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Discover Mid-America — April 2008
Uncovering the mysteries
of the Calusa
Most people think of “old Florida” in terms of the 1930s and ‘40s when northerners started wintering in the “Sunshine State.” But the real “old Floridians” were in tropical Florida long before the “snowbirds.”
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The Calusa, a powerful Native American culture, came to the area shortly after the birth of Christ. As many as 10,000 lived on the islands off the coast of present-day Ft. Myers, plying the estuaries in canoes, and enjoying a rich diet of fish and shellfish, fruit, nuts and occasional venison.
They lacked stone, but used shells for tools, utensils and ornaments. Palm fiber was used for rope, nets, fishing lines, mats, roofs, and basic clothing. Using shells, they carved wooden art objects and painted them in bright colors.
During more than 1,500 years they lived in Florida, the Calusa built huge shell mounds and major canals across Pine Island. H.M. Simons, who explored the area in 1884, described the Calusa canal that connected Pine Island Sound with Matlacha Pass.
“Straight across the island … there runs a canal or ditch which passes two ponds and another mound in the center of the island … it shortened the distance to Matlacha Channel fully ten miles for canoes.”
Remnants of the canals, burial mounds and shell mounds can be seen today at the 50-acre Randell Research Center in Pineland on the western side of Pine Island. There is also a 3,700-foot self-guided “Calusa Heritage Trail,” with detailed information signs. Since 1988, archaeologists have conducted digs at the site, now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Michael Wylde, the site manager, said archaeology is painstaking and not as glamorous as some think.
“Most of our work is not digging,” he said. “For each artifact, there are 60 to 80 hours of lab work involved.”
John Paeno, who worked at the site in 2004, described some of the digs that were done on “Surf Clam Ridge.” Archaeologists “did a test hole and carbon dated an artifact at water level that went back to 50 B.C.,” he said.
Paeno, who conducts “Ghost Tours” of Calusa sites on and around Pine Island, showed me some shell mounds along Jug Creek in January while we were kayaking.
“A home was built on one of the mounds,” he said, “and two owners have lived there. Both experienced household items moving by themselves and other ghostly phenomena. Many around here believe the ghosts of the Calusa are real and are still with us.”
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Storms frequently uncover artifacts. Paeno said he was walking along a beach a few years ago when he discovered a row of shells that were determined to be weights for Calusa nets. Paeno also showed me his collection of recreated palm fiber ropes and cords, a woven loincloth, shell hatchet, conch-shell horn, and carved masks made to resemble the Calusa originals.
Paeno demonstrated the use of the atlatl, a device used by the Calusa to multiply the distance a spear-like dart could be thrown. After a couple of attempts, Paeno heaved the three-foot dart a remarkable distance.
“Their skill with the atlatl was amazing,” he said. “An experienced dart thrower would be a formidable foe in combat.”
Written accounts of the Calusa go back at least to 1513 when Juan Ponce de Leon (of the “Fountain of Youth” legend) first landed in Florida, probably close to the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River near present-day Ft. Myers. At that time, the Calusa lived in several communities, one of the largest being the Pineland site, then called “Tanpa.” (Later, cartographers would relocate and rename it Tampa.)
Ponce de Leon discovered the Calusa were fierce fighters and learned that their atlatl-propelled darts could pierce Spanish breastplates. Frustrated, Ponce de Leon left the area. When he returned in 1521, bent on revenge, a Calusa dart found its mark, and Ponce de Leon retreated to Cuba, to be treated for a serious thigh injury. Cuban doctors made it worse and he died from infection.
In 1566, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, founder of St. Augustine and Governor of Spanish Florida, sought peace with the Calusa, marrying the sister of their leader, Carlos. Before leaving the area, Menéndez established a Jesuit mission at Mound Key near the mouth of the Estero River and left a garrison of soldiers to guard it.
The Calusa resisted efforts of the Jesuits to convert them to Christianity. In 1567, a missionary, Juan Rogel, wrote: “They said to me that their forebears had lived under (their) law from the beginning of time and they also wanted to live under it, that I should let them be, that they did not want to listen to me.”
By 1569, after repeated clashes with the Calusa, both mission and garrison were abandoned.
More than a century later, another group, the Franciscans, attempted to establish a mission among the Calusa. In 1697, one of the monks, Fray Feliciano Lopez, described the temple in a village on Mound Key, near present-day Estero.
“It was a very tall and long house” he wrote, “with its door and an opening, in the middle an incline or hillock, very high, and upon it a sort of room made of mats and benches, all enclosed. They dance around it, and all the walls are full of masks, one worse than the other.”
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This mission effort failed as well, and the Franciscans left after a few months.
Meanwhile, many Calusa villages were ravaged by cholera and measles, introduced by the Spanish. In the early 1700s, slave raids by Yamasee and Creek tribes from Georgia and South Carolina decimated the remaining Calusa population. The invaders had acquired British firearms, and they overwhelmed the Calusa, who abandoned their Pineland settlement in 1711.
By 1763, when the Spanish turned Florida over to the British, the once-great Calusa were scattered over southern Florida. Some 270 requested amnesty in Cuba, and were admitted. Of these, 200 quickly died of disease. The rest became part of the Cuban population. What happened to the remaining Florida Calusans is a mystery. Some say they intermarried with the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes, but it’s only a theory.
All we know for sure is that the Calusa were a big – and mysterious – part of Florida history. Thanks to the Randell Research Center and their volunteers, we’re gradually learning more about them.
Discover the Randell Research Center at www.flmnh.ufl.edu/RRC. For more on the Calusa Ghost Tours, visit www.calusaghosttours.com.
Ken Weyand can be reached at kweyand1@kc.rr.com
> Traveling with Ken Archive — past columns
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