coast from Florida/Alabama border to Charlotte Harbor, southwest Georgia, southeast Alabama | |
Deptford culture – Atlantic region | 500 BCE–700 CE | Atlantic coast from mouth of St. Johns River, Florida to Cape Fear, North Carolina | |
Swift Creek culture | 150–350 | eastern Florida Panhandle and southern Georgia | |
Santa Rosa-Swift Creek culture | 150–350 | western Florida Panhandle | |
Weeden Island cultures 100–1000 CE | Weeden Island I, including | 100–700 | Florida Panhandle, north peninsular Gulf coast in Florida, interior north Florida, and southwest Georgia |
– Cades Pond culture | 200–750 | north-central Florida | |
– McKeithen Weeden Island culture | 200–700 | north Florida | |
Weeden Island II, including | 750–1000 | Florida Panhandle, north peninsular Gulf coast in Florida, and southwest Georgia | |
– Wakulla culture | 750–1000 | Florida Panhandle | |
Alachua culture | 700 – Historic | north central Florida | |
Suwannee Valley culture | 750 – Historic | north Florida | |
Safety Harbor culture | 800 – Historic | central peninsular Gulf coast of Florida | |
Fort Walton culture – a Mississippian culture | 1000 – Historic | Florida Panhandle and southwest Georgia | |
Pensacola culture – a Mississippian culture | 1250 – Historic | western part of Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama and southern Mississippi | |
This section needs additional citations for verification .(November 2018) |
European colonists encountered numerous groups of indigenous peoples in Florida. Recorded information on various groups ranges from numerous detailed reports to the mere mention of a name. Some of the indigenous peoples were taken into the system of Spanish missions in Florida, others had sporadic contact with the Spanish without being brought into the mission system, but many of the peoples are known only from mention of their names in historical accounts. All of these peoples were essentially extinct in Florida by the end of the 18th century.[ citation needed ]
Most died from exposure to Eurasian infectious diseases, such as smallpox and measles, to which they had no immunity; others died from conflict with European colonists in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. During the initial period of Spanish colonization, groups of conquistadors came into conflict with Florida Indians, which combined with Spanish-introduced diseases devastated their population. In the 17th and 18th centuries, English colonists from the Province of Carolina and the Indian allies carried out several raids against the Spanish mission system, further devastating the indigenous population of Florida. The few survivors migrated out of Florida, mainly to Cuba and New Spain with the Spanish when they ceded Florida to Great Britain in 1763 following the Seven Years' War, although a few Apalachee reached Louisiana, where their descendants still live.[ citation needed ]
This section includes the names of tribes, chiefdoms and towns encountered by Europeans in what is now the state of Florida and adjacent parts of Alabama and Georgia in the 16th and 17th centuries:
From the beginning of the 18th century, various groups of Native Americans, primarily Muscogee people (called Creeks by the English) from north of present-day Florida, moved into what is now the state. The Creek migrants included Hitchiti and Mikasuki speakers. There were also some non-Creek Yamasee and Yuchi migrants. They merged to form the new Seminole ethnicity.
Groups known to have been in Florida in the latter half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century include:
A series of wars with the United States resulted in the death or removal to what is now Oklahoma of most of the above peoples and the merging of the remainder by ethnogenesis into the current Seminole and Miccosukee tribes of Florida.
The only federally recognized tribes in Florida are:
The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creek from what are now northern Muscogee.
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.
Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, Southeastern cultures, or Southeast Indians are an ethnographic classification for Native Americans who have traditionally inhabited the area now part of the Southeastern United States and the northeastern border of Mexico, that share common cultural traits. This classification is a part of the Eastern Woodlands. The concept of a southeastern cultural region was developed by anthropologists, beginning with Otis Mason and Franz Boas in 1887. The boundaries of the region are defined more by shared cultural traits than by geographic distinctions. Because the cultures gradually instead of abruptly shift into Plains, Prairie, or Northeastern Woodlands cultures, scholars do not always agree on the exact limits of the Southeastern Woodland culture region. Shawnee, Powhatan, Waco, Tawakoni, Tonkawa, Karankawa, Quapaw, and Mosopelea are usually seen as marginally southeastern and their traditional lands represent the borders of the cultural region.
The Mikasuki, Hitchiti-Mikasuki, or Hitchiti language is a language or a pair of dialects or closely related languages that belong to the Muskogean languages family. As of 2014, Mikasuki was spoken by around 290 people in southern Florida. Along with the Cow Creek Seminole dialect of Muscogee, it is also known as Seminole. It is spoken by members of the Miccosukee tribe and of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The extinct Hitchiti was a mutually intelligible dialect of or the ancestor of Mikasuki.
The Potano tribe lived in north-central Florida at the time of first European contact. Their territory included what is now Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. This territory corresponds to that of the Alachua culture, which lasted from about 700 until 1700. The Potano were among the many tribes of the Timucua people, and spoke a dialect of the Timucua language.
The Mocama were a Native American people who lived in the coastal areas of what are now northern Florida and southeastern Georgia. A Timucua group, they spoke the dialect known as Mocama, the best-attested dialect of the Timucua language. Their heartland extended from about the Altamaha River in Georgia to south of the mouth of the St. John's River, covering the Sea Islands and the inland waterways, Intracoastal. and much of present-day Jacksonville. At the time of contact with Europeans, there were two major chiefdoms among the Mocama, the Saturiwa and the Tacatacuru, each of which evidently had authority over multiple villages. The Saturiwa controlled chiefdoms stretching to modern day St. Augustine, but the native peoples of these chiefdoms have been identified by Pareja as speaking Agua Salada, which may have been a distinct dialect.
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.
The Surruque people lived along the middle Atlantic coast of Florida during the 16th and 17th centuries. They may have spoken a dialect of the Timucua language, but were allied with the Ais. The Surruque became clients of the Spanish government in St. Augustine, but were not successfully brought into the Spanish mission system.
Apalachicola Province was a group or association of towns located along the lower part of the Chattahoochee River in present-day Alabama and Georgia. The Spanish so called it because they perceived it as a political entity under the leadership of the town of Apalacicola. It is believed that before the 17th century, the residents of all the Apalachicola towns spoke the Hitchiti language, although other towns whose people spoke the Muscogee language relocated among the Apalachicolas along the Chattahoochee River in the middle- to later- 17th century. All of the Apalachicola towns moved to central Georgia at the end of the 17th century, where the English called them "Ochese Creek Indians". They moved back to the Chattahoochee River after 1715, with the English then calling them "Lower Creeks", while the Spanish called them "Ochese".
The Chacatos were a Native American people who lived in the upper Apalachicola River and Chipola River basins in what is now Florida in the 17th century. The Spanish established two missions in Chacato villages in 1674. As a result of attempts by the missionaries to impose full observance of Christian rites and morals on the newly converted Chacatos, many of them rebelled, trying to murder one of the missionaries. Many of the rebels fled to Tawasa, while others joined the Chiscas, who had become openly hostile to the Spanish. Other Chacatos moved to missions in or closer to Apalachee Province, abandoning their villages west of the Apalachicola River.
The Timucua were a Native American people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The various groups of Timucua spoke several dialects of the Timucua language. At the time of European contact, Timucuan speakers occupied about 19,200 square miles (50,000 km2) in the present-day states of Florida and Georgia, with an estimated population of 200,000. Milanich notes that the population density calculated from those figures, 10.4 per square mile (4.0/km2) is close to the population densities calculated by other authors for the Bahamas and for Hispaniola at the time of first European contact. The territory occupied by Timucua speakers stretched from the Altamaha River and Cumberland Island in present-day Georgia as far south as Lake George in central Florida, and from the Atlantic Ocean west to the Aucilla River in the Florida Panhandle, though it reached the Gulf of Mexico at no more than a couple of points.
Mocoso was the name of a 16th-century chiefdom located on the east side of Tampa Bay, Florida near the mouth of the Alafia River, of its chief town and of its chief. Mocoso was also the name of a 17th-century village in the province of Acuera, a branch of the Timucua. The people of both villages are believed to have been speakers of the Timucua language.
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.
Arapaha was a Timucua town on the Alapaha River in the 17th century. The name was also sometimes used to designate a province or sub-province in Spanish Florida.
The Amacanos were a native American people who lived in the vicinity of Apalachee Province in Spanish Florida during the 17th century. They are believed to have been related to, and spoken the same language as, the Chacato, Chine, Pacara and Pensacola peoples. The Amacano were served, together with other peoples, by a series of Spanish missions during the last quarter of the 17th century.
The Chine people were a group of Native American people living in Apalachee Province in Spanish Florida from the early 1670s until the end of the 17th century. They are believed to have spoken the same language as the Chatot, Amacano, Pacara, and Pensacola people, and have been described as a band of the Chatot people. They were served by a series of Spanish missions in the last quarter of the 17th century.
The Oconi or Ocone were a Timucua people that spoke a dialect of the Timucua language. They lived in a chiefdom on the margin of or in the Okefenokee Swamp in southeastern Georgia. The Oconi first appeared in Spanish records in 1602, but a mission was not established until at least a decade later, with the first record of a mission in 1630. The Spanish twice attempted to relocate the Oconi people to other missions, in 1645 and 1655. The Oconi disappeared from Spanish records after 1655.
Oconee was a tribal town of Hitchiti-speaking Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands during the 17th and 18th centuries.