The present little work is the partial result of odd hours spent in the study of the history, especially the ancient history—if by this term I may be allowed to mean all that pertains to the aborigines and first settlers—of the peninsula of Florida. In some instances, personal observations during a visit thither, undertaken for the purposes of health in the winter of 1856-57, have furnished original matter, and served to explain, modify, or confirm the statements of previous writers. Aware of th

Introductory Remarks.—The Early Explorations.—The French Colonies.—The first Spanish Supremacy.—The English Supremacy.—The second Spanish Supremacy.—The Supremacy of the United States.—Maps and Charts. In the study of special and local history, the inquirer finds his most laborious task is to learn how much his predecessors have achieved. It is principally to obviate this difficulty in so far as it relates to a very interesting, because first settled portion of our country, that I present the fo

Derivation of the name.—Earliest notices of.—Visited and described by Bristock in 1653.—Authenticity of his narrative.—Subsequent history and final extinction. Among the aboriginal tribes of the United States perhaps none is more enigmatical than the Apalaches. They are mentioned as an important nation by many of the early French and Spanish travellers and historians, their name is preserved by a bay and river on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and by the great eastern coast range of mountains

§ 1. Situation and Social Condition. —Caloosas.—Tegesta and Ais.—Tocobaga.—Vitachuco.—Utina.—Soturiba.—Method of Government. § 2. Civilization. —Appearance.—Games.—Agriculture.—Construction of Dwellings.—Clothing. § 3. Religion. —General Remarks.—Festivals in honor of the Sun and Moon.—Sacrifices.—Priests.—Sepulchral Rites. § 4. Languages. —Timuquana Tongue.—Words preserved by the French. When in the sixteenth century the Europeans began to visit Florida they did not, as is asserted by the excel

§ 1. Yemassees.—Uchees.—Apalachicolos.—Migrations northward. § 2. Seminoles. About the close of the seventeenth century, when the tribes who originally possessed the peninsula had become dismembered and reduced by prolonged conflicts with the whites and between themselves, various bands from the more northern regions, driven from their ancestral homes partly by the English and partly by a spirit of restlessness, sought to fix their habitations in various parts of Florida. The earliest of these w

Early Attempts.—Efforts of Aviles.—Later Missions.—Extent during the most flourishing period.—Decay. It was ever the characteristic of the Spanish conqueror that first in his thoughts and aims was the extension of the religion in which he was born and bred. The complete history of the Romish Church in America would embrace the whole conquest and settlement of those portions held originally by France and Spain. The earliest and most energetic explorers of the New and much of the Old World have be

Mounds.—Roads.—Shell Heaps.—Old Fields. The descriptions left by the elder and younger Bartram of the magnitude and character of the Floridian antiquities, had impressed me with a high opinion of their perfection, and induced large expectations of the light they might throw on the civilization of the aborigines of the peninsula; but a personal examination has convinced me that they differ little from those common in other parts of our country, and are capable of a similar explanation. Chief amon

The geological formation of Florida gives rise to springs and fountains of such magnitude and beauty, that they deserve to be ranked with the great freshwater lakes, the falls of Niagara, and the Mississippi river, as grand hydrographical features of the North American continent. The most remarkable are the Wakulla, twelve miles from Tallahassie, of great depth and an icy coldness, which is the best known, and has been described by the competent pen of Castlenau and others, the Silver Spring and

A number of years ago considerable curiosity was excited by the discovery of mummies in Tennessee and Kentucky, and many theories were promulged regarding their origin, but I believe neither that nor their age has, as yet, been satisfactorily determined. Some were found as early as 1775, near Lexington, Kentucky, but we have no definite account of any before those exhumed September 2, 1810, in a copperas cave in Warren county, Tennessee, on the Cany fork of the Cumberland river, ten miles below

The main idea that inspired the Spanish expeditions to Florida was the hope of discovering riches there, equal to the gorgeous opulence of Peru and Mexico. Although the country was supposed to be north of the auriferous zone—in accordance with which geological notion in his map of the world (1529) Diego de Ribero inscribes on the land marked “Tierra de Garay,” north of the Gulf of Mexico, now West Florida, “This land is poor in gold, as it lies too far from the tropic of Cancer” [360] —yet an ab