Regions

Southwest Florida

The people of this region lived in villages adjacent to the saltwater harbors, sounds, and bays that provided foods, especially fish and shellfish. They practiced little or no agriculture and built huge mounds from discarded shells and other debris. Bone, wood, plant fibers, and shell provided materials for their tools. Canoes were an important means of transportation. Native Americans in other parts of the country built canals for irrigation, but southwest Florida peoples dug canals to create shortcuts across islands and isthmuses to aid canoe travel. Inland, some of these canals stretched for miles and were thirty feet wide.

Key Marco
This important archaeological site in southwest Florida is unique for its large number and variety of wooden, shell, bone, antler, fiber, and stone objects. Key Marco’s artifacts likely were made between ca. A.D. 500 and 1500. A devastating storm probably wrecked the village and buried its contents in muck, preserving the organic objects.

Wooden masks (Reproductions based on paintings of the original Key Marco masks)
The carved and painted masks likely were worn during religious ceremonies.

The Calusa
The Calusa were the dominant group in southwest Florida when Juan Ponce de León visited the region in 1513. Their capital, a village with mounds and canals, was located on Mound Key. The Calusa were among the most numerous, politically complex, and influential of the south Florida Native groups. They lived in a structured society where the chief, his family, and other elites occupied the top level. Beneath them were commoners and then enslaved people. Some slaves were Spaniards captured from shipwrecks. Various south Florida tribes paid tribute to the powerful Calusa chief.

Southeast Florida

Native people in this region lived in small villages along the coast and inland around freshwater sources. Their ways of life were similar to other groups in the lower half of the peninsula. They gathered plants, hunted animals, fished, and collected shellfish for food. They were the first Florida Native people to have recorded contact with Spaniards. In the 1500s, the Native tribes in the region included the Tequesta, Ais, Jeaga, and Mayaimi. The Matecumbe lived in the Keys.

Coontie plant
Some tribes made bread from plant roots, probably from a coontie plant like the one shown here.

Photo by David Stang, Wikimedia Commons

Central Florida’s Gulf Coast

The Gulf Coast environment provided plenty of food, such as fish, shellfish, wild game, and plants. The Indigenous people of this region, like their south Florida neighbors, did not grow corn. In some villages, they constructed platform mounds and built houses or temples on top. Some groups also buried their dead in mounds.

Safety Harbor Region
The people who lived here belonged to the Safety Harbor culture, which extended from Charlotte Harbor north to the Withlacoochee River. When the Spaniards visited this region in the mid-1500s, the Tocobaga, Uzita, and Mocoso were living around Tampa Bay.

Safety Harbor Mound
Mounds were important features of the Native-built environment throughout Florida. Building mounds was a labor-intensive process. Individuals collected soil by the basketful and transported it to the mound site.

Safety Harbor Mound, PI00002. Florida Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, Tallahassee, Florida

North Florida

The people of this region were associated with the St. Johns archaeological culture. The St. Johns people built mounds and lived under chiefs, as did many other Native cultures in southeastern North America. They grew some maize (corn), but to a lesser extent than Native groups to the west. Most large villages were along waterways. The natural resources provided by water environments, like the St. Johns River, yielded food and other materials that people needed to survive.

At least twenty-five tribes, such as the Potano, Ocale, and Saturiwa, occupied the St. Johns region. Although they spoke dialects of the Timucua language and shared other cultural traits, they were not a single unified group. In fact, some groups occasionally engaged in warfare with each other.

In the Fields, ca. 1591
This engraving by Theodor de Bry depicts Timucuan men and women tilling and planting in the field.
Although de Bry’s depictions of Florida’s Indigenous people have been criticized for their inaccuracies,
sources note that Timucuan men and women tended crops.

Library of Congress Rare Book Division

Timucuan Culture
Like many other tribes of the southeastern United States, Timucuan society was matrilineal, meaning that relationships were defined through the maternal line. Children belonged to the clan of their mother. Individuals belonged to specific clans, generally named after an animal.

Strict divisions between men and women existed in Timucuan society. Hunting and warfare were in the male domain. Women gathered wild plants, tended small gardens, helped with field crops, and prepared meals. Men and women did not eat together. Except for ceremonial occasions, only men were allowed inside the village council house.

Northwest Florida

More than 1,000 years ago, the people who lived between the Aucilla and Apalachicola rivers began to grow corn (maize) as a major food source. This was due, in part, to the rich clay soils of the region. Their emphasis on growing corn set the people of northwest Florida apart from other Florida Indigenous people.

Fort Walton Region
The Fort Walton region stretched from the Aucilla River perhaps to Pensacola Bay. Emphasis on farming decreased west of the Apalachicola River.

Lake Jackson Mounds
An important ceremonial center of the Fort Walton region was the large town near present-day Lake Jackson in Tallahassee. Priests or ceremonial officials probably lived at this site, which had seven mounds. However, most of the population lived in villages nearby. The site may have been in use from about A.D. 1250 to 1500. Lake Jackson was an important center of Mississippian culture.

Lake Jackson Breastplate (reproduction)
This is one of several copper breastplates found at Lake Jackson. Since copper is not native to Florida, the breastplates likely were trade objects from distant areas. Fort Walton people viewed such high-status objects as symbols of power. This breastplate depicts a hawk dancer figure, a prominent symbol in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of the Mississippian people.

Courtesy of the Florida Division of Historical Resources

Galena
Galena was a lead ore that the people of northwest Florida obtained through trade. The sources of galena are found more than 400 miles from Florida. Native people may have ground galena into fine particles and used it as body paint. Other Native groups in Florida also received galena through exchange networks.

Courtesy of the Florida Division of Historical Resources

Apalachee
The Apalachee were among the groups that lived in this region at the time of European contact. They were one of the most populous and powerful groups in Florida. Like their Fort Walton culture ancestors, they raised corn as a major food source.
They also fished, hunted, and gathered wild plants.

Connection to Mississippian Culture
Archaeologists generally refer to the agricultural peoples of eastern North America as Mississippian. The people of northwest Florida were considered Mississippians. The Mississippian way of life centered on agriculture, and their societies were organized into chiefdoms ruled by powerful leaders. Mississippian groups traded extensively with each other.