Tequesta
Regions with significant populations | |
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Present-day South Florida (from 3rd century BCE to mid-18th century) |
The Tequesta, also Tekesta, Tegesta, Chequesta, Vizcaynos, were a
Location and extent
The Tequesta lived in the southeastern parts of present-day
The Tequesta tribe lived on
The Tequesta were more or less dominated by the more numerous
On a map the Dutch cartographer Hessel Gerritsz published in 1630 in Joannes de Laet's History of the New World, the Florida peninsula is labeled "Tegesta" after the tribe.[7] A map from the 18th century labeled the area around Biscayne Bay "Tekesta".[8] A 1794 map by cartographer Bernard Romans labeled this area "Tegesta".[9]
Origins and language
Tequesta | |
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Region | Florida |
Extinct | 18th century |
unclassified (Calusa?) | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | None (mis ) |
07y | |
Glottolog | None |
The archaeological record of the Glades culture, which included the area occupied by the Tequestas, indicates a continuous development of an indigenous ceramics tradition from about 700
Diet
The Tequestas did not practice any form of agriculture. They fished, hunted, and gathered the fruit and roots of local plants. Most of their food came from the sea.
The Tequesta gathered many plant foods, including
The Tequestas changed their habitation during the year. In particular, most of the inhabitants of the main village relocated to barrier islands or to the Florida Keys during the worst of the mosquito season, which lasted about three months. While the resources of the Biscayne Bay area and the Florida Keys allowed for a somewhat settled non-agricultural existence, they were not as rich as those of the southwest Florida coast, home of the more numerous Calusa.[15]
Housing, clothing and tools
Briton Hammon reported that the Tequesta lived in "hutts". Other tribes in southern Florida lived in houses with wooden posts, raised floors, and roofs thatched with palmetto leaves, something like the chickees of the Seminoles. These houses may have had temporary walls of plaited palmetto-leaf mats to break the wind or block the sun.
Clothing was minimal. The men wore a sort of loincloth made from deer hide, while the women wore skirts of Spanish moss or plant fibers hanging from a belt.
Customs
By one account, when the Tequestas for a tradition buried their chiefs, they buried the small bones with the body, and put the large bones in a box for the village people to adore and hold as their gods. Another account says that the Tequestas stripped the flesh from the bones, burning the flesh, and then distributed the cleaned bones to the dead chief's relatives, with the larger bones going to the closest relations.[citation needed]
The Tequesta men consumed cassina, the black drink, in ceremonies similar to those common throughout the southeastern United States.[citation needed]
The Spanish missionaries also reported that the Tequesta worshipped a stuffed
The Tequestas may have practiced
Miami Circle
The Miami Circle[16] is located on the site of a known Tequesta village south of the mouth of the Miami River (probably the town of Tequesta). It consists of 24 large holes or basins, and many smaller holes, which have been cut into bedrock. Together these holes form a circle approximately 38 feet in diameter. Other arrangements of holes are apparent as well. The Circle was discovered during an archeological survey of a site being cleared for construction of a high-rise building. Charcoal samples collected in the circle have been radiocarbon-dated to approximately 100 CE, 1,900 years ago. Radiocarbon-dating of sea shells eaten at the site date back as far as 730 BCE, and suggest a permanent settlement was established here more than 2,700 years ago. The circle is on the south side of the Miami River. Recent archaeological work has found a larger Tequesta site on the north side of the river that likely existed concurrently with the Miami Circle.[17]
Post-European-contact
In
Starting in 1704, it was the policy of the Spanish government to resettle Florida Indians in Cuba so that they could be indoctrinated into the Catholic faith. The first group of Indians, including the cacique of Cayo de Guesos (Key West), arrived in Cuba in 1704, and most, if not all of them, soon died. In 1710, 280 Florida Indians were taken to Cuba, where almost 200 soon died. The survivors were returned to the Keys in 1716 or 1718. In 1732 some Indians fled from the Keys to Cuba.
In early 1743 the Governor of Cuba received a petition from three Calusa chiefs who were visiting in Havana. The petition, which was written in good Spanish and showed a good understanding of how the government and church bureaucracies worked, asked that missionaries be sent to the Cayos (Florida Keys) to provide religious instruction. The Governor and his advisors finally decided it would be cheaper to send missionaries to the Keys rather than bringing the Indians to Cuba, and that keeping the Indians in the Keys would mean they would be available to help shipwrecked Spanish sailors and keep the English out of the area.
The governor sent two
The Spanish missionaries were not well received. The Keys Indians, as the Spanish called them, denied that they had requested missionaries. They did permit a mission to be established because the Spanish had brought gifts for them, but the cacique denied that the King of Spain had dominion over his land, and insisted on tribute for allowing the Spanish to build a church or bring in settlers. The Indians demanded food, rum and clothing, but refused to work for the Spanish. Father Morano reported attacks on the mission by bands of Uchizas (the
Fathers Mónaco and Alaña developed a plan to have a stockade manned by twenty-five soldiers, and to bring in Spanish settlers to grow food for the soldiers and the Indians. They felt that the new settlement would soon supplant the need for St. Augustine. Father Alaña returned to Havana, leaving twelve soldiers and a corporal to protect Father Mónaco.
The governor in Havana was not pleased. He ordered that Father Mónaco and the soldiers be withdrawn, and the stockade burned to deny it to the Uchizas. He also forwarded the missionaries' plan to Spain, where the Council of the Indies decided that the proposed mission on Biscayne Bay would be costly and impractical. The second attempt to establish a mission on Biscayne Bay had lasted less than three months.
When Spain surrendered Florida to Britain in 1763, the remaining Tequestas, along with other Indians that had taken refuge in the Florida Keys, were evacuated to Cuba.[1][18] In the 1770s, Bernard Romans reported seeing abandoned villages in the area, but no inhabitants.
See also
- Pompano Beach Mound: another Tequesta archaeological site
Footnotes
- ^ a b "Questions of preservation after ancient village found in downtown Miami". CNN. February 5, 2014. Retrieved 2014-02-05.
According to Ryan Franklin of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy], the Tequesta lived in South Florida for roughly 2,000 years....Most had died as a result of settlement battles, slavery, and disease. By the time Britain took control of Florida from the Spanish in 1763, with the remnants of their population believed to have migrated to Cuba...
- ^ "The Tequesta of Biscayne Bay". fcit.usf.edu. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
- ^ a b "The Caloosa Village Tequesta A Miami of the Sixteenth Century by Robert E. McNicoll" Archived 2016-09-10 at the Wayback Machine, Florida International University
- ^ Frank 2017: 1-7
- ^ Hann 2003:140-1
- ^ Hann 2003:139
- ^ Ehrenberg, Ralph E. "Marvellous countries and lands," Notable Maps of Florida, 1507-1846 Archived 2008-08-03 at the Wayback Machine, Broward County Library
- ^ "Old Florida Maps", University of Miami Libraries
- ^ "Old Florida Maps", University of Miami Libraries
- ^ Florida Office of Cultural and Historical Programs. P. 89
- ^ a b Austin
- ^ Sauer, p. 51.
- ISBN 978-0-8173-1751-5.
- ^ Austin
Hann 2003:147 - ^ Hann 2003:146
- ^ "Miami Circle", Florida Division of Historical Resources
- ^ Carr, Robert (2014). Digging Miami. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
- ^ "Native Peoples", National Park System, United States Department of the Interior
References
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (February 2014) |
- State of Florida Office of Cultural and Historical Programs. "Chapter 12. South and Southeast Florida: The Everglades Region, 2500 B.P.–Contact". Historic Contexts. Version of 9-27-93. Downloaded from [1] Archived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine on March 27, 2006
- Austin, Daniel W. (1997). "The Glades Indians and the Plants they Used. Ethnobotany of an Extinct Culture." The Palmetto, 17(2):7–11.[2] Archived 2006-05-25 at the Wayback Machine – accessed December 4, 2005
- Brickell Point – Home of the Miami Circle (State of Florida site) Archived 2005-12-18 at the Wayback Machine – accessed December 4, 2005
- Bullen, Adelaide K. (1965). "Florida Indians of Past and Present". In Ruby L. Carson & Charlton Tebeau (Eds.), Florida from Indian trail to space age: a history (Vol. I, pp. 317–350). Southern Publishing Company.
- Escalente Fontaneda, Hernando de. (1944). Memoir of Do. d'Escalente Fontaneda respecting Florida. Smith, B. (Trans.); True, D. O. (Ed.). Miami: University of Miami & Historical Association of Southern Florida.
- Frank, Andrew K. (2017). Before the Pioneers: Indians, Settlers, Slaves, and the Founding of Miami. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
- Goddard, Ives. (2005). The indigenous languages of the Southeast. Anthropological Linguistics, 47 (1), 1–60.
- Hann, John H. (1991). Missions to the Calusa. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
- Hann, John H. (2003). Indians of Central and South Florida: 1513–1763. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2645-8
- ISBN 0-520-01415-4
- Sturtevant, William C. (1978). "The Last of the South Florida Aborigines". In Jeral Milanich & Samuel Proctor (Eds.). Tacachale: Essays on the Indians of Florida and Southeastern Georgia during the Historic Period. ISBN 0-8130-0535-3
- LCCN 68-17768
- The Tequesta of Biscayne Bay – accessed December 4, 2005
- Wenhold, Lucy L. (Ed., Trans.). (1936). A 17th century letter of Gabriel Diaz Vara Calderón, Bishop of Cuba, describing the Indians and Indian missions of Florida. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 95 (16). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.