Abstract
The Indians of Florida were hostile to white explorers, adventurers, colonists, and missionaries from the time of Ponce de León’s encounter in 1513 until 1710 when it was reported, “there remains not now so much as one Village with ten Houses in it, in all Florida, that is subject to the Spaniards.“ These were the Apalachee and Timucua Indians of northwest and central Florida, but it is known that the Tocobago Indians had been destroyed by 1709. The Ais, never many in number, seem to have disappeared sometime during the first half of the eighteenth century, and the Tekesta were finally exterminated by bands of raiding Creeks. Some historians believe the last remnants of these and the Calusa Indians went to Havana with the Spaniards in 1763, but there is evidence that a few Calusa Indians remained near Charlotte Harbor and later supported the Seminoles.
Recommended Citation
Purdy, Barbara A.
(1976)
"Weapons, Strategies, and Tactics of the Europeans and the Indians in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Florida,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 55:
No.
3, Article 3.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol55/iss3/3
