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The
history of Florida can be traced back to when the
first
Native Americans began to inhabit the peninsula
as early as 12,000 years ago. Spanish explorer
Juan Ponce de León
first arrived and explored the area in 1513.
Prehistory of Florida
Paleo-Indians entered what is
now Florida 14,000 years ago, soon after they are believed
to have crossed over to North
America from Asia. Due to the large
amount of water locked up in glaciers
during the Wisconsin
glaciation, the sea level may have been 100
metres (more than 300 feet) lower than
it is today. As a result, the Florida peninsula had a land
area about twice what it is today. Florida also had a drier
and cooler climate than in more recent times. There were few
flowing rivers or wetlands. Over
large areas of Florida the only fresh water available was in
sinkholes and
limestone catchment basins. As a result most
paleo-indian activity was around the watering holes, and
sinkholes and basins in the beds of modern rivers (such as
the Page-Ladson
prehistory site in the Aucilla
River) have yielded a rich trove of paleo-indian
artifacts, including
Clovis points.
As the
glaciers began retreating about 8000 BCE,
the climate of Florida became warmer and wetter, and the sea
level rose. The paleo-indian culture was replaced by, or
evolved into, the
Early Archaic culture. There were now more people in
Florida, and as they were no longer tied to a few water
holes in an arid land, they left their artifacts in many
more locations. (Archaeologists
have learned much about the Early Archaic people of Florida
from the spectacular discoveries made at
Windover Pond.)
The Early Archaic period evolved into the Middle Archaic
period around 5000 BCE. People started
living in villages near wetlands, and favored sites may have
been occupied for multiple generations. The Late Archaic
period started around 3000 BCE, when Florida's climate had
reached current conditions and the sea had risen close to
its present level. People now lived everywhere there were
fresh or salt water wetlands. Large shell
middens accumulated during this period. Many people
lived in large villages with purpose-built
mounds, such as at the
Horr's Island.
Fired pottery appeared in Florida by 2000 BCE. By about 500
BCE, the Archaic culture that had been fairly uniform across
Florida began to fragment into regional cultures.
The
post-Archaic cultures of eastern and southern Florida
developed in relative isolation, and it is likely that the
peoples living in those areas at the time of first European
contact were direct descendants of the inhabitants of the
areas in late Archaic times. The cultures of the Florida
panhandle and the north and central
Gulf coast of the Florida
peninsula were strongly influenced by the
Mississippian culture,
although there is continuity in cultural history, suggesting
that the peoples of those cultures were also descended from
the inhabitants of the Archaic period. Cultivation of
maize was adopted in the panhandle and
the northern part of the peninsula, but was absent or very
restricted in the tribes that lived south of the
Timucuan-speaking people
(i.e., south of a line approximately from present-day
Daytona Beach, Florida
to a point on or north of Tampa Bay).
Native American tribes
At the time
of first European contact Florida was
inhabited by an estimated 350,000 people belonging to a
number of tribes. The Spanish recorded nearly one hundred
names of groups they encountered, ranging from organized
political entities such as the
Apalachee, with a population of around 50,000, to
villages with no known political affiliation. There were an
estimated 150,000 speakers of dialects of the
Timucua language, but the
Timucua were only organized as groups
of villages, and did not share a common culture. Other
tribes in Florida at the time of first contact included the
Ais, Calusa,
Jaega, Mayaimi,
Tequesta and
Tocobaga. All of these tribes diminished in numbers
during the period of Spanish control of Florida. At the
beginning of the 18th century, tribes from areas to the
north of Florida, supplied, encouraged, and occasionally
accompanied by white colonists
from the Province of
Carolina, raided throughout Florida, burning villages,
killing many of the inhabitants and carrying captives back
to Charles Towne
to be sold as slaves. Most of the villages in Florida were
abandoned and the survivors sought refuge at
St. Augustine, or in
isolated spots around the state. Some of the Apalachee
eventually reached Louisiana, where they survived as a
distinct group for at least another century. The few
surviving members of these tribes were evacuated to
Cuba when Spain transferred Florida to
the British Empire in 1763.
The Seminole, originally an offshoot
of the Creek people who absorbed
other groups, developed as a distinct tribe in Florida
during the 18th century, and are now represented in the
Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the
Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the
Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida.
Spanish rule
According
to popular legend, unlikely to be true, Juan Ponce de León
discovered Florida while searching for the
Fountain of Youth. Although
it is often stated that he sighted the peninsula for the
first time, mistaking it for an island, on
March 27, 1513,
he probably actually saw one of the Bahama islands. He
landed on the east coast of the newly discovered land on
April 2. He named the land La Pascua Florida, or
"Flowery Easter," probably due to the abundant
plant life in the area or to
the fact that he arrived during the Spanish
Easter feast,
Pascua Florida. However, Ponce
de León may not have been the first European to reach
Florida, as he claimed he encountered at least one Indian
who could speak Spanish
[5]
Ponce de León returned with equipment and settlers to start
a colony in 1521, but they were driven off by repeated
attacks from the native population. The earliest records of
inland Florida are those of conquest survivors.
Pánfilo de Narváez's
expedition explored
Florida's west coast in 1528, but was lost at sea upon his
attempted seaward escape to Mexico.
One of his expedition's officers,
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de
Vaca, survived nine years trudging between Florida and
Mexico, returned to Spain and published his observations. He
inspired Hernando de
Soto's invasion of Florida in 1539. Members of his
expedition later published details of Florida's natives,
their lifestyles and behavior. In 1559
Tristán de Luna y
Arellano established a brief settlement in
Pensacola that was
abandoned in 1561.
The
French began taking an interest in the
area as well, leading the Spanish to accelerate their
colonization
plans. Jean Ribault led an
expedition to Florida in 1562, and his associate
René Goulaine de
Laudonnière founded Fort
Caroline in what is now
Jacksonville in 1564 as a haven for the
Huguenots. San Agustín (St.
Augustine), founded in 1565 by
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés,
is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in
any U.S. state; it is second
oldest only to San Juan,
Puerto Rico in the United States' current territory.
From this
base of operations, the Spanish began building
Catholic missions
On
September 20,
1565, Menéndez de Avilés attacked Fort Caroline, killed
all the French soldiers defending it (except Catholics), and
renamed the fort San Mateo. Two years later,
Dominique de
Gourgues recaptured the settlement from the Spanish and
slaughtered all of the Spanish defenders. After the initial
destruction of Fort Caroline, St. Augustine became the most
important settlement in Florida. It was little more than a
fortress for many years, and was frequently attacked and
burned, with most residents killed or fled. It was notably
devastated in 1586, when English sea captain and sometime
pirate Sir Francis Drake
plundered and burned the city.
Roman Catholic
missionaries used St. Augustine as a base of operations, and
established missions throughout what is today the
southeastern United States. Missionaries converted 26,000
natives by 1655, but a revolt in 1656 and an epidemic in
1659 proved devastating. Pirate attacks were unrelenting
against small outposts and even St Augustine.
Throughout
the 17th century, English settlers in
Virginia and the Carolinas
gradually pushed the boundaries of Spanish territory south,
while the French settlements along the
Mississippi River
encroached on the western borders of the Spanish claim. In
1702, English Colonel
James
Moore and allied Yamasee and
Creek Indians attacked and razed
the town of St. Augustine, but they could not gain control
of the fort. In 1704, Moore and his soldiers began burning
Spanish missions in north Florida and executing Indians
friendly with the Spanish. The collapse of the Spanish
mission system and the defeat of the Spanish-allied
Apalachee Indians (the
Apalachee massacre) opened
Florida up to slave raids,
which reached to the Florida Keys and decimated the native
population. The Yamasee War of
1715-1717 resulted in large numbers of Indian refugees, such
as the Yamasee, moving south to Florida. In 1719, the French
captured the Spanish settlement at Pensacola.
The British
and their colonies made war repeatedly, especially in 1702,
and captured St Augustine in 1740. The British were angry
that Spanish officials tolerated and invited runaway slaves
into Florida. Invading Seminoles
killed off most of the local Indians. Florida had about 3000
Spaniards when Britain took control 1763. Nearly all quickly
left. Even though in 1783 control was restored to Spain,
Spain sent no more settlers or missionaries. The US took
control in 1819.
British rule
In 1763,
Spain traded Florida (which, at the time, extended south
only to around the area of present day
Gainesville) to Great
Britain for control of Havana, Cuba,
which had been captured by the British during the
Seven Years' War. Almost the
entire Spanish population left along with most of the
remaining indigenous population. The British divided the
territory into East Florida and
West Florida, and began
aggressive recruitment programs designed to attract settlers
to the area, offering free land and backing for
export-oriented businesses.
East
Florida was the site of the largest single importation of
white settlers in the colonial period, about 1,400 people
indentured by Scottish Physician
Dr. Andrew Turnbull
arrived in July 1768. These people settled at
New Smyrna, where
they began to farm various crops needed in the Empire, such
as indigo, grapes, silk, etc. Unfortunately for them, most
crops did not do well in the sandy Florida soil, and those
that did rarely equaled the quality produced in other areas.
Colonists eventually tired of their servitude and the
increasingly uncompromising nature of Turnbull, who on
several occasions used black slaves to whip his unruly
settlers. The settlement collapsed and the survivors fled to
St. Augustine. Their relatives survive to this day, as does
the name New Smyrna.
In 1767,
the British moved the northern boundary of West Florida to a
line extending from the mouth of the
Yazoo River east to the
Chattahoochee River (32° 28′north latitude), consisting
of approximately the lower third of the present states of
Mississippi and
Alabama. During this time, there was
a migration of Creek Indians into Florida, who would form
the Seminole tribe.
During the
American Revolutionary
War, the Spanish, then allied with the French (who were
actively at war with Britain), took advantage of the
distraction and recaptured portions of West Florida,
including Pensacola.
In 1784, the Treaty of
Paris ending the Revolutionary War returned all of
Florida to Spanish control, but without specifying the
boundaries. The Spanish wanted the expanded boundary, while
the United States demanded the old boundary at the 31st
parallel. In the Treaty of
San Lorenzo of 1795, Spain recognized the 31st parallel
as the boundary.
Second Spanish rule
Spanish
presence was minor during the empire's second rule over
Florida. Spain offered extremely lucrative free land
packages in Florida as a means of attracting settlers, and
foreigners came in droves, especially from the United States.
The territory became a haven for escaped slaves and a base
for Indian attacks, and the U.S. demanded Spain reform.
There were almost no Spanish settlers and only a few
soldiers. In the meantime, American settlers established a
foothold in the area and ignored Spanish officials. British
settlers who had remained also resented Spanish rule,
leading to a rebellion in 1810 and the establishment for
exactly ninety days of the so-called Free and Independent
Republic of West Florida on
September 23. After meetings beginning in June, rebels
overcame the Spanish garrison at
Baton Rouge (now in
Louisiana), and unfurled the flag
of the new republic: a single white star on a blue field.
This flag would later become known as the "Bonnie
Blue Flag".
Throughout
this period, Spain offered land grants to anyone who settled
in Florida. As a result, hundreds of Americans came into the
colony. Once Florida became a U.S. Territory, these grants
-- which the U.S. agreed to honor if found valid -- caused
years of litigation as settlers attempted to prove the
validity of their claims.
On October
27, 1810, parts of West Florida were annexed by proclamation
of U.S. President James Madison,
who claimed the region as part of the
Louisiana Purchase. At
first, purchase negotiator Fulwar
Skipwith and the West Florida government were opposed to
the proclamation, preferring to negotiate terms to join the
Union. However, William
C. C. Claiborne, who was sent to take possession of the
territory, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the West
Florida government. Skipwith proclaimed that he was ready to
"die in defense of the Lone Star flag." However, Skipwith
and the legislature eventually backed down, and agreed to
accept Madison's proclamation. Possession was taken of
St. Francisville
on 6 December 1810, and of Baton Rouge on 10 December 1810.
These portions were incorporated into the newly formed
Orleans Territory. The U.S.
annexed the Mobile District of West Florida to the
Mississippi Territory
in 1812. Spain continued to dispute the area, though the
United States gradually increased the area it occupied.
After
settler attacks on Indian towns,
Seminole Indians based in East
Florida began raiding
Georgia settlements, purportedly at the behest of the
Spanish. The United States
Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish
territory, including the 1817 – 1818 campaign against the
Seminole Indians by Andrew Jackson
that became known as the First
Seminole War. Following the war, the United States
effectively controlled East Florida.
The
Adams-Onís Treaty was
signed between the United States and Spain on
February 22, 1819
and took effect on July 10,
1821. According to the terms of the
treaty, the United States acquired Florida and, in exchange,
renounced all claims to Texas.
Andrew Jackson formally took
control of Florida from Spanish authorities on
July 17, 1821 at
Pensacola.
American rule
Florida became an
organized territory of
the United States on March 30,
1822. The Americans merged
East Florida and
West Florida (although the
majority of West Florida was annexed to
Orleans Territory and
Mississippi Territory),
and established a new capital in
Tallahassee,
conveniently located halfway between the East Florida
capital of St. Augustine and the West Florida capital of
Pensacola. The boundaries of Florida's first two counties,
Escambia and
St. Johns,
approximately coincided with the boundaries of West and East
Florida respectively.
As
settlement increased, pressure grew on the United States
government to remove the Indians from their lands in
Florida. To the chagrin of Georgia landowners, the Seminoles
harbored and integrated runaway
blacks, and clashes between whites and Indians grew with
the influx of new settlers. In 1832, the United States
government signed the
Treaty of Payne's Landing with some of the Seminole
chiefs, promising them lands west of the Mississippi River
if they agreed to leave Florida voluntarily. Many of the
Seminoles left at this time, while those who remained
prepared to defend their claims to the land. White settlers
pressured the government to remove all of the Indians, by
force if necessary, and in 1835, the U.S. Army arrived to
enforce the treaty.
The
Second Seminole War began
at the end of 1835 with the
Dade Massacre, when
Seminoles ambushed Army troops marching from
Fort Brooke (Tampa) to reinforce
Fort King (Ocala), killing or
mortally wounding all but one of the 108 troops. Between 900
and 1,500 Seminole Indian warriors effectively employed hit
and run guerrilla tactics against United States Army troops
for seven years. Osceola, a
charismatic young war leader, came to symbolize the war and
the Seminoles after he was arrested at truce negotiations in
1837 and died in prison less than a year later. The war
dragged on until 1842. The U.S. government is estimated to
have spent between US$20 million and US$40 million on the
war, at the time an astronomical sum. Almost all of the
Seminoles were forcibly exiled to Creek lands west of the
Mississippi; about 300 were allowed to remain in the
Everglades.
On
March 3, 1845,
Florida became the 27th state of the United States of
America. Almost half of the state's population were black
slaves working on plantations.
The Civil War and Reconstruction
Following
Abraham Lincoln's election in
1860, Florida joined other Southern states in seceding from
the Union.
Secession took place
January 10, 1861
and, after less than a month as an independent republic,
Florida became one of the founding members of the
Confederate States
of America. As Florida was an important supply route for
the Confederate Army,
Union forces operated a blockade around the entire state.
Union troops occupied major ports such as
Cedar Key, Jacksonville,
Key West, and Pensacola.
Though numerous skirmishes occurred in Florida, including
the Battle of Natural
Bridge and the Battle
of Gainesville, the only major battle was the
Battle of Olustee near
Lake City.
After
meeting the requirements of Reconstruction, including
amendments to the US
Constitution, Florida was readmitted to the United
States on July 25,
1868.
Tourism industry
During the
late 19th century, Florida started to become a popular
tourist destination as railroads
expanded into the area. Railroad magnate
Henry Plant built a luxury hotel
in Tampa, which later became
the campus for the University
of Tampa. Henry Flagler
built the Florida East
Coast Railway from Jacksonville
to Key West and built numerous luxury hotels along the
route, including in the cities of St. Augustine,
Ormond Beach, and
West Palm Beach.
In February
1888, Florida had a special tourist.
President Grover
Cleveland, the first lady and his party visited Florida
for a couple of days. He visited the Subtropical Exposition
in Jacksonville where he made a speech supporting tourism to
the state; then, he took a train to St. Augustine, meeting
Henry Flagler; and then a train to Titusville, where he
boarded a steamboat and visited Rock Ledge. On his return
trip, he visited Sanford and Winter Park.
The 1920s
were a prosperous time for much of the nation. Florida's new
railroads opened up large areas to development, spurring the
Florida land boom
of the 1920's. Investors of all kinds, mostly from
outside Florida, raced to buy and sell rapidly appreciating
land in newly platted communities such as
Miami and
Palm Beach. A majority of
the people who bought land in Florida were able to do so
without stepping foot in the state, by hiring people to
speculate and buy the land for them. By 1925, the market ran
out of buyers to pay the high prices and soon the boom
became a bust. The 1926
Miami Hurricane further depressed the real estate
market. The Great Depression
arrived in 1929; however, by that time, economic decay
already consumed much of Florida from the land boom that
collapsed four years earlier.
Florida's
first theme parks emerged in the 1930s and include
Cypress Gardens (1936) near
Winter Haven and
Marineland (1938) near
St. Augustine. Walt Disney chose
Central Florida as the site of his planned
Walt Disney World Resort
in the 1960s and began purchasing land. In 1971, the first
component of the resort, The
Magic Kingdom, opened and began the dramatic
transformation of the Orlando
area into a resort destination with a wide variety of themed
parks. Besides Disney, the Orlando area today features theme
parks including
Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld,
and Wet 'n Wild.
Military and space industry
Starting in
the early twentieth century and accelerating as
World War II dawned, the state
has proven itself to be a major hub for the
United States Armed
Forces. Naval Air
Station Pensacola was originally established as a naval
station in 1826 and became the first American naval aviation
facility in 1917. The entire nation mobilized for World War
II and many bases were established in Florida during this
time, including
Naval Air Station Jacksonville,
Naval Station Mayport,
Naval Air Station
Cecil Field, and
Homestead Air Force Base.
Eglin Air Force Base and
MacDill Air Force Base
(now the home of U.S.
Central Command) were also developed during this time.
During the Cold War, Florida's
coastal access and proximity to Cuba continued the
development of these and other military facilities. Since
the end of the Cold War, Florida has seen some facilities
close, including major bases at Homestead and Cecil Field,
but the military presence is still significant.
Due to
Florida's low latitude, it was chosen in 1949 as a test site
for the country's nascent missile program.
Patrick Air Force Base
and the Cape Canaveral
launch site began to take shape as the 1950s progressed. By
the early 1960s, the Space Race
was in full swing and generated a huge boom in the
communities around Cape Canaveral. This area is now
collectively known as the Space Coast
and features the Kennedy
Space Center. It is also a major center of the
aerospace industry. To
date, all manned orbital spaceflights launched by the United
States, including the only men to visit the
Moon, have been launched from Kennedy Space Center.
Since 1945
Florida's
populations are continually changing. After World War II,
Florida was transformed as air
conditioning and the
Interstate highway system encouraged migration from the
north. In 1950, Florida was ranked twentieth among the
states in population; 50 years later it was ranked fourth.
Due to low tax rates and warm climate, Florida became the
destination for many retirees from the Northeast and Canada.
The Cuban Revolution of 1959
led to a large wave of Cuban immigration into South Florida,
which transformed Miami into a major center of commerce,
finance and transportation for all of Latin America.
Immigration from Haiti and other
Caribbean states continues to the
present day.
2000 Presidential election
controversy
Florida
became the battleground of the controversial
2000 US
presidential election, when a count of the popular votes
held on Election Day was extremely close and mired in
accusations of fraud and manipulation. Subsequent recount
efforts degenerated into arguments over mispunched ballots,
"hanging chads," and controversial decisions by the Florida
Secretary of State Katherine
Harris and the Florida
Supreme Court. Ultimately, the
United States Supreme
Court ended all recounts and let stand the official
count by Harris, which was accepted by Congress.
Hurricanes and environment
Hurricanes
and tropical storms are an increasing problem stemming from
Florida's rapidly developing coastal areas.
Hurricane Andrew in 1992
struck Homestead, just
south of Miami, and was, until Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
the most expensive natural disaster in US history. Besides
heavy property damage, the hurricane nearly destroyed the
region's insurance industry.
The western
panhandle of the state was damaged heavily in
1995, with
storms Allison,
Erin, and
Opal hitting the area within
the span of a few months. The storms increased in strength
as the season went on, culminating with Opal's landfall as a
Category 3 in October. Florida also suffered heavily during
the 2004 Atlantic
hurricane season, when no less than four storms struck
the state. Hurricane Charley
made landfall in the Fort Myers area and cut northward
through the peninsula,
Hurricane Frances struck the Atlantic coast and drenched
most of central Florida with heavy rains,
Hurricane Ivan caused heavy
damage in the western Panhandle, and
Hurricane Jeanne caused
damage to the same area as Frances, including compounded
beach erosion. Damage from all four storms was estimated to
be at least $22 billion, with some estimates going as high
as $40 billion. In 2005, South Florida was struck twice
again by Hurricane Katrina
and Hurricane Wilma. The
panhandle was struck by
Hurricane Dennis in 2005 as well.
Environmental issues include preservation and restoration of
the Everglades and how to respond to pressure to drill for
oil in the eastern
Gulf of Mexico. To date,
large-scale drilling off of the coasts of Florida has been
prevented.
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