Palm Beach County's Ancient 'Transit Networks'

By Bob Davidsson
        Centuries before the paving of I-95 and the Dixie Highway, or the building of Henry Flagler's FEC Railway, and even before the clearing of the Military Trail in 1838, Palm Beach County had an ancient transportation network used by its four native American nations.
        The original inhabitants of Florida did not live in isolated villages. The peninsula's natural waterways served as trade routes providing interconnectivity between tribes from the mouth of the St. John's River south to the Florida Keys.
        Evidence of inter-tribal commerce is apparent from the excavated burial mounds and village middens scattered throughout the county, from Lake Okeechobee northeast to the Jupiter Inlet and south to the Hillsboro River.
        Pottery shards and artifacts produced by the distant Timuqua Indians of northeast Florida are found in local mounds. So are artifacts from the Calusa Mound Building culture of southwest Florida, as well as beads and metal trade items from Spain's lonely outpost of St. Augustine during the First Spanish Colonial Period (1513-1763).
        The native inhabitants of Palm Beach County - the Jeaga, Tequesta, Santaluces and Maymi nations - established permanent villages about 3,000 years ago. Their place of origin is unknown.
        Spanish and English captives observed the tribes were able to communicate and perhaps shared a common root language unrelated to their Timuquan and Muskogean-speaking neighbors to the north. One recent theory is the South Florida tribes were late arrivals on the peninsula from beyond the sea.
        In theory, these seafarers followed in the wake of the Taino and Carib tribes in their journey from the north coast of South America, slowly island-hopping their way up the Caribbean island chain to Cuba and the Bahamas, until reaching their final destination in Florida.
        Recent genetic research conducted by a team led by University of Copenhagen scientists revealed a DNA sampling from the remains of a Lucayan-Taino inhabitant of Eleuthera island in the Bahamas was traced back to the Arawakan culture of northern South America. Future DNA testing of South Florida's native American inhabitants may one day solve the mystery of their place of origin too.
        The Florida Straits were not a barrier to these ancient nautical travelers. During most of the Spanish Colonial Period, Tequesta and Calusa sailors made the 106-mile voyage from the Florida Keys to Cuba in large dugout canoes to obtain trade goods in Havana.
        Whatever the origins of Palm Beach County's original inhabitants, upon arrival they adapted well to their new environment and fully utilized its natural resources and waterways.

Ancient Trade Routes and Waterways
        The opening of Florida's Intracoastal Waterway in 1912 was hailed in Tallahassee as a milestone in the history of Florida. The protected inland waterway provided vessels with an unimpeded passage from Miami to Jacksonville by dredging canals between existing coastal lagoons.
        Florida's original inhabitants used the same network of lagoons for trade and communications between tribes. From north to south the system of lagoons are the Tolomato in Duval County, the Matanzas River of St. Johns County, the Halifax River of Volusia County, and Brevard County's Mosquito Lagoon, Indian River Bay and the 120-mile Indian River Itself.
        The Indian River merges with the St. Lucie at Sewell's Point, with one branch continuing south into Martin County, where after passing through a shallow maze of mangroves, it met the Jupiter Narrows west of Jupiter Island at Hobe Sound.
       South of the Jupiter Inlet, the ancient Loxahatchee River portage was dredged to form a canal linked to Little Lake Worth and the 20-mile Lake Worth Lagoon. A second canal was dredged in the early 20th century to connect Lake Worth to the Spanish River, Lake Boca and the mouth of the Hillsboro River.
        Completing the coastal waterway were the Hillsboro Inlet and New River estuaries in Broward, connected by the Stranahan River to the northern end of Biscayne Bay near the Dade County line. This southern coastal route connected Tequesta villages located in modern Dade, Broward and southern Palm Beach counties.
        In the year 1575, Florida Lieutenant Governor Juan Lopez de Velasco reported, "The River Ais (Indian River) is at 27 degrees north. It is a small one that only boats (barcos) can enter. And from it up to Cape Canaveral the coast runs north-south until the cove of the same cape, which takes a turn to the northeast. The coast is clear and anchorable, although there is no port along its length."
        The Ais nation were masters of the Indian River (Rio de Ais), controlling the coastal trade routes from Cape Canaveral south to the St. Lucie River. Shipwrecked captive Jonathan Dickinson reported the "Cacique of Ais" was the head of his village and "commander of the northern part of this coast."
        The Spanish named Indian River Bay "Laguna de Ais" on their charts. The Mosquito Lagoon was called "Laguna de Surruque," - the name for the northern branch of Ais tribe on Cape Canaveral. The portage haulover connecting the two bays was known as  "Potopotoya" in the native Ais dialect.
        The caciques of Ais, located in their main village of "Jece," described as hidden among the mangroves on the Indian River barrier island, negotiated treaties and trade agreements with the eastern branch of the Timuqua tribe, located north of Ponce de Leon (Mosquito) Inlet.
       The Ais leaders also formed alliances with the linguistically related Mayaca tribe to the west, and with their smaller Santaluces and Jeaga neighbors to the south through marriage agreements.
        The primary vessels used in trade by the coastal tribes were dugout canoes made from local slash pines and other conifers. Native craftsmen stripped the bark from the logs and carved indented passenger compartments in the center using stone tools and fire. Iron axes from the Spanish were rare but highly valued for this work.
        Some of the larger canoes were seaworthy and could hold up to 30 persons. To haul freight or for ceremonial displays of power, the coastal tribes would lash two canoes to create a catamaran with a raised center platform.
        In his 1697 journal, Dickinson described one such vessel during a visit of the Cacique of Ais to obtain tribute from the Jeaga Indians at their main village of Hobe (Hoe-bay), located on the south shore of Jupiter Inlet.
        "We all drew down to waterside to receive him," the shipwrecked merchant wrote. "We perceived he came in state, having two canoes lashed together with poles athwart from the one to the other, making a platform, which being covered with a mat, on it stood a chest which was belonging to us. Upon the chest he sat cross-legged, being newly painted in red, his men with poles setting the canoes unto the shore."
         The Jupiter Inlet and the Loxahatchee River estuary appeared on early Spanish maps as the "Rio Jobe." Jeaga villages were located on both shores of the inlet, as well as Jupiter Island to the north and Singer Island to the south.
        The Spanish also were aware of the long body of water south of the Jupiter Inlet today named Lake Worth in honor of William Jenkins Worth, the U.S. Army commander who brought the Second Seminole War to  close. It appeared on Spanish 17th century navigation charts as the "Rio Jeaga," or occasionally as the "Laguna de Gega," located "five leagues south of the Rio Jobe".
        In his 1575 "Memoirs," Hernando de Escalante Fontenada, a hostage of the Calusa tribe, identified Palm Beach as "Jeaga Island". He recounted the ill-fated expedition of  Lucas Vasquez d'Allyon (1475-1526) to establish a colony in the Carolinas. Fontenada's information source were Indians from the "Island of Yeaga" who had encountered Allyon's fleet of six ships.
        One of Allyon's ship captains was Pedro de Quexo, an Hispaniola slave merchant who prowled the southeast coast of Florida from Cape Canaveral to the Florida Keys during the 1520s. This early slave trade left a legacy of hostility between the coastal tribes and Spain which would cost the lives of hundreds of shipwrecked seaman.
        No friend of the coastal tribes, Spanish Governor Pedro Menendez Marques gave the following testimony in 1573: "This witness knows that Cacique Jega, who is on the coast of the Bahamas Channel, slew 25 Spanish men and one woman with child, and these same Indians captured a mother with two daughters, young maidens, and a little boy and one sailor, which this witness saw in the power of the cacique they call Ais who is the father-in-law of said Jega."
        The discoverer of Florida, Juan Ponce de Leon, was himself forced to repel an attack by resident Jeaga Indians when he entered their Jupiter Inlet (Rio de la Cruz) in search of water for his ships.
        The captain of Ponce de Leon's flagship, the "Santa Maria de Consolacion," was an infamous Hispaniola slave trader named Juan Bono de Quejo, known to early Spanish missionaries as "Juan the Bad". Bono may have been aware of the Florida peninsula in advance of Ponce de Leon's 1513 voyage of discovery from his prior slave raids in the Bahamas.
        The inland waterway of Lake Worth was veiled from roving conquistadors, slavers and pirates by the barrier island made of Anastasia coquina limestone covered with sand and thick subtropical vegetation.
        After the besieged Spanish outpost of Santa Lucia, located north of  Jupiter Inlet, was abandoned in March 1566, there was no further effort to colonize the Palm Beaches. (See "Navidad at Fort Santa Lucia: 1565" archived in Older Posts.)
        The principal village of  "Jeaga," the namesake for the tribe, is known to archeologists as the Rivera Beach Mound Complex. A long fish-shaped mound 150 feet wide and 10 feet high was once located near the current site of the Port of Palm Beach.
        Directly opposite of the village of Jeaga on Singer Island was the so-called "Palm Beach Inlet Midden". Jeaga village sites dotted both shores of Lake Worth. The largest, located in the Town of Palm Beach, was the Guest Mound.
        The Guest Mound was 18 feet high and 100 feet in width. It featured a village on its summit visible from the sea. The site may be the village of "Abaioa" described by 16th century Spanish Royal Historian Antonio de Herrera in his history of Ponce de Leon's voyage of discovery in May  1513.
        Herrera reported, "They came upon and anchored behind a cape close to the village named Abaioa. All this coast, from Punta de Arrafices until this Cabo de Corrientes (Cape of Currents), runs north-south to the southeast, and the water is clear with a depth of six fathoms."
        The Jeaga villages along Lake Worth were part of a self-contained coastal riverine environment providing all the food sources and natural resources needed by the inhabitants. It was bordered by the ocean to the east and the Atlantic Coast Ridge to the west, which also marked the beginning of the Everglades.
        The mainland villages, such as the Littlefield Mound site in West Palm Beach, may have been used seasonally for hunting and fishing in the chain-of-lakes west of the ridge line. Before it was destroyed by 20th century development, the village site was 500 feet long and stood about six feet above the surrounding ground surface.
        The best example of seasonal use of village sites was the Boynton Inlet Mound, located by the ocean at the southern end of Lake Worth, and its corresponding western Boynton Mounds Complex, adjacent to the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.
        The Boynton Mounds site is the farthest inland of the Jeaga villages, nearly 20 miles west of its companion village on the coast. Its location within the Everglades had a dual purpose. Not only was the site used for seasonal hunting and gathering, but as a terminus on a trade route leading to Palm Beach County's ancient transportation hub at Big Mound City.

The Ancient 'Intermodal Transit Center' of the Palm Beaches
         Big Mound City is the largest native American earthwork in southeast Florida. The 143-acre site is 10 miles east of Canal Point within the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area. Due to its unique historical value, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
       The huge archaeological site consists 23 mounds, including the Big Gopher Mound. The largest mound is 220 feet in diameter and is elevated 25 feet above the surrounding marshes and pineland forest. Extending from the mound are causeways used during periods of flooding.
        Archaeologists surmise Big Mound City was originally part of the Belle Glade Mound culture and was occupied for about 800 years. During the Spanish Colonial Period, the city was within the territory of the Santaluces tribe (also referred to as the Guacata in early Spanish records).
        In his Memoirs, Fontenada wrote, "They (the Calusa) are masters of a large district of country, as far as a town they call Guacata, on the Lake of Mayaimi (Okeechobee), which is called Mayaimi because it is very large."
        Big Mound City was strategically placed where three ancient trade routes meet. From the west, the Calusa delegations traveled up the Caloosahatchee River to the Maymi villages along the western and southern shores of Lake Okeechobee, and then east to Big Mound City.
        The Ortona earthworks in Glades County were designed by the Maymi Indians and their ancestors to expedite trade from the west coast of Florida to Lake Okeechobee. It included one of the longest native American canal networks in the nation, used to bypass the rapids of the Caloosahatchee River.
       A second inland trade route was used by the Mayaca tribe which controlled both the headwaters of the St. John's River and the Kissimmee River in central Florida. The Mayaca paddled down the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee, then followed the eastern shore of the lake to Big Mound City.
       The current township of Port Mayaca, located on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee in Martin County, is near the last known village site of Mayaca nation in the 1740s.
       Big Mound City was sited on a section of land where the Everglades marshes of Lake Okeechobee met the higher pinewood flats. From this point, seasonal flood waters flowed east into the Hungryland and Loxahatchee sloughs, and drained into the Loxahatchee River basin.
        This was the route used by the Santaluces and Jeaga Indians to trade with tribes in central Florida and Gulf Coast. The Loxahatchee trade route connected the Jupiter Inlet to Big Mound City and Lake Okeechobee. This watery trail continued to be used by the Seminole tribe until the end of the 19th century.
        On early Palm Beach County maps, the Hungryland Slough is listed as the "West Prong of the Loxahatchee Marsh."  An Indian midden was recently discovered in a hammock island located in the southwest section of the slough. It is believed the midden was used as a camp site for ancient travelers poling their canoes between Big Mound City and the east coast.
        The Big Blue Mound, located within the City of Wellington's Big Blue Forest Preserve, served the same purpose for Jeaga traders traveling from coastal villages west to Big Mound City and Lake Okeechobee. The Jeaga used the same network of sloughs as their Santaluces neighbors to the north to reach the trading center.
        The transportation routes were used for trade between tribes, and also to pay tribute to more powerful neighbors. In his description of the Lake Okeechobee Indians, Fontenada wrote, "They are subjects of Carlos (chief of the Calusa tribe), and pay him tribute of all things I have before mentioned, food and roots, the skins of deer and other articles."
        Treasures recovered from Spanish shipwrecks by the coastal tribes also were distributed through the trade network. "These things Carlos divided with the caciques of Ais, Jeaga, Guacata, Mayajuaco and Mayaca," Fontaneda reported in his Memoirs, "and he took what pleased him, or the best part."  
       Big Mound City was abandoned shortly after 1650, the age-tested date of the most recent artifacts unearthed by archaeologists. Ironically, native American traders traveling to the city from Florida's interconnected waterways probably hastened the city's demise.
       The native nations of Florida had no immunity to diseases introduced from Europe. Beginning in the year 1519 disease epidemics swept the state. The viral and bacterial scourges included bubonic plague, measles, malaria, cholera, typhoid, pertussis, and the deadliest of all - smallpox.
        Unknowing traders carried the diseases from St. Augustine down the network of lagoons, infecting in turn the Ais, Santaluces, Jeaga and Tequesta tribes. A failed attempt by Ponce de Leon to colonized Charlotte Harbor in 1521, and again by Governor Pedro Menendez in the 1570s, also introduced  diseases to the southwest coast.
        The powerful Calusa tribe was decimated and adopted an isolationist policy, cutting its commercial and political ties with the interior of the state. Likewise, the Maymi and Santaluces villages near Lake Okeechobee suffered depopulation ranging from 25 to 50 percent.
        Florida's southeastern coastal tribes, from Cape Canaveral south to the Florida Keys, numbered about 48,800 in the year 1520, according to a 2004 U.S. Department of the Interior estimate. By the year 1700, less than 5,000 native Americans remained along the entire eastern coast of Spanish Florida.
       The great trade center of Big Mound City regressed into a state of steady decline due to the depopulation of its trading partners. By the beginning of Queen Anne's War (1702-13), Big Mound City was already a ghost town.
        The remaining tribal remnants in South Florida became the easy targets of British slave raids from South Carolina. Beginning in 1703, slave hunters used Florida's long-established commercial routes for their illicit trade.

Ancient Trails Reopen for Hikers
        Two new hiking trails follow the ancient trade routes used the by Santaluces and Jeaga tribes. The 63-mile "Ocean to Lake Okeechobee Hiking Trail" begins at Hobe Sound in Martin County, passing through Jonathan Dickinson State Park to the Corbett Wildlife Area and the Dupuis Management Area, and ending at the Okeechobee Scenic Trailhead near Canal Point.
        The "Jeaga Wilderness Trail" heads west from Palm Beach County's Riverbend Park on the Loxahatchee River, entering the Loxahatchee Slough and Hungryland Sough Natural Areas before joining the route of the "Ocean to Lake Okeechobee Hiking Trail.
(c.) Davidsson. 2018.
NOTE: Article reprinted in the March 23, 2018 edition of the Okeechobee News. See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.