Did You Know Thursday: Florida

Did you know that the history of Florida can be traced back between 12,000 to 14,000 years ago?

Native Americans began to inhabit the peninsula over 12 millennia ago. During that time the planet was in an “ice age.”  Much of the earth’s water was frozen in glaciers, and sea levels were hundreds of feet lower than they are today. What we call Florida today actually extended over 100 miles further into the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, the climate was much cooler and drier than it is today. According to Visit Florida, “large mammals that are now extinct, such as mastodons, wooly mammoths, giant sloths and saber-toothed cats, roamed the arid grasslands, along with smaller animals such as deer and turtles.” How cool? 

Around 9,000 years ago, the glaciers began to melt as Florida’s climate became warmer and wetter. In a natural progression, the plants and animals in the region also became more diverse. At this time PaleoIndians called Florida home. While there have been very few clues left behind to help archeologists and historians examine the lives of Paleo Indians, thousands of stone tools survive to demonstrate their resourcefulness and creativity. They never stayed in one place very long and they were a hunting and gathering society. Both their success in hunting and increasing population coupled with climate change contributed to the extinction of Ice Age big game animals.

Approximately 4,000 years ago, climate and sea level basically became the same as modern conditions. Native people depended more on wetland resources such as fish, shellfish and turtles. Oh, and the human population increased dramatically.  In fact, at the time of first European contact in the early 16th century, an estimated 350,000 people belonging to a number of tribes inhabited Florida. Spanish Empire explorers recording nearly one hundred names of groups they encountered. These ranged from organized political entities such as the Apalachee, with a population of around 50,000, to villages with no political affiliation. 

Interestingly, they found that there were around 150,000 speakers of dialects of the Timucua language. However, the Timucua were organized as groups of villages and did not share a common culture. Other tribes in Florida at the time of first Spanish contact included the Ais, Calusa, Mayaimi and Tocobaga. The populations of all of these tribes dwindled during the period of Spanish control of Florida. This was mostly due to epidemics of newly introduced infection diseases, and unfortunately the Native Americans had no natural immunity. The reduced population of the original natives allowed outside groups, such as the Seminoles, to move into the area starting around 1700. 

Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish conqueror, and explorer is usually given credit for being the first European to sight Florida, but he most likely had predecessors. However, his 1513 expedition to Florida was the first open and official one so he gets the credit. According to History.com, he also gave Florida its name, which means “full of flowers.” Another questionable legend suggested that Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth on the island of Bimini. This was based on information gathered from natives but really who isn’t searching for the fountain of youth? 

While Spanish attempts at colonization were generally huge failures there were some successful colonies. For example, in 1564, René Goulaine de Laudonnière founded Fort Caroline in modern day Jacksonville. Fort Carolina was meant as a haven for Huguenot Protestant refugees from religious persecution in France.  A little further down the coast, around 1565 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded San Agustín (or St. Augustine as we know it), which remains the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in any U.S. state. 

St. Augustine quickly became the most significant settlement in Florida. It was little more than a fort, but it was frequently attacked and burned, with most residents either fleeing or being killed. It was most notably devastated in 1586, when English sea captain (and lets be honest sometime pirate) Sir Francis Drake plundered and burned the city. St. Augustine became a base of operations for the Spanish to build Catholic missions. Catholic missionaries used St. Augustine to establish over 100 far-flung missions throughout Florida. Inevitably, both pirate attacks and British raids were merciless, and the town was burned to the ground several times until Spain fortified it with the Castillo de San Marcos in 1672 and Fort Matanzas in 1742.

The border between Spanish Florida and the British colony of Georgia was never clearly defined, and was the subject of constant small- and larger-scale harassment in both directions. Eventually the territory was ceded by Spain to the U.S. in 1821. Remarkably, to undermine the stability of the British slave based plantation economy Spanish Florida encouraged the escape of slaves. The Spanish offered freedom and refuge but only if they converted to Catholicism. This was well known through out the colonies of Georgia and South Carolina, and hundreds of slaves managed to escape.  Of course this started a war between the British and the Spanish that lasted many long year. 

By 1763 the Spanish traded Florida to the British in order to regain control of Havana, Cuba. Florida remained loyal to Great Britain throughout the American Revolutionary War. However, Spain captured Pensacola from the British in 1781. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War and returned all of Florida to Spanish control, but without specifying the boundaries. While the Spanish wanted to expand the boundaries of Florida the new United States demanded that the boundary be at the 31^stparallel and Spain eventually agreed. 

During the first half of the 1800s, U.S. troops waged war with Florida’s Native American population. It joined the union as the 27th state in 1845. However, according to History.com, during the Civil War, Florida was the third state to secede from the Union. Skipping a head a bit, beginning in the late 19th century, residents of Northern states began to flock to Florida to escape harsh winters. By the 20th century, tourism became Florida’s leading industry and remains so today, attracting millions of visitors every year.