By the mid-1700s, there were 40 Spanish missions in La Florida, manned by 70 friars and occupied by 26,000 Native Americans. As part of the Spanish colonial strategy, Catholic missions were established to convert indigenous people to Christianity. Johns River and defending the Spanish claim to La Florida. Augustine in 1565, destroying a small French settlement on the St. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés succeeded at St.

Spain’s first attempt to establish a permanent settlement in Florida near present-day Pensacola in 1559 failed. The Spanish ArrivalĪccounts from Spanish explorations of Florida led by Ponce de Léon, Pánfilo de Narváez, and Hernando de Soto in the early 1500s reveal that these cultures developed into powerful chiefdoms including the Pensacola, Apalachee, Timucua, Tocobago, Calusa, Saturiwa, Utina, Potano, Ocale, Tequesta, Ais, Mayaca, Jororo, Chacato and Chisca, among others. The skill and efficiency of native people to use resources in Florida’s rich marine and upland environments, however, led to the development of highly complex cultures that are usually associated with agriculturally based societies. The environment in most other parts of Florida could not support large-scale agriculture.

Their agricultural success supported large and complex societies with permanent towns featuring central plazas, great temple mounds, public buildings and residences with baked clay walls. At about the same time, potters began to produce better quality ceramic vessels that were decorated based on cultural preferences, demonstrating the cultural diversity of the region.īy 1,000 years ago, people in the Florida panhandle grew corn, beans and squash in the fertile red clay soils. As early as 2,500 years ago, villages often included low circular mounds for burial of important people. Social and political relations became more complex and regionally varied. This allowed populations to hunt and gather in one specific area, and people began to live year round at the same location. With the climate change, food and water resources became more abundant. Clues to their religious and spiritual beliefs are revealed by burial practices. These innovative and adaptive people began firing clay to make pottery for storing, preparing and serving food. Settlements became more seasonal and were usually located near sources of fresh water and raw chert, the stone used for making tools. They also developed limited horticulture or small household gardens. Around 4,000 years ago, as sea levels and climate approached modern conditions, native people began to depend more on wetland resources such as fish, shellfish and turtles. Between 7,000 and 6,000 years ago, when our modern forests and wetland environments began to appear, people in central and south Florida practiced a unique custom of burying their dead in wetland cemeteries. Their hunting success and population increase along with climate change contributed to the extinction of Ice Age big game animals.Ībout 9,000 years ago, the glaciers began to melt as Florida’s climate became warmer and wetter, and plants and animals in the region became more diverse. Never staying in one place very long, they hunted large and small game and gathered edible plants. Few clues remain of these PaleoIndians, but thousands of their stone tools survive to demonstrate their ingenuity and creativity. 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. The land mass of Florida extended 100 miles farther into the Gulf of Mexico, and the climate was cooler and drier than today. At that time, the earth was in an 'ice age,' when much of the planet’s water was frozen in glaciers, and sea levels were hundreds of feet lower than today. People first arrived in what is now known as Florida more than 12 millenia ago. Explore the impact of the Florida's Native American tribes and culture throughout the centuries.

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