Indian question

swamp hunter

Senior Member
Sooo , If the Spaniards landed in the 1530's at St. Augustine and the Seminoles didn't form their own bands and head South to escape the White Man till the 1700's ...Who was here to meet the Spaniards...Nobody ?
Did they pull their Galleons up on a land full of nothing but Nature...Interesting...
Or did they meet the Calusa and killed them off with modern weapons and Cholera.
I see no mention of Calusa in the journals of Indian history...why..
 

Mr Warren

Banned
The first recorded contact between the Calusa and Europeans was when Ponce de Leone landed on the West coast of Florida in 1513. They traded for a few days but then the Calusa attacked them and eventually drove the Spanish off. In a later battle - when Ponce De Leone returned - he was mortally wounded by the Calusa.
The Calusa already knew about the Spanish before they landed - because they had taken in some refugees from Cuba where they had been mistreated by the Spaniards. That's why they attacked them and drove them off.
Calusa territory was from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable.
 
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kmckinnie

BOT KILLER MODERATOR
Staff member
Look what we have done to this place in 500 years. Just think 500 more.
 

swamp hunter

Senior Member
Heck 200 years ago Florida was a Spanish Territory..
 

redneck_billcollector

Purveyor Of Fine Spirits
There were the Ais or Ays in east central/south Florida on the Atlantic Coast. They spoke either a Muskogean or Arawak dialect....scholars are divided on that. If Muskogean you could argue they also made up the mix that became the Seminoles later. In North West Florida and the panhandle there were the Apalachee people who were the first natives that Desoto actually wintered with his first year. They became what were known as the "Mission" Indians and that area became a very important Mission district which extended into South GA during the 17th Century. The Guale would have probably been on the sea islands around Jacksonville....not further south though, however they eventually moved pretty much to Florida after run ins with the Engish, they tended to be catholic. Like I said the Ais might have spoken an Arawak dialect...and that would not surprise me if there were Arawak in parts of extreme south eastern coastal Florida....they were the natives of the Islands...from the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica etc...all the way down to South America. The Ais, by the way were on the coast right across the Gulf Stream from the Bahamas. Of course there were the Timucua in the northern half of Peninsular Florida...and the Calusa of the South Western Coastal region of Florida...down where you live. From what I can tell, there were probably a couple of other dozen groups at the time of first contact. The problem was they were smaller groups and sickness destroyed the populations in Fla. within a couple of years of Desoto. The reason I say this is because there were a few dozen different cultures based on pottery which were really localized and have been dated to early historic times....but because they were either extinct or absorbed by larger groupings by the time of the late 16th Century and early 17th Century which is when the Missionary movement took off in Florida. I would also imagine large numbers were also taken to the Indies prior to the settlement of St. Augustine due to slave raids by Spanish adventurers to work the mines and plantations of the Indies. The native population of Florida during the extreme late 15th Century through the first half of the 16th Century was hurt more than even the natives in Mexico I would argue simply because of their early contact with the Spanish and their typically smaller settlements and relative weakness compared to those in Mexico or further south.
 

redneck_billcollector

Purveyor Of Fine Spirits
By the way, the Spanish did not land at St. Augustine in 1535....St. Augustine was established some 30 or so years after that date. Desoto did not land in Florida until 1539. His first conflicts were with the Timucua and then he wintered with the Apalachee, most think on the present day site of the State Capitol building in Tallahassee. The Tocobaga Indians were the ones with whom Narvaez met when he landed near Tampa Bay and are who Juan Ortiz lived with....it was their language he could speak when he was found by de Soto's scouts. He could not speak the language spoken by the Timucua who were to give de Soto his first battle. Narvaez landed in 1528.
 

redneck_billcollector

Purveyor Of Fine Spirits
Ponce de Leon is thought to have been the first Spaniard to land in Florida...nobody knows where that took place...some say around Daytona Beach...but nobody is sure. He basically explored the Atlantic Coast and gave Florida its name on this trip....he also is credited with discovering the Gulf Stream on this trip. This trip took place in 1513 around Easter time. He was not looking for Florida and apparently the Spaniards were not aware of Florida at this time, even though some historians think Columbus might have landed there on one of his visits, but it is not a common belief. de Leon was looking for Bimini when he found Florida. It would have been the Timucua or some unknown tribe if he encountered any natives on his first visit...there is not much mention of natives during the first visit. He returned to Florida in 1521 looking for a spot to locate a colony...Nobody is sure where he landed this time...but he ran into hostile natives of unknown origin and he was shot by a poisoned arrow which eventually killed him. By his second visit the Spanish from Cuba had already done a few slave raids and raids looking for gold which were unsanctioned by Spain nor were they sanctioned by the Governor of Cuba. Because of the raids, de Leon's two visits and Narvaez's visit I would argue that by the time de Soto arrived the natives of central and south Florida had already been wracked by European diseases and were depleted and weakened to the point that de Soto had much easier going. He really did not start seeing large settlements of natives until he arrived in GA and northwards. It should be noted that by the time of de Soto the natives of the Indies had been either wiped out due to diseases and warfare coupled with slavery. Few were left within 50 years of Columbus.....
 

redneck_billcollector

Purveyor Of Fine Spirits
The first recorded contact between the Calusa and Europeans was when Ponce de Leone landed on the West coast of Florida in 1513. They traded for a few days but then the Calusa attacked them and eventually drove the Spanish off. In a later battle - when Ponce De Leone returned - he was mortally wounded by the Calusa.
The Calusa already knew about the Spanish before they landed - because they had taken in some refugees from Cuba where they had been mistreated by the Spaniards. That's why they attacked them and drove them off.
Calusa territory was from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable.
I am interested in this...it is hard to find any sources that say exactly who he met with....most historians think his first landing was near Daytona. I know he did explore up the west Coast too on his first trip, but there is little information on where he landed or what natives he came into contact with. Most think he chose the west Coast to explore on his second trip hoping to find a place for a colony, simply because it had more protected harbors as opposed to the Atlantic Coast. I have read what little material I could find on this trip for years...and they all seem inconclusive. I find the late middle ages a fascinating period of history and the early contacts in the New World are icing on the cake. All the stories about the Calusa are the same stories in which the so called "fountain of youth" was sought. My problem with this....the whole fountain of youth story seems to just that....a story not mentioned in contemporary historical accounts. Nor was it mentioned as a factor in his meeting with King Ferdinand of Spain who gave him exclusive rights to colonize Florida shortly after his first visit.
 
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