Digging Miami

6. European Contact: The Transition to Extinction

6 European Contact The Transition to Extinction The arrival of Columbus in the New World was perceived by the peaceful Lucayan Indians of the Bahamas as a celestial event. The Lucayans believed that Columbus and his crew were gods and that they and their three ships had sailed from the heavens. The Indians of Mexico gave similar reverence to Cortes and his mounted army when the Spanish arrived at Veracruz in 1519, but those beliefs were quickly dispelled when it was observed that the Spanish and their horses were subject to bleeding and even death when wounded—obviously less than adequate behavior for gods. We know nothing of what perceptions Florida’s natives had when they viewed their first Europeans. Although Juan Ponce de León is given credit for discovering Florida in 1513, there is a possibility that other Europeans had been shipwrecked on Florida’s coast previous to his visit. The vulnerability of shipwrecked Europeans did not invite perceptions of immortality, and it is possible that Indians fleeing the Spanish slave raids in the Bahamas and Cuba may have provided helpful clues to Florida natives as to the true character of Spanish intentions and thus set a somber reception for the earliest European visitors. It is known that when Ponce de León made his two Florida voyages he was attacked by Indians several times and eventually received a mortal wound from an Indian arrow while somewhere on the southwest Florida coast. The Florida native perception of the Europeans in the early sixteenth century is best summarized in a chilling account of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s 1522 Florida expedition when he discovered on a beach near Tampa Bay three packing boxes typically used for shipping goods to Spain—each containing a butchered Spaniard, all apparent victims of the local reception committee.1 Native Floridians, however, had no monopoly on cruelty. The Spanish equaled them in murders and atrocities, and this climate of hostility continued until Pedro Menéndez de Avilés scored a major diplomatic Part II. Failed Settlements: The European Legacy 122 coup by establishing a shaky alliance with the chiefs of the Calusa and the Tequesta in 1567–68. The Spanish Landings It is believed that Ponce de León anchored near Key Biscayne, which is undoubtedly the island he refers to as Santa Marta. There he would have found fresh water, deer, and no shortage of other food. The earliest historic reference to the Indian village of Tequesta at the mouth of the Miami River is Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas’s reference to Chequesta.2 It is possible that his knowledge of this village is based on a visit there by Ponce de León. Historians are uncertain of the exact facts of his Florida exploration because his log books have disappeared and our knowledge is largely attributed to Herrera, who had access to the log books. The Pineda map of Florida (1519) is believed by some historians to have its origins from Ponce’s Florida voyages. Much to the frustration of scholars, the vagueness and omissions in the written record are matched by a shortage of physical evidence buried in the ground to demonstrate the exact location of any landings. This sparseness in the archaeological record is because the early and brief visits by Europeans left little evidence that has been preserved, having been subjected to storms, beach erosion, and development over the centuries. If Ponce de León filled his water casks at Key Biscayne, short of him carving his name on a limestone slab or leaving a stone cross, there is little that an archaeologist can find that would conclusively identify such a landing . And don’t think people haven’t looked for his artifacts. The Fountain of Youth Park in St. Augustine rested its claim of authenticity based on the owner’s “discovery” of two impressive Ponce de León relics. In 1913, the owner revealed the discovery of an embossed metal goblet. No less impressive was the uncovering by his workmen of a stone cross carefully constructed from rocks. The owner noted that there were thirteen stones forming the horizontal arm and fifteen stones forming the vertical. With obvious satisfaction, he interpreted these numbers as representing the year 1513, the date of Ponce de León’s landing. In reality, both the cross and the goblet were forgeries manufactured solely to increase tourism at the park. In fact, some historians suggest that Ponce’s most northerly...