The country received its pretty and appropriate name, Terra florida, the Flowery Land, from Juan Ponce de Leon, who also has the credit of being its discoverer. He first saw its shores on Easter Sunday, March 27, 1513 – not 1512, as all the text books have it, as on that year Easter Sunday came on April 20th.
At that time it was inhabited by a number of wild tribes, included in two families, the Timucuas, who dwelt on the lower St. John, and the Chahta-Muskokis, who possessed the rest of the country. In later times, the latter were displaced by others of the same stock known as Seminoles (isti semoli, wild men, or strangers). A remnant of these still exist, several hundred in number, living on and around Lake Okee-chobee, in the same state of incorrigible savagery that they ever were, but now undisturbed and peaceful.
The remains of the primitive inhabitants are abundant over the Peninsula. Along the sea shores and water courses are numerous heaps of shells, bones and pottery, vestiges of once populous villages; small piles of earth and “old fields” in the interior still witness to their agricultural character; and large mounds from ten to twenty-five feet in height filled with human bones testify to the pious regard they felt toward their departed relatives, and the care with which, in accordance with the traditions of their race, they preserved the skeletons of the dead. As for those “highways” and “artificial lakes” which the botanist Bartram thought he saw on the St. John river, they have not been visible to less enthusiastic eyes. Mounds of stones, of large size and enigmatic origin, have also been found (Prof. Jeffries Wyman).
For half a century after its discovery, no European power attempted to found a colony in Florida. Then, in 1562, the celebrated French Huguenot, Admiral de Coligny, sent over a number of his own faith and nation, who erected a fort near the mouth of the St. John. As they were upon Spanish territory, to which they had no right, and were peculiarly odious to the Spanish temper by their religion, they met an early and disastrous fate. They were attacked and routed in 1565 by a detatchment of Spaniards under the command of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a soldier of distinction. The circumstance was not characterized by any greater atrocity than was customary on both sides in the religious wars of the sixteenth century, but it has been a text for much bitter writing since, and was revenged a few years after by a similar massacre by a French Protestant, Dominique de Gourgues, and a party of Huguenots.
Pedro Menendez established at once (1565) the city of St. Augustine and showed himself a capable officer. Under the rule of his successors the Spanish sway gradually extended over the islands of the eastern coast, and the region of middle Florida. The towns of St. Marks and Pensacola were founded on the western coast, and several of the native tribes were converted to Christianity.
This prosperity was rudely interrupted in the first decade of the eighteenth century by the inroads of the Creek Indians, instigated and directed by the English settlers of South Carolina. The churches were burned, the converts killed or scattered, the plantations destroyed, and the priests driven to the seaport towns.
The colony languished under the rule of Spain until, in 1763, it was ceded to Great Britain. Some life was then instilled into it. Several colonies were planted on the St. John river and the sea coast, and a small garrison stationed at St. Marks.
In 1770 it reverted once more to Spain, under whose rule it remained in an uneasy condition until 1821, when it was purchased by the United States for the sum of five million dollars. Gen. Andrew Jackson was the first Governor, and treated the old inhabitants in his usual summary manner. In 1824 the seat of government was fixed at Tallahassee, the site of an old Indian town.
At the time of the purchase there were about 4,000 Indians and refugee negroes scattered over the territory. These very soon manifested that jealousy of their rights, and resentment against the whites, which have ever since been their characteristics. From the time of the cession until the out-break of our civil struggle, the soil of Florida was the scene of one almost continual border war. The natives gave ground very slowly, and it was estimated that for every one of them killed or banished beyond the Mississippi by our armies, the general government expended ten thousand dollars.
2. – BOOKS AND MAPS
The facts which I have here sketched in barest outline have been told at length by many able writers. The visitor to the scene of so many interesting incidents should provide himself with some or all of the following works, which will divert and instruct him in many a lagging hour:
Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World. This contains an admirably written account of the Huguenot colony on the St. John.
Fairbanks, The Spaniards in Florida. (Published by Columbus Drew, Jacksonville, Florida.) An excellent historical account of the Spanish colony.
Sprague, History of the Florida War. This is a correct and vivid narrative of the struggle with the Seminoles. The book is now rarely met with in the trade.
Gen. George A. McCall, Letters from the Frontiers. (Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1868.) These letters are mostly from Florida, and contain many interesting pictures of army life and natural scenery there.
R. M. Bache, The Young Wrecker of the Florida Reef. (Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, Philadelphia, 1869.) This is a “book for boys,” and is interesting for all ages. The author was engaged on the Coast Survey, and describes with great power and accuracy the animal and vegetable life of the Southern coast.
Life of Audubon. (Putnam & Son, 1869.) This contains a number of letters of the great ornithologist while in Florida.
A detailed description of the earlier works on the peninsula can be found in a small work I published some years ago, entitled “The Floridian Peninsula, Its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities.” (For sale by the publishers of the present book.)
On the Antiquities of the Peninsula. Prof. Jeffries Wyman, of Harvard College, published, not long since, a very excellent article in the second volume of the American Naturalist.
Every tourist should provide himself with a good State map of Florida. The best extant is that prepared and published by Columbus Drew, of Jacksonville, Florida, in covers, for sale by the publishers of this work. Two very complete partial maps have been issued by the U. S. government, the one from the bureau of the Secretary of War, in 1856, entitled, “A Military Map of the Peninsula of Florida South of Tampa Bay,” on a scale of 1 to 400,000, the other from the U. S. Coast Survey office in 1864, drawn by Mr. H. Lindenkohl, embracing East Florida north of the 29th degree, on a scale of 10 miles to the inch. The latter should be procured by any one who wishes to depart from the usual routes of tourists.
3. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF FLORIDA
1. Geological Formation
Florida is a peninsula extending abruptly from the mainland of the continent in a direction a little east of south. It is nearly 400 miles in length, and has an average width of 130 miles. Its formation is peculiar. Every other large peninsula in the world owes its existence to a central mountain chain, which affords a stubborn resistance to the waves. Florida has no such elevation, and mainly a loose, low, sandy soil. Let us study this puzzle.
The Apalachian (usually and incorrectly spelled Appalachian) plain, sloping from the mountains to the Gulf of Mexico, lies on a vast bed of tertiary, limestone and sand rock. About the thirtieth parallel of north latitude this plain sinks to the sea level, except in middle Florida, where it still remains 200 feet and more in height. This elevation gradually decreases and reaches the water level below the 28th parallel, south of Tampa Bay. It forms a ridge or spine about sixty miles in width, composed of a porous limestone somewhat older than the miocene group of the tertiary rocks, a hard blueish limestone, and a friable sand rock.1 Around this spine the rest of the peninsula has been formed by two distinct agencies.
Between the ridge and the Atlantic ocean is a tract of sandy soil, some forty miles in width, sloping very gently to the north. It is low and flat, and is drained by the St. John river. So little fall has this noble stream that 250 miles from its mouth it is only 12 miles distant from an inlet of the ocean, and only 3 feet 6 inches above tide