The Jeaga Indians of 'Abaioa' (Palm Beach) in 1513

By Bob Davidsson       
        On May 8, 1513, two sturdy U-shaped Spanish naos (ships), the flagship "Santa Maria de la Consolacion" and the "Santiago," with their accompanying shallow-draft brigantine, the "Cristobal," briefly anchored at the "Cabo de Corrientes" (Cape of Currents) near an island which nearly 400 years later would be called Palm Beach.
        Juan Ponce de Leon, the new adelantado or proprietary governor of "Bimini and the Northern Isles," was making his fourth landing along the east coast of what he had recently christened as the island of "La Florida" on April 3. The voyage of discovery was hard on both ships and men.
       After making an initial landfall on an uninhabited beach somewhere between modern Daytona and St. Augustine, he sailed north to the mouth of the St John's River, then reversed course and battled the contrary currents of the Gulf Stream for nearly three weeks.
        His landing parties were attacked by hostile Ais Indians north of the St. Lucie Inlet on April 21, and again by the Jeaga Indians when the Spanish attempted to force a landfall near their main village of Hobe at Jupiter Inlet. In his "General History," the 16th century Spanish court historian Antonio de Herrera y Tordesilla recorded an earlier account of the voyage of Ponce de Leon and his encounters with the native peoples of Palm Beach County.
        "He went out from there to a river (the Loxahatchee) where they gathered water and firewood," Herrera reported, "waiting for the brigantine 'Cristobal'. Sixty Indians  (Jeaga) went there to hinder him. One of them was taken for a pilot so he might learn their language."
        "He (Ponce de Leon) gave to this river the name 'La Cruz' (the cross); and he left by it a cross of stone with an inscription on it; and they left off taking on water because it was brackish."
         Ponce de Leon was forced to anchor the naos "Santa Maria and "Santiago" at Jupiter Inlet for nearly a week as he waited for the missing brigantine "Cristobal" to join his fleet. The small lateen-rigged vessel was swept north by contrary currents and wind prior to reaching the inlet.
         The total complement of his fleet consisted of 64 men and one woman, Juana Jimenez (Ruiz), the sister-in-law of one of the admiral's gentlemen-soldiers, Francisco de Ortega. She became the first European woman to explore North America since of demise of the ill-fated Norse colony of Freydis Ericsdottir in Newfoundland (circa 1013).
         Ponce de Leon's crew included only 25 "gente de tierra" (gentlemen-of-the-land) who were trained soldiers. Of this small military force, 20 were stationed on "Santa Maria," a ship under the ownership and command of the notorious Basque mariner Juan Bono de Quejo.
         Juan Bono was a maritime trader who like a bad penny always seemed to appear and profit from new Spanish colonization ventures in Hispanola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Florida, Cuba and Mexico. Prior to Ponce de Leon's expedition, Bono raided the Bahamas in search of human cargo - Taino Indian slaves.
        Later in his career, Bono would earn the epitaph of "Juan the Bad" from the Catholic Church for engaging in slave raids on the island of Trinidad. Aware of his reputation, conquistador Hernando Cortes once locked him chains in 1520 and sent him back to Cuba as a "troublemaker" in his own ship.
        With his knowledge of these "Northern Islands," it was probably Bono, with master pilot Anton de Alaminos on the flagship "Santa Maria," that guided the fleet to the coast of Florida. By most 16th century accounts, Ponce de Leon had an affable, noble character, which won the loyalty of Bono, who by nature was the complete opposite.
        Following the long-delayed rendezvous with the "Cristobal," the fleet set sail from the Jupiter Inlet on May 8. The three ships followed the coast of Singer Island and the island of Palm Beach. The two islands were not separated by an inlet in the early 1500's.
        The Spanish historian Herrera reported, "They came upon and anchored behind a cape, close to a village named 'Abaioa'. All this coast from Punta de Arrafices until this Cabo de Corrientes, runs north-south to the southeast and the water is clear with a depth of six fathoms."
        Ponce de Leon's "Cabo de Corrientes" (Cape of Currents) has been interpreted by many historians as the place where the Gulf Stream is closest to coast of Florida. The cape also was the easternmost point of the Florida peninsula. In both cases, this is the island of Palm Beach.
        The expedition noted there were villages along the island and anchored for a short period to investigate before continuing south. The village of "Abaioa," like similar place names of Abacoa and Abaco Island, may be rooted in the Taino Indian dialect.
        Some historians theorize the Jeaga, Ais and Tekesta tribes were at one time seafaring cultures, similar to the Taino. They crossed the Caribbean from South America and settled in southeast Florida about 5,000 B.C. During the early Spanish colonial period, Florida Indians were still making journeys to Cuba in large dugout canoes.
        There were no reports of conflicts with the native Jeaga inhabitants of "Abaioa" during Ponce de Leon's short visit to Palm Beach. The villagers were certainly aware of the battle at the Jupiter Inlet with the strange iron-clad visitors and may have withdrew into the interior of the island. By the next day, the three ships had set sail and life returned to normal at "Abaioa."

Villages Along the Rio Jeaga
        At the time of Ponce de Leon's voyage of discovery, the Jeaga tribe occupied villages from Jupiter Island in the north, west along the Loxahatchee River, and south on both shores of the Lake Worth Lagoon (called the "Rio Jeaga" on 17th century Spanish maps). The Boca Raton Inlet served as a natural dividing line between the Jeaga and the larger Tekesta (Tequesta) tribe centered in what is today Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
        The Rio Jeaga, a freshwater lake during the Spanish colonial period, was vital to the scattered Jeaga villages as a food source, communications and transportation network. Heavy rains and hurricanes occasionally created lake flooding which breached the barrier island of Palm Beach with temporary inlets until new sandbars would close these outlets to the ocean.
         Prior to the arrival of European explorers and colonists at Jupiter Inlet (Rio Jobe), the Jeaga villages were decentralized with local towns ruled by their caciques or chieftains. The introduction of European trade goods and plunder from shipwrecks changed the dynamics of tribal alliances, with the caciques of Hobe gaining in stature.
        The village of Hobe became the primary Jeaga center of trade due to its access to the Jupiter Inlet. The Jeaga in turn shared trade goods, captives and ship plunder with the more powerful Calusa tribe in the 16th century, and the neighboring Ais Indians to the north during the 17th century.
        The town of Hobe, located on the south side of the inlet, was in the heart of what archaeologists call the Jupiter Mound Complex. Middens, ceremonial mounds and village sites were found along both sides of the inlet, as well as in the nearby Loxahatchee estuary.
         South of Jupiter Inlet were several small villages collectively called the Singer Island Sites on the barrier island.  Villages on both Singer Island and Palm Beach were built on the coastal ridge of the two islands. Both islands rest on a foundation of Anastasia rock and coquina limestone.
        Southwest of Singer Island, on the mainland side of the Rio Jeaga, were three mound sites called the Riviera Complex by archaeologists. The village site was located near what is today the Port of Palm Beach.
        The Riviera Complex consisted of the Palm Beach Inlet Midden and adjacent Palm Beach Inlet Burial Mound, as well the principal village site along the Rio Jeaga. Some documents even refer to the Riviera Complex as the town of "Jeaga"- the namesake for the entire tribe.
         The Nebot Site was located southeast of the Riviera Complex on the Palm Beach barrier island. It was discovered in the 1980's at the 100 block of Everglades Avenue. The site included a sand burial mound and perhaps a small village along the lake. Skeletal remains were excavated from the site, as well as tool artifacts of bone and even European brass.
        The Palm Beach Complex, located north of Sloan's Curve, once included both a burial mound and village midden, both destroyed by development, as is most the Patrician Site along the 3000 block of South Ocean Blvd.

'Abaioa' - The Guest Mound Complex
        The Palm Beach "Guest Mound Complex" was by far the largest coastal village site on the island at the time of Ponce de Leon's voyage. The mound village was 18 feet high and extended 100-feet in width from north to south. The village's midden was immediately south of the mound.
        A village on an 18-foot mound with 10-foot high bohio-style structures was clearly visible to the three ships anchored a short distance from shore in 1513. The town complex meets all the criteria of the "Abaioa" recorded in Spanish journals. What is less certain is if "Abaioa" is actually the native Jeaga name for their village.
        The Guest Mound Complex, located at the 600 block of North County Road, was once part of the Otto Kahn estate. It was sold in 1941 and became the Graham-Eckes Academy. Expansion of the school resulted in the destruction of part of the burial mound. The site is named for Frederick Guest, the owner of property south the Graham-Eckes school.
         Archeologists estimate between 100 and 150 Jeaga villagers were interred within the Guest Mound. Artifacts at the Guest Mound Complex and other sites on the island of Palm Beach predate 500 B.C.
        Jeaga villages in Palm Beach County were destroyed or abandoned during the colonial Queen Anne's War (1702-13) between England and Spain. English slave traders from South Carolina, with Yemassee and Yuchi Indian allies armed with British muskets, began their South Florida raids in 1703.
        By 1711, the last "Cacique of Jove (Jeaga)" and other surviving South Florida native leaders were seeking sanctuary in Cuba for the remnants of their tribes. Captain Luis Perdomo arrived with two ships on a rescue mission. He found nearly 2,000 desperate Indians in the Florida Keys, but was only able to transport 270 refugees. About 200 died of diseases in Cuba within a few years.
      One of the early mysteries of Palm Beach is the unknown identity of a European buried among the native Jeaga Indians at the Waldron Site near Wideners Curve. The grave of the colonial period man, buried in a traditional Christian manner, was recovered in the Indian burial site. He was about 35 years of age, a pipe smoker, and apparently in good health prior to his death.
        If one believes in the Fountain of Youth, then it is not a leap of faith to suggest perhaps the deceased man was a member of Ponce de Leon's crew, interred during their brief visit to the village of "Abaioa". Some mysteries and legends are best left unsolved.
(c.) 2015

NOTE: View additional articles archived in Older Posts.    

Civil War Blockade-Running at Jupiter Inlet: 1861-65

By Bob Davidsson       
        While there were no land battles fought in Palm Beaches during the Civil War, for nearly four years a deadly game of hide and seek, pitting Confederate and British blockade runners against U.S. Navy coastal patrol boats, was waged near the Jupiter Inlet and Narrows.
        Navy "Official Records" list 47 blockade runners - schooners, sloops and steam-powered vessels - as captured or destroyed between Cape Canaveral and Jupiter Inlet. A small flotilla of six Union gunboats on patrol along the southeast coast of Florida captured 24 vessels in the vicinity of the Jupiter Inlet.
       Soon after the surrender of Fort Sumter, the Navy imposed a total blockade of warships and merchant vessels leaving or entering the Confederacy. The blockade extended from Hampton Roads, Virginia, to Key West on the Atlantic coast, and westward from the Florida Keys to Brownsville, Texas, along the Gulf of Mexico.
        The sparsely populated east coast of Florida, with its many inlets and a natural coastal transportation network along the interconnected Indian River, St. Lucie River and Jupiter Narrows, provided many hideouts for shallow-draft blockade runners shipping supplies into or out of Florida.
        To enforce the blockade of the Confederacy, the Union Navy established the "East Gulf Coast Blockade Squadron" in 1861. The headquarters of the small fleet was Fort Zachary Taylor at Key West. Flag Officer William McKeon was assigned the daunting task of patrolling coastal waters south of Cape Canaveral on the east coast, and north to Apalachicola Bay along the Gulf coast of Florida.
        During the 1860s, there were no ports between St. Augustine and Key West. Union gunboats faced long patrols in dangerous coastal waters with frequent storms, the powerful currents of the Gulf Stream, and poorly mapped inlet shoals and reefs.
        The blockade runners they pursued not only displayed the "Stars and Bars"of the Confederacy, but about 40 percent of the captured vessels flew the "Union Jack" of Great Britain. Sloops and schooners often used the Bahamas and occasionally Spanish Cuba as bases to smuggle supplies into Florida.
        While Britain and Spain remained neutral during the American Civil War, the Royal Navy did little to interfere with British flagged ships attempting to break the Union blockade. Union captains readily captured British vessels violating the blockade in Florida coastal waters, but took care not to kill or injure English crewmen in order to avoid international incidents.
        The Confederacy did not station any heavily armed commerce raiders, such as the CSA "Florida" or CSA "Tallahassee," along the southeastern coast of Florida. Blockade runners were lightly armed, usually manned by civilian crews, and opted to either flee or ground their vessels when confronted by Union gunboats. There was little loss of life in these encounters.
        Salt was a Florida resource in high demand by both Confederate armies and the civilian population. Union patrol boats were on constant alert for smoke plumes which indicated salt boilers were in use. Cotton bales and turpentine were the main exports from Florida for markets in Europe. There were profits to be made by daring merchant captains who avoided the blockade.
        Profit also was an incentive for Union gunboats. Under existing rules of the U.S. Navy, captured Confederate vessels (prizes) were sold at auction in Key West with Union officers and crew recovering most of the proceeds from the sales.
        Following reports that the Jupiter Inlet was a hideout for Confederate shipping, the Union intensified its blockade off the coast in January 1862. The task was shared by six small warships based in Key West - the  USS "Sagamore," "Gem of the Sea," "Roebuck," "Honeysuckle," "Beauregard," and "Union."

USS Sagamore
        The most successful of the Union gunboats on patrol off the Jupiter Inlet was the USS "Sagamore". The "Sagamore" was one of the massed-produced "90-day gunboats" built especially by the U.S. Navy for blockade duty. It was a two-masted schooner powered by a steam engine and armed with five rifled guns.
        The "Sagamore" was assigned to the East Gulf Coast Blockade Squadron in November 1861. The commanding officer of the gunboat was Lt. Earl English, with Master Mate Henry Crane as the leader of a special landing force approved by the Navy to seek and destroy Confederate coastal installations. They were the Navy SEALS of the 19th century.
        Crane was a Floridian who enlisted in both the Second and Third Seminole Wars. He was familiar with the Jupiter Inlet and adjacent waterways. As a Tampa resident, he entered the Civil War as a Confederate colonel in the local Florida militia. However, when a pro-Union friend was murdered, he decided to change his allegiance and volunteered to serve with the U.S Navy.
        During its 1863 patrol near the Jupiter Inlet, the "Sagamore" raided Confederate commerce by both land and sea. Beginning on Jan. 8, the "Sagamore" seized the British ship "Julia" 10 miles north of Jupiter Inlet.
        Using one of the "Sagamore's" longboats while the ship was on patrol, Crane surprised the Confederate schooner "Pride" in the Jupiter Narrows. They dumped its cargo of 188 bushels of salt into the river. On Jan. 8, the unmanned schooner "Flying Cloud," registered in Nassau, was burned by the raiders.
        Four days later, Crane led his team to the inactive Jupiter Lighthouse, where they seized a catch of supplies including 150 gallons of whale oil and 200 bushels of salt. The crew of the "Sagamore" also rescued survivors of the Union troopships "Lucinda" and "Sparkling Sea" which were driven ashore south of Jupiter Inlet.
        On Jan. 16, a shore party from the "Sagamore" found 45 sacks of salt at "Couch's Bar" near Jupiter Inlet. Crane's raiders also seized seven bales of cotton Feb. 3 in the Jupiter Narrows, and an additional 58 sacks of salt with a catch of tools Feb. 5 during a return visit to the Jupiter Lighthouse.
       Crane's most successful raid was the destruction of a hidden Confederate shipyard located at Blue Hole Creek near the Indian River Inlet. During the Feb. 22 attack, ship repair facilities, supplies and docks were destroyed.
       Before completing his successful 1863 patrol, Lt. English and the "Sagamore" also would capture the blockade runner "East Yarmouth" off Jupiter Inlet on Jan. 25. The "Sagamore" caught the schooner "Agnes" and sloop "Ellen" making a dash out of the Jupiter Inlet on Feb. 28. They carried a cargo of cotton and turpentine.
        The same eventful day, the British sloop "Elizabeth," based in Nassau, was intercepted at the mouth of the inlet. The crew ran their ship aground before surrendering to the "Sagamore."

USS Gem of the Sea
        The USS "Gem of the Sea" was commissioned on Oct. 15, 1861. The gunboat, under the command of Lt. J.B. Baxter, was ordered to the East Gulf Coast Blockade Squadron for a tour of duty off the southeast coast of Florida.
        The "Gem of the Sea" captured and scuttled the blockade-running sloop "Ann" six miles from the Jupiter Inlet. The Confederate cargo of 76 bags of salt was destroyed during a December 1862 patrol.
        During a second patrol, the "Gem of the Sea" intercepted the British schooner "Inez" north of the Jupiter Inlet April 18,1863 while it was sailing to a rendezvous with the Confederates within the Indian River Inlet. A load salt in its cargo hold was destroyed.

USS Beauregard
        Ironically, the USS "Beauregard" began its Civil War career as a privateer in the service of the Confederate Navy. It was commissioned as a CSA warship in October 1861. The gunboat was armed with one 24-pund rifled gun, and carried a crew of 40.
        The "Beauregard" was captured in the Florida Straits by the Union blockade squadron on Nov. 19, 1861 and taken to Key West as a prize. The gunboat was purchased by the U.S. Navy Feb. 24, 1862, and became part of the very same East Gulf Coast Blockade Squadron that captured it from the Confederacy.
        The USS "Beauregard" was officially commissioned in Union Navy March 28, 1862, and while under the command of Acting Master David Stearns, the gunboat would capture 11 rebel blockade runners. Three of its prizes were seized near Jupiter Inlet.
        On Aug. 26, 1863, the "Beauregard" seized the Confederate schooner "Phoebe" outside the Jupiter Inlet. It was towed to Key West as a prize and sold. The "Beauregard" boarded two Confederate ships, the "Lydia" and "Hope," offshore of the Jupiter Narrows. They carrying cargos of cotton and turpentine for sale in Europe.

USS Honeysuckle
        Tropical storms, barrier reefs and enemy ships were not the only dangers encountered by the seamen of the East Gulf Coast Blockade Squadron. The crew of USS "Honeysuckle" was decimated by outbreak of yellow fever while the ship was in use as the fleet's dispatch vessel.
        The "Honeysuckle" was a swift 240-ton steam-powered ship purchased by the Navy in 1863. It was armed with two 20-pound guns. After commissioning, it was ordered to Key West and joined the blockade squadron Jan. 8, 1864.
        The Union gunboat captured the British blockade runner "Fly" off Jupiter Inlet during a patrol along the east coast of Florida. After the crew recovered from the yellow fever epidemic at Key West, the "Honeysuckle" continued patrols along the west coast of Florida.

USS Union
        The USS "Union" was a large 1,114-ton steam-powered vessel first chartered by the Navy in April 1861, then outfitted as a warship and commissioned on Jan. 20, 1863. It carried one 12-inch rifled gun for armament. Due to its size the "Union"also was used a fleet gunboat tender.
        The first prize captured by the "Union" after joining the blockade squadron was the Confederate sloop "Caroline." The blockade runner was seized at the Jupiter Inlet on June 10, 1864.
        Seven days later, the "Union" experienced an unusual encounter with a blockade runner sailing under a Spanish flag. The crew of the "Union" boarded the Havana-based schooner "Emma" as it sailed 24 miles northwest of Jupiter Inlet. The ship was towed to Key West and impounded.

USS Roebuck
        During the winter of 1863-64, the USS "Roebuck" became the scourge of Confederate blockade runners operating out of Jupiter Inlet. The "Roebuck" was launched in 1856 as 455-ton sailing bark rigged as a clipper ship for additional speed.
        The warship was armed with four 32-pound guns, and manned by a crew of 69 seamen. The "Roebuck" joined the East Gulf Coast Blockade Squadron in September 1862 with Acting Master Joseph Barclay in temporary command.
         After completed a patrol along the Gulf coast of Florida, the gunboat was reassigned to southeast Florida, under the command of Capt. John Sherrill.  The first ship captured by the "Roebuck" while on patrol outside the Jupiter Inlet was the British schooner "Ringdom," bound for the Bahamas with a cargo of coffee and salt.
        While continuing its patrol, the "Roebuck" seized the Confederate sloop "Maria Louise" Jan. 10, 1864 near Jupiter Inlet. The next day the British blockade runner "Susan (i.e. Suzan)" was captured in the Jupiter Inlet. The crew armed the "Susan" as a Union vessel and used it to patrol along Jupiter Island.
        On Jan. 14, the "Roebuck" chased the British sloop "Young Racer" ashore north of the inlet on Jupiter Island. The English ship was transporting sacks of Florida salt in its cargo compartment.
        Armed boats from the "Roebuck" chased and seized the Confederate sloop "Caroline" off Jupiter Inlet on Jan. 18. The next day, armed boats were once again used to capture the British blockade runner "Eliza" and Confederate sloop "Mary" inside the inlet. A total of 14 bales of cotton was impounded.
        During a  second patrol six months later in the Florida Straits, the "Roebuck" was credited with the capture of the Confederate schooners "Eliza" and "Rebel," the sloops "Two Brothers," "Nina" and "Last Resort," and the Nassau-registered schooner "Terrapis." The "Roebuck" ended the war as a supply ship stationed in Tampa.

War at Sea Ends
        Several Confederate ships intercepted near the Jupiter Inlet were never identified in Navy logbooks. For example, two "unknown schooners" were encountered by the USS "Sagamore" on Dec. 5, 1862. One was boarded and captured by the crew. The second vessel was sunk.
        The East Gulf Coast Blockade Squadron ended the war with a tally of 300 Confederate-allied vessels captured or destroyed along both coasts of Florida. Maritime experts estimate more than 250 Florida blockade runners avoided detection or capture by the Union patrols.
         Both sides could claim minor victories in a nautical theater of war where the only true victors were the  seamen who escaped death in the tropical waters of Florida.*

*NOTE: This article was reprinted in the Fall 2015 edition (Vol. 6, No. 2) of the PBC Historical Society's "Tustenegee" journal. A digital version with art also is archived on the PBC History Online site. Address: http://www.pbchistoryonline.org . See additional articles archived in Older Posts.
(c.) 2015. 

Palm Beaches Used as Confederacy's Last Hideout

By Bob Davidsson
        Two months after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the fugitive Secretary of War for the Confederate States of America (CSA) briefly used the island of Palm Beach as a refuge from pursuing Union forces before making his escape to Cuba.
        John Cabell Breckinridge refused to surrender at the war's end. He was the highest ranking official of the Confederacy still at large, when with the aid of five rebels, he paddled a captured Union lifeboat down the Jupiter Narrows and hid a few miles north of the Jupiter Inlet on June 3, 1865.
        Prior to the Civil War, Breckinridge was elected as the 14th Vice President of the of the United States, serving with President James Buchanan from 1857-61. When the Democratic Party divided into northern and southern branches in 1860, he was nominated as the presidential candidate for the Southern Democrats.
        Breckinridge finished second to Abraham Lincoln in Electoral College votes. Ironically, Breckinridge was the cousin of the new President's wife and First Lady - Mary Todd Lincoln. After the 1860 election, he continued to serve as a U.S. senator for his home state of Kentucky from March to December 1861.
       When Union troops occupied Kentucky, breaching its neutrality in the war, Breckinridge joined the Confederate army. He was expelled from the U.S. Senate, and as of today remains the only senator convicted of "treason" against the United States by Congress.
       Breckinridge served in the Confederate army for nearly four years, advancing to the rank of major general. CSA President Jefferson Davis appointed him as the Confederacy's Secretary War on Jan. 19, 1865. After the surrender of Lee's army, the CSA President and Cabinet fled to Abbeville, South Carolina, where it was finally decided the Confederate cause was lost.
        As Secretary of War, Breckinridge was assigned the task of escorting by rail the remaining Confederate treasury - $150,000 in gold specie - to Washington, Georgia. Upon reaching their destination on May 4, the rebel troops in his escort demanded that the gold be divided among the soldiers.
        Breckinridge paid the troops their back wages from the treasury, then discharged most of his escort the next day. The remaining Confederate gold was deposited within local banks in the town of Washington, with Breckinridge keeping just enough of the treasury to make good his escape. He then disbanded the Confederate War Department.
        A few days later, President Jefferson Davis was captured, making Breckinridge the highest ranking and most wanted ex-Confederate official in the South. He assumed a false identity as "Colonel Cabell" and fled to Florida.

Escape to Florida
        Breckinridge, with a small band of followers, crossed the George-Florida border and arrived in the town of Madison on May 15. He was joined by another Confederate fugitive, Colonel John Taylor Wood, the nephew and naval aide to Jefferson Davis. Wood escaped detention soon after he and his uncle were captured and fled to Florida.
        Wood had an unusual war record as a colonel in the Confederate army, as well as holding the rank of commander in the CSA Navy. He served as a officer aboard the ironclad "Virginia"  (Merrimac ) during its famous 1862 battle with the USN "Monitor" at Hampton Roads. Later in the war he would capture 35 Union vessels as captain of commerce raider CSN "Tallahassee" while stationed at Cape Fear.
        While in Madison, Breckinridge and Wood decided to flee to the Bahamas to escape their Union pursuers. Joining them were two discharged rebel soldiers, Sgt. Joseph J. O'Toole and Cpl. Richard Russell; Breckinridge's aide-de-camp, Col. James Wilson; and his personal servant and former African slave, Tom Ferguson.
        Traveling south to the City of Gainesville, the fugitives were aided by Confederate Col. J.J. Dickinson, who provided a captured Union lifeboat for their voyage up the St. Johns River. Wood assumed command during their voyage due to his naval experience.
        They reached the river community of Fort Butler on May 29. The lifeboat was loaded onto a wagon and transported by land 26 miles to the Indian River. After a two-day portage, the boat was launched on the coastal waterway.

A Palm Beach Hideout
        They paddled south on Indian River for two days, then encountered the sandbars and mangroves of  the Jupiter Narrows. In his autobiography, Col. Wood described their ordeal.
        "The channel is crooked, and often almost closed by dense growth of mangroves, junipers, saw grass - a jungle only a water snake could penetrate," he wrote. "Several times we lost our reckoning and had to retreat and take a fresh start; an entire day was lost in these everglades, which extend across the peninsula."
        "Finally, by good luck, we stumbled on a short 'haul over' to the sea," he continued, "and determined to at once to take advantage of it, and run our boat across, and launch her in the Atlantic."
        The fugitives crossed Jupiter Island and rowed their boat south, staying offshore of the Jupiter Inlet to avoid detection by Union troops and local residents. Wood reported, "We passed Jupiter Inlet with nothing in sight."
        They rowed until exhaustion, hunger and strong headwinds forced them to land June 4 on the deserted island of Palm Beach. After hauling the lifeboat onto the beach, they began scavenging for sea turtle eggs above the tide line. The Confederates stayed on the island for three days, gathering food and debating the best escape route. The short journey from Jupiter Inlet to Palm Beach proved their lifeboat was not seaworthy for a long voyage.
        On June 5, their beached lifeboat was spotted by a passing Union steam-driven gunboat. While Breckinridge hid in the interior of the island, Col. Wood and the two rebel soldiers, O'Toole and Russell, rowed their boat out to sea and greeted the Navy shore party.
        The two rebel soldiers handed over their army discharge papers to a Navy officer. Wood told the shore party his papers were lost in the surf, and that they were just three local fishermen searching the beach for turtle eggs.
        Wood exchanged their two buckets of turtle eggs for some bread and tobacco provided by the ship's crew. Deceived by their ruse, the Union gunboat continued its patrol along the Atlantic coast, and allowed the rebels to return to shore.
         The six Confederate fugitives avoided capture, but at the price of trading away their supply of food to the gunboat's crew. Their luck changed two days later when a single-masted coastal sailboat passed close to the island. They pursued the larger sailboat, disarming the crew at gunpoint.
        Breckinridge and Wood commandeered the sailboat, compensating the owner by giving him their lifeboat in exchange, $20 in gold from the Confederate treasury, as well as returning the crew's firearms prior to their departure from the island.
        The six fugitives set sail from the island of Palm Beach, continuing their voyage south to the community of Fort Dallas (Miami) for supplies. Now in possession of a seaworthy craft, Wood set a course for Cuba and exile from the United States.

Exile and Return
        After trading shots with ship wreckers in the Florida Keys, and surviving two storms at sea, the Confederates successfully completed their journey, arriving in Carevas, Cuba, on June 11, 1865. Confederate agents in Havana and London assisted the fugitives as they began a three-year exile from the United States.
        Breckinridge eventually joined his wife and family in Canada and spent much of his exile touring Europe. He moved his family to Niagara, Canada, directly across the river from the United States, and waited for an opportunity to return to his native Kentucky.
        President Andrew Johnson signed an executive order proclaiming amnesty for all former Confederates on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 1868. Breckinridge moved his family back to Lexington, Kentucky, and remained there the remainder of his life.
        He resumed his law practice, and served as the Kentucky manager of an insurance company. He also invested in three regional railroad ventures. The former U.S. Vice President and Secretary of War for the Confederacy died May 17, 1875 at age 54.
 (c.) 2015.

NOTE: Additional articles are archived in Older Posts.

Uncovering the History of the Santaluces Indians

By Bob Davidsson
        The long, mainly uncharted history of the Santaluces (Guacata) tribe of western Palm Beach and Martin counties, with its dual Okeechobee basin and marine coastal culture, ended with a brief journal entry written by a Dutch-born surveyor-cartographer employed by the British East Florida colony.
        In his "A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida," published in 1775, Bernard Romans reported an incident involving his pilot-guide several years prior to his 1769-70 expedition to the St. Lucie River. The Spanish fisherman was captured by lake Indians and taken to "Mayacco" (Lake Okeechobee).
        The Dutch geographer wrote, "This man told me he had been formerly taken by 'savages' and by them carried as a prisoner, in a canoe, by way of this river (i.e. Santa Lucia, St. Lucie) to their settlements on the banks of the lake."
       The fisherman was soon released by the lake tribe. With this passage, the recorded history of the Santaluces (Guacata) comes to an end. Romans concluded, "In my opinion, this tract (St. Lucie River) is scarcely ever invaded by hostile savages."
        The "Mayacco" village described by Romans' guide was likely the same one mentioned in 1743 by Spanish Jesuit missionaries Joseph Maria Monaco and Guiseppe Savara Alana during their unsuccessful attempt to establish a mission at Biscayne Bay.
        In his census of South Florida Indians, Father Alana wrote, "They all are remnants of three nations, Keys, Carlos (Calusa) and Bocaratone. We learned that from another three tribes in addition to these, the Maymies, 'Santaluzos' and Mayaca, which have united and are four days journey on the mainland, it will be possible to add another hundred souls or a few more."
        "These diminutive nations fight among themselves at every opportunity," Father Alana observed, "and they are shrinking as is indicated by the memory of the much greater number that were just 20 years ago."
        "So that if they continue on in their barbarous style," he wrote, "they will disappear within a few years either because of the skirmishes or because of the rum that they drink until they burst, or because of the children whom they kill, or because of those who smallpox carries off in absence of remedies, or because of those who perish in the hands of the Uchises (Indian slave raiders)."
        Father Alana accurately predicted the demise of these last remnants of Florida's native tribes in his journal. When the first Spanish colonial period ended in Florida, Spain transported the remaining mission Indians by ship to Cuba in 1763.

The Beginnings
        The true name of the tribe that once extended from the southeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee eastward to the St. Lucie River and Inlet is not known in their own language. "Guacata" was the name of one of their main villages in the 16th century. The place name was applied to the entire tribe during the early period of Spanish exploration and colonization.
        The alternate tribal name of "Santaluces" was widely used by Spanish officials beginning in the 17th century, with continued use even after the tribe's extinction in the 1700s. Santa Lucia was a Spanish outpost briefly established south of the St. Lucie Inlet in 1565-66. The tribe, inlet and river inherited the name from this failed military colony on its southern border.
        The ancestors of the Guacata Indians, like their Jeaga neighbors to the southeast, were part of the "East Okeechobee" culture that utilized both Atlantic coastal marine and interior freshwater resources. Archaeologists have identified 49 possible midden sites in Martin County, including five major mound concentrations, representing village complexes.
        Former village sites identified within the St. Lucie estuary are Rocky Point near the St. Lucie Inlet, the Hutchinson Island complex north of the inlet, the Peck Lake and Joseph Reed Shell Rises south of the inlet, and Mount Elizabeth along the St. Lucie River.
        Several interior village complexes also were occupied until the late Spanish colonial period by the Guacata tribe. Mound sites are located near Indiantown and Barley Barber in western Martin County, and include the Whitebelt sites, Pahokee Ridge, Bryant site, Big Gopher, and the largest mound complex in southeast Florida - Big Mound City - all within Palm Beach County.
        The East Okeechobee period, 750 B.C. until the tribe's demise about 1750, is the timeline when the Guacata Indians occupied the eastern and southern shores of Lake Okeechobee, with villages extending to the St. Lucie estuary. The neighboring Jeaga tribe was centered at the Jupiter Inlet, with village sites also located on Jupiter Island, the Loxahatchee River to the west and along the 20-mile length of Lake Worth to the south.
        The western neighbors of the Guacata were the Maymi Indians, a tribe often identified with the Calusa Mound Building culture along the west shore of Lake Okeechobee, as far south as Belle Glade, and the Caloosahatchee River. The tribe had close geographical and cultural ties with the more powerful Calusa Indians of the Gulf Coast throughout its history.
        Village mound complexes were used as burial sites, as ceremonial centers, and elevated towns to escape flooding due to heavy seasonal rains and hurricanes. Archaeologists believe many of the mounds used by the Guacata tribe and their ancestors date back to the late Archaic era (2,500 - 750 B.C.) with continued habitation into the Spanish colonial period.
        Big Mound City, for example, located today in the Corbett Wildlife Management Area, covered 14 acres and contains 23 mounds. It was inhabited between 500 B.C. and about 1650 by the Guacata. The unique cultural site is protected today on the National Register of Historic Places.

First Encounters
        Almost all we know about the Guacata Indians and their culture, during the period of Spanish exploration in the 16th century, comes from a single source - the "Memoir of Hernando D'Escalante Fontaneda" - written in 1575 and published two years later.
        Fontaneda's ship foundered along the coast of Florida in 1549. He was captured by the Calusa Indians at age 13, and lived with the tribe for 17 years until he was rescued in 1566. At the time of his captivity, the Calusa were the dominant tribal nation in South Florida, with trade goods and tribute received from tribes from Cape Canaveral to the Florida Keys.
        Fontaneda, who was familiar with the Okeechobee basin Indians, wrote, "They (the Calusa) are masters of a large district of this country, as far as a town called 'Guacata,' on the lake of Mayaimi (Okeechobee), which is called Mayaimi because it is very large."
        "Around it are many little villages," Fontaneda recalled, "which I will speak about hereafter. On this lake, which lies in the midst of the country, are many towns, of 30 or 40 inhabitants each; and as many more places there are in which people are not so numerous."
        In his description of the topography, he wrote, "These Indians occupy a very rocky and a very marshy country. They have no product of mines or thing that we have in this part of the world (Spain). The men go naked, and the women in a shawl made of a kind of palm leaf, split and woven."
        In addition to the town of  Guacata, Fontaneda counted 24 villages near Lake Okeechobee, of which four he remembered by name in his "Memoir". He wrote, "Besides, there are others inland on the lake of Mayaimi; and another town, and the first is Cutespa; another Tavagueme; another Tomsobe; another Enempa; and another 20 towns there are, of which I do not remember the names."
        Fontaneda described in great detail the diet of the Lake Okeechobee Indians. During his captivity, he shared their food and had first hand knowledge of what members of this hunter-gatherer culture ate.
        "They have bread of roots," he wrote, "which is their common food the greater part of the time; and because of the lake, which rises in some seasons so high that the roots cannot be reached in consequence of the water, they are for some time without eating this bread."
        "Fish is plenty and very good," he continues. "There is another root, like the truffle over here, which is sweet; and there are many different roots of many kinds; but when there is hunting, either deer or birds, they prefer to eat meat or fowl."
        "The Indians also eat lagartos (alligators)," he wrote of their diet, "and snakes, animals like rats, which live in the lake, freshwater tortoises, and many more disgusting reptiles which, if we were to continue enumerating, we would never be through."
        Fontaneda learned four native languages while captive, including the Calusa dialect. He could not speak the language common to the Atlantic coastal tribes, such as the Ais or Jeaga, which indicate the linguistic and cultural differences of the Calusa. Pedro Vizcaino (the "Biscayan") was a captive of the Ais Indians mentioned by Fontaneda in his "Memoir".
        Fontaneda wrote, "He (Vizcaino) understands well the language of the Ais, and the languages of other places mentioned (Guacata and Jeaga), which are spoken as far as Mayaca an Mayajuaca, places to the north (near Cape Canaveral)."
        During the 16th century, shipwrecks provided an unexpected source of wealth to the coastal tribes of South Florida. Fontaneda explained in his "Memoir" how salvaged cargo was divided between the Calusa and other tribes who were junior partners in their alliance.
        "I desire to speak of the riches found by the Indians of Ais, which perhaps were as much as a million dollars, or over in bars of silver, in gold, and articles of jewelry made by the hands of Mexican Indians," he wrote. "These things Carlos (the Calusa chief) divided with the caciques of Ais, Jeaga, Guacata, Mayajuaco and Mayaca, and he took what pleased him, or the best part."
        Fontaneda was rescued from his captivity in 1566 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the new adelantado or proprietary governor of Florida. He served the governor as an interpreter in Florida until 1569, when he returned to Spain and wrote his "Memoir.

The Santaluces   
        Menendez attempted to establish a military outpost among the Ais Indians in the autumn of 1565. After he sailed to Cuba for supplies, about 100 soldiers deserted the camp and marched south to the St. Lucie River. They became stranded between the St. Lucie and Indian rivers until two Spanish ships rescued and transported them to a new colony site north of the Jupiter Inlet.
        The new outpost - Santa Lucia - only lasted four months. The garrison mutinied a second time in March 1566 and sailed away in a supply ship. While the outpost vanished, the name for the region remained. The Guacata Indians that harassed the Santa Lucia garrison from the north became known as the "Santaluces" tribe in future Spanish records.
        By the early 17th century, the foreign policy of the Calusa Indians changed from one of regional dominance and expansion, to a closed isolationist society. Two factors contributing to this policy shift were a sharp decline in population due to introduced European diseases, and distrust of the Spanish after a failed attempt to colonized their country in 1566-69.
        The Ais nation benefited from this policy reversal by becoming the senior partner of an alliance of southeastern Florida tribes extending from Cape Canaveral to the Jupiter Inlet. It would continue until the outbreak of Queen Anne's War in 1702. The Santaluces were part of this coalition with the Ais through common bonds of inter-marriage, a shared dialect and coastal trade.
        The Santaluces became involved in Spanish colonial governance during the administration of Gov. Pedro de Ybarra (1603-09). The St. Lucie River was considered the southern border of the "Province of Ais," officially proclaimed by Adelantado Menendez back in 1565. In fact, the only residents of the Spanish province were Ais and Santaluces Indians.
        Governor Ybarra began his term in October 1603 with the goal of improving relations with the coastal tribes of southeastern Florida. Increased trade would improve the economy of the impoverished City of St. Augustine, dependent on annual subsidy (situado) from Spain. The recovery of shipwrecked crews and cargos along the coast would be an added benefit of a peace policy.
        His negotiations with Capitan Grande, the cacique of Ais, his mandador (sub-chief) Chico of the Surruque tribe, and Don Luis, chief of the allied Santaluces Indians, required patience and diplomacy. However, his policy bore fruit in 1605 when Capitan Grande led a delegation of 20 coastal Indian leaders to St. Augustine for peace negotiations.
        A jubilant Governor Ybarra reported, "Since then the caciques come and go as they please, and our soldiers do the same, by the sea as well as by land, with greatest security."
        His statement proved overly optimistic, but relations with the coastal tribes slowly improved. In late 1605, a Captain Fernandez led an expedition to Lake Okeechobee using the Province of Ais as his departure point. Unfortunately, there are no records detailing the outcome of this journey or the reception received from Santaluces villages near the lake.
        The one member of the Santaluces tribe mentioned by name in colonial records during the early 1600s is its cacique (chieftain), called "Don Luis" by the Spanish. In 1607, he traveled to St. Augustine, in company with Capitan Chico, the Ais "Little Captain" or mandador. They observed the Easter Holy Week observances in the city.
        Governor Ybarra offered religious instruction to coastal chiefs and warriors visiting the city, personally leading the chieftains to the Franciscan friary (convento) in 1605. There were only a few conversions to the Catholic faith, and no Spanish missions were established in lands controlled by the Ais and Santaluces tribes.
        The governor did successfully use his influence with Don Luis to mediate an end to a dispute which had led to conflict between the Santaluces and Jeaga tribes in 1609. By the end of Ybarra's term, Spanish trade and rescue missions were allowed to enter the Province of Ais without fear of attack.
        However, conditions along the southern frontier remained tense. A letter from Franciscan missionaries to Spain in 1618 stated the Indians of Santa Lucia and Jeaga were "rebellious" against the Spanish. Indian trade with foreign vessels was an ongoing concern of Spain.
        Following reports that the galleon "Nuestra Senora de Atocha" grounded in southeast Florida, Gov. Juan de Salinas (1618-24) wrote, "About the month of September (1622) some remains of ships were found on this coast that indicated shipwreck and loss of same. And soon thereafter I had word from Indians of the coast of 'Jega' and Santa Lucia that many others had come to grief on their coast."
        "This caused me notable concern and grief because of its being time for the 'Galleons' and 'Fleet' (annual Galleones and Flota treasure convoys) to be coming through the channel," he reported. "I sent the sergeant-major, Gabira, to the point of Canaveral with 40 soldiers so that he might search along these (coasts) and collect whatever he might find."
        Unaware the "Atocha" sank in the Florida Keys, Governor Salinas led a second expedition in person. In his 1623 report to the king, he wrote, "It appeared to me appropriate that I should make this investigation in person as well. I did so. I reached as far as Santa Lucia, which is the farthest I was able to go, hunting all over of them without finding anything of importance, or anything else other than broken chests of rotting tobacco and three shallops (canoes)."
        It was a shipwreck in 1696 that would add valuable information about the Santaluces Indians and their neighbors. The "Reformation" foundered on the coast of Jupiter Island. The vessel's passenger list included Jamaican merchant Jonathan Dickinson and his family, en route to establish a new business venture in Philadelphia.
        The castaways were captured by the Jeaga Indians and taken to their village of Hobe at Jupiter Inlet. After the Jeaga divided the ship's cargo with the visiting cacique of the Ais Indians, Dickinson and his party were allowed to leave Hobe and begin the long journey north to St. Augustine.
        In his journal, published as "God's Protecting Providence..." in 1699, Dickinson said the Santaluces village of  "St. a Lucea was a town that lay about a degree to the northward" of Hobe. The Jeaga told him the town would be "about two or three days journey," and upon arrival expect "to have our throats and scalps cut and be shot, burnt and eaten."
        Despite the dire warning, the English castaways decided to walk to "St. a Lucea" under the false assumption that "this place having a Spanish name supposed to have found it under the government of that nation, whence we might expect relief."
        They encountered a peaceful Santaluces village on the north shore of the St. Lucie Inlet. Dickinson described the residence of the Santaluces cacique as "40-foot long, and 25-foot wide, covered with palmetto leaves both tops and sides." He wrote it contained a "barbecue" for cooking and a range of benches for leaders of the tribe to sit. The chieftain sat on a bench located at the upper end of the building's interior.
        While held at the village of "St. a Lucea," Dickinson observed, and provides us today, with a rare look at the ceremonial diplomatic protocol used by the coastal tribes during the late 17th century. The event was a delegation of Ais Indians sent to the Santaluces town to negotiate the release of the English captives.
        "About the tenth hour we observed the Indians (Santaluces) to be on a sudden motion," he observed, "most of the principal of themselves to their houses; the Casseekey went to dressing his head and painting himself, and so did the rest."
        "When they had done," Dickinson wrote, "they came to the Casseekey's house and seated themselves in order. In a small time after came an Indian with some small attendance (Ais Indian delegation) into the house, making a ceremonious motion, and seating himself by the Casseekey, persons that came with him seated themselves amongst the others."
        Dickinson's journal states, "After some small pause, the Casseekey began a discourse which held nigh an hour. After which the strange Indian and his companions (Ais) went forth to the waterside, unto their canoe lying in the sound, and returned with such presents as they brought, delivering them to the Casseekey, and those sitting giving applause."
        After receiving the ransom, the Santaluces chieftain allowed the English castaways to leave the village. They were escorted to the main Village of Ais (Jece) near Vero Beach, where they endured another month of captivity until a Spanish patrol secured their release. Dickinson learned there were 10 native towns between the St. Lucie Inlet and St. Augustine.
        While at the Village of Ais, Dickinson observed in addition to distributing loot from shipwrecked vessels, the coastal tribes shared resources from their environment. He wrote, "This week we observed that great baskets of dried berries were brought in from drivers towns and delivered to the king, which supposed to be a tribute to the king, who is chief of all towns from St. Lucie to the northward of this town of Jece."

Road to Oblivion
        Dickinson's journal provides a final look at the Santaluces Indians before their destruction. Less than seven years later, the tribe was shattered by slave raids led by the British and their Yemassee Indian allies during Queen Anne's War. The architect of these incursions was Captain Thomas Nairne, Indian Agent for the South Carolina colony.
        Nairne led a mixed force of English and Yemassee warriors to South Florida in 1702-03, attacking villages and carrying off inhabitants as slaves for the markets in Charleston. The raids into Florida continued throughout 11 years of colonial warfare, with Yemassee and Yuchi Indians often launching war parties independent of their British allies.
        In an appeal to the king of Spain written Jan. 14, 1708, Gov. Francisco de Corcoles y Martinez (1706-16) wrote, "Nothing of all this has sufficed to prevent the enemy from continuing his constant killings and hostilities, which since the siege (of St. Augustine) they are doing, departing from Indian villages bordering the Carolinas, being aided by the English with guns. ammunition, cutlasses and pistols, and even accompanied by some English, who urge, incite and encourage them to these assaults, until they have desolated the entire mainland, and the coast to the south, and Carlos (the Calusa)."
      An "Indios de la Costa" (Indians of the Coast) mission was established near St. Augustine as a refuge from the raids. A few members of the Santaluces tribe may have joined 137 other coastal Indians living at the Costa mission in 1711. A final Spanish census in 1759 revealed only "nine Costa in one household" remaining in the Nombre de Dios mission.  They were transported to Cuba in 1763.
        As stated at the beginning of this history, a few lake Indians, Santaluces and Maymies, merged with refugees from the Mayaca tribe who migrated south from the St. Johns River after their missions were destroyed in a second raid by Captain Nairne and his Indian allies. Their village of Mayacco may have been near the current community of Port Mayaca in Martin County.
        Soon this last village disappeared too. Perhaps a few surviving Santaluces joined the newly formed Seminole tribe, although there are no documents that support this view. The road to extinction is a one-way street, and the Santaluces (Guacata) tribe met its dead end in history as the result of a colonial war not of their making.
2015. (c.)

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'Cha-chi's Village' Rests Beneath West Palm Beach

By Bob Davidsson
        Fifty years before the founding of West Palm Beach, a Seminole town called "Cha-chi's Village" in honor of its chief peacefully existed along the chain of lakes which today are part of the city's western suburb.
        The demise of the original inhabitants of the Palm Beaches - the Jeaga, Guacata (Santaluces) and Tequesta tribes - due to introduced diseases and slave raids during Queen Anne's War (1702 -13), resulted in the county reverting to a depopulated wilderness.
        The Spanish Santa Lucia outpost (1565-66) and the English Grenville Plantation (1760s) both failed to take root near Jupiter Inlet, leaving the land uncontested and open to settlement. The newly formed Seminole tribe entered the Palm Beaches first as hunters in the late 1700s, and then as settlers in the 19th century.
        The Seminole village chief Cha-chi (also spelled as Chai-chee, Chi, or Chai Chi in military documents) has the distinction of the first known resident of the Palm Beaches identified by name. Polly, his wife, likewise is the first woman residing in the county with a name and identity we can trace back to the 1840s.
        Col. William Jenkins Worth, the U.S. army commander ultimately responsible for the capture and abandonment of the Seminole village, and his officers also used the English name "George or Old Georgy" in place of Cha-chi's Muskogean name when referring to him in their official correspondence.
        The commencement of the Second Seminole War in 1835 initially had little impact on Cha-chi's Village. The tribe continued to raise crops along both shores of the freshwater Hypoluxo Lake (the Seminole name for Lake Worth, meaning "water all around, no way out").
        The battle lines slowly shifted southward following the capture and death of the war chief Osceola. A major battle was fought along the northern shore of Lake Okeechobee on Christmas Day, 1837. In 1838, the war came to the Palm Beaches with the arrival U.S. Navy, Army and state militia units at Jupiter Inlet.
        Two skirmishes were fought long the Loxahatchee River in January 1838, followed by the construction of Fort Jupiter three miles west of the inlet. Cha-chi's Seminole neighbors to the north were forced to either surrender or withdraw into the Everglades.
        Mayor William Lauderdale's 233 Tennessee Volunteers, stationed at Fort Jupiter, cleared a pathway west of Cha-chi's Village. It was called the "Military Trail." In four days, "Lauderdale's Route" was cut and hacked, linking the Jupiter garrison with an outpost 63 miles to the south on the New River. The camp was named Fort Lauderdale after its commanding officer in March 1838.
        The remaining Seminole Indians in the eastern Palm Beaches were flanked to the north and south by military forts, while Army units patrolled the new road to the west. The unwanted war had arrived at the doorstep of Cha-chi and his village.
        By the year 1841, a war-weary United States government searched for a way to end the six-year conflict. Only a few hundred Seminole and Mikasuki Indians remained in South Florida. The remainder were killed, captured or deported to reservations in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
        Col. Worth was the officer assigned the task of ending the war. His strategy was to send small detachments of Army regulars, supported by Navy river boats and Indian guides, to seek and destroy the remaining Seminole hideouts.

Captain Wade's Raid
        On Nov. 5, 1841, Captain Richard A. Wade embarked from Fort Lauderdale with 60 men in 12 dugout canoes. His destination was the Hillsboro Inlet and the river system along the Broward-Palm Beach County line where Seminole hunting parties were reported.
        In his journal, Captain Wade reported, "We proceeded by the inland passage to the northward, coming out in the bay at Hillsborough Inlet, and in such a manner canoes were concealed from the view of an Indian, whom I there discovered fishing on the northern point of the inlet."
        The frightened fisherman was captured and coerced to lead the soldiers to his encampment 15 miles to the west. The camp was surrounded and assaulted, resulting in the capture of 20 Indians and the deaths of eight, who were killed while trying to escape.
        In his report, Captain Wade wrote, "Under the guidance of an old Indian, found among our prisoners, who is called Chia-chee, I took up a line of march through nearly a mile of deep bog and saw grass, then through pine barren and some hammock, to a cypress swamp, a distance of some 30 miles northward."
        "Here (on November 8) we were conducted to another village," he reported, "which we also surrounded and surprised, and captured 27 Indians, took six rifles and one shotgun, and destroyed a large quantity of provisions and four canoes."
        The next day Cha-chi led the soldiers and captives back to Hillsboro Inlet where the canoes were left under guard. Captain Wade's raid resulted in the capture of 55 Indians. Cha-chi won the trust of the Army officer and was allowed to return to the Palm Beaches alone to persuade any remaining Seminoles to surrender.
        Captain Wade wrote, "Having seen much in the old man, Chia-chee, to inspire my confidence, I permitted him to go from our camp to bring in other Indians, which he promised to do in three or four days. This promise he subsequently redeemed, having brought in six at Fort Lauderdale."
        As the result of the Wade expedition, there were few if any Seminole Indians remaining in the eastern Palm Beaches. Perhaps Cha-chi's motive in assisting the U.S. Army as a guide was a promise that he and his family could remain in Florida instead of deportation to Oklahoma. The promise was kept by both the Army and Cha-chi, at the expense of his tribe and former villagers.

Lake Worth Exploration
        Captain Wade was rewarded for the successful raid with a promotion to the rank of major.  Following reports of renewed Indian activity along the Loxahatchee River, he led a second expedition Dec. 19 with 17 canoes and 80 men on a a round trip from Fort Lauderdale to Fort Jupiter and back. He followed an unexplored waterway, later named "Lake Worth" in honor of his commanding officer, as his chosen route.
        Joining him on the expedition was Lt. Andrew A. Humphreys, a topographical engineer, to survey and record new discoveries on their journey. He would later draw a map which included the location of Cha-chi's Village.
        In his memoir, "Inland Routes from Fort Jupiter to Fort Lauderdale," he described Lake Worth as "a pretty body of water, about 20 miles long and three quarters of a mile in width; bounded on the west by pine barren, and on the east by sand hills of the beach, which are sometimes 12 to 15 feet in height, and covered with cabbage trees, wild fig, mangroves, saw palmettos, with here and there a variety of cactus."
      As the expedition traveled south from Fort Jupiter, he wrote, "Six miles from the last haulover, on the west side of the lake, is Chachi's Landing. A broad trail, half a mile in length, formerly led from this place over a spruce scrub towards the villages of the Indians whose gardens were on the opposite shore of Lake Worth, which they reached by hauling their canoes over the trail."
        Humphreys estimated Cha-chi's Village was located 12.5 miles south of Lake Worth Creek, and 1.5 miles west of Lake Worth.  He added, "Captain Wade's command were two days in going from Fort Jupiter to Chachi's Village."
       His description of the abandoned village reads as follows: "The site of this (town) is on a pretty island, bounded on the northbound-east by a deep clear pond half a mile wide, and between a mile and a half and two miles long. On the west and the south it is surrounded by a grassy lake."
        After aiding Captain Wade, Cha-chi was a guide for the Navy's "Mosquito Fleet," under the command of Captain John T. McLaughlin. The fleet's mission was to search coastal waters and inlets for hostile natives. During one of these missions, "Chi's Cut" in Biscayne Bay was named for guide who located it for the fleet.
        Before the war's end, Cha-chi also guided the expedition of Captain John Rogers Vinton along the western side of Lake Worth in a failed effort to capture the war chief Sam Jones. In the summer of 1842 only about 300 Indians remained in Florida. By general order, Col. Worth declared the war over on Aug. 14, 1842.
        After the war, Cha-chi and his wife Polly moved to the Manatee community in Hillsborough County. He was shunned by members of his tribe for assisting the Army, and lived in fear of reprisal. On Oct. 12, 1852, Florida Gov. Thomas Brown issued a proclamation to protect Cha-chi from his enemies, both white and native American.
        The governor's executive order stated, "Whereas it has been presented to me by a petition of a number of the citizens of  the county of Hillsborough that a certain Indian of the tribe of the Seminoles now in Florida by the name of  'Chi' and his wife have been outlawed by their tribe for the offense of acting as a guide to the United States troops during the period of Indian hostilities in Florida, and that the faith of the general government has been pledged for the protection of said Chi and his wife..."
        Despite state protection, Cha-chi continued to live in fear. With the outbreak of the Third Seminole War, his anxiety increased to the point that he decided to take his own life. His only reward for risking his life as an Army scout was a bag containing $100 in coins.
         On June 6, 1856, Lt. Alex S. Webb noted in his journal, "I forgot to mention the death of Corporal Manning of my company, of Chi the Indian. Chi committed suicide. He evidently felt that he was neither Indian or white, and got himself out of the world to avoid meeting parties of Indian scouts."
        His widow, Polly, who spoke Spanish, served as a guide for the U.S. Army during the Third Seminole War, with the assistance of a translator named Philippi. During one of her missions, Polly found the source of the Miami River for a lost Army unit then "let out a panther yell".
        Cha-chi's Village continued to appear on state maps through the 1870s, when the name, like the village, disappeared.
2014. (c.)

NOTE: Index and additional articles archived in Older Posts.  

Navidad at Fort Santa Lucia: December 1565

 By Bob Davidsson
         In the year of our Lord 1565, the royal court of King Phillip II, ruler by conquest or inheritance of Castile, Aragon, Navarre, the Two Sicilys, Spanish Netherlands, the North African ports, the Americas, the isles of the Indies and "La Florida," his newest acquisition, prepared for the annual nativity celebration (Navidad) Dec. 8 with the Festival of the Immaculate Conception.
        As court dancers performed "Los Seises," a precision dance of the six as part of the elaborate ceremony, in far-away Florida life was much different for the king's beleaguered garrison at the Port of Ais near Fort Pierce. The military colony, consisting of about 250 Spanish soldiers and 50 French prisoners of war, was starving.
        In a whirlwind two-month campaign, Spanish Adelantado Pedro Menendez de Aviles, proprietary governor of Florida, founded the town of St. Augustine, destroyed the rival French colony of Fort Caroline near the mouth of the St. Johns River, murdered most of the shipwrecked relief force of Admiral Jean Ribault at Matanzas Inlet, then marched his poorly provisioned army south along the Rio de Ais (Indian River) to establish new outposts among the Ais and Tequesta Indians.
        In his Oct. 15 report to King Phillip, Menendez outlined his ambitious plans for the occupation of South Florida with an army of just 300 Spanish soldiers and crew, 70 French POWs captured at Cape Canaveral, and three small ships.
        The Adelantado wrote, "I shall place there 150 Spaniards, for they are needed to keep watch over the Indians, who are very warlike, until the Spaniards shall have gained their good will."
        With the food situation becoming critical at the Port of Ais,  Menendez set sail for Havana in November 1565 with two of the colony's three naos, small shallow-draft coastal vessels, to seek supplies for the garrison. He selected a crew of 50 Spaniards and 20 French prisoners to make the journey, reducing his garrison by 20 percent.
        The remaining garrison and French prisoners were placed under the command of Captain Juan Velez de Medrano. Velez was one of the officers who led the assault on Fort Caroline. In addition to his military command, he was appointed civil governor of the new Province of Ais.
        The winter of 1565-66 was one of severe hardship for the Spanish colony on the Rio de Ais. The arrival of a relief ship was delayed. The Ais Indians cut communications with St. Augustine and harassed the garrison. While the Indian River offered an abundance of food sources, the weakened soldiers feared Indian attack and did not venture along the river.
        In desperation, about 100 members of the garrison, under a soldier named Escobar, deserted the settlement and marched south. The words of 16th century historian Bartolome Barrientos describe the plight of the Spanish garrison and the event which led to the founding of Fort Santa Lucia:
        "At the port of Ays," he wrote, "where the Adelantado had left Juan Velez de Medrano and his soldiers, many of those who remained were unwilling to endure hunger and discomfort in the interval required for Menendez to send supplies from Havana."
        According to his history, "These men now marched out of Ays. When Captain (Juan Velez) Medrano and Lieutenant (Gabriel) Ayala went out to bring them back, they found many of the party dead and others drowned as a result of their attempt to cross local rivers."
      Ironically, a short time after the mutiny, a relief ship commanded by Diego de Amaya arrived at the Port of Ais. The garrison's remaining nao and Amaya's relief ship sailed south in pursuit of the deserters. They entered Jupiter Inlet, discovered the main Jeaga Indian village of Hobe on its south shore, and sailed north into the Jupiter Narrows.
        They established a new outpost north of the Jupiter Inlet on Dec. 13 and christened it "Santa Lucia". Captain Velez sailed north with his two vessels and found the remaining mutineers stranded near the St. Lucie inlet.  He escorted them back to the new colony.
        The historian Barrientos writes, "Twenty-three leagues beyond Ays, the Spaniards found a harbor, which they named Santa Lucia because they discovered it on that saint's day. It was to this port that the Adelantado sent supplies."
        In 16th century Spain and its domains, the Santa Lucia festival was called "El Dia de Santa Lucia" and was observed by the lighting of bonfires, candles and music. In the old Julian calendar, the event coincided with the winter solstice and thus was celebrated as a festival of light on the shortest day of the year.

Siege of Fort Santa Lucia
        There was not much time to celebrate at the Santa Lucia outpost. The Spanish fort was viewed as an unwelcomed threat by both the Jeaga tribe at Hobe and on Jupiter Island, and to the related Guacata (Santaluces) and Ais tribes to the north.
        In his history, Barrientos writes, "Although the Indians pretended to be friendly, they actually plotted to kill the colonists, for they saw how weak they were from hunger. The 'savages' were also aware that the party possessed no harquebuses (matchlock firearms) - fatigue had caused them to abandoned these weapons along the way."
        "One day five hundred Indians descended on our men and killed 15 soldiers. The 'savages' manner of fighting allowed them to go unscathed, for during the time one solider fired a shot, an Indian loosed 20 arrows."
        Barrientos detailed the intensity of the fighting and acts of heroism: "When Lt. Gabriel Ayala saw that our tactics were wholly unsuccessful, he sallied out with 30 soldiers armed with swords only. In this fashion were the 'savages' driven back; although every day they continued to approach the camp with the intention of doing damage."
        One of the sources cited by the historian Barrientos was a survivor of the siege, an artilleryman named Diego Lopez. The soldier reported "with great haste they built a fort for defense." Lopez estimated of 236 men defending Santa Lucia, no more than 60 or 70 survived.
        In his biography of Pedro Menendez, the historian Barrientos adds, "During the next eight days the Spaniards built a fort, in which they set up their defense. As their answer to this, the Indians attacked one morning 1,000 strong. Discharging their arrows without cessation, they fought for four hours, during which 6,000 arrows fell inside the fort."
        Juan de Soto, another soldier of the garrison during 1565-66, testified in 1574, "As to Xega (the Jeaga), he knows that these Indians have slain many Spaniards in the district they called Santa Lucia, where a company was garrisoned, and they killed in such numbers that those alive were forced to leave and abandoned fort, because the Indians were persecuting and killing them every day."
        Daily encounters with neighboring tribes prevented soldiers from gathering food. Barrientos reported a single pound of maize was issued to 10 soldiers, and when the supply of maize was exhausted "a palmetto was sold for one ducat, snake for four, and a rat cost eight reales."
        Christmas Eve - Noche Buena (the Good Night) - was celebrated in 16th century Spain with a special treat called "turron de Navidad" (almond candy) and lechan (roasted pork) . The traditional "Pavo Trufado de Navidad" or Christmas feast often featured turkey stuffed with truffles at the Spanish royal court.
        Although wild turkeys were plentiful in the Palm Beaches during the 16th century, the Spanish garrison did not benefit from nature's bounty during Navidad. At best, they were served "cocido," a stew commonly served on Spanish ships.
        A "patache" or small two-masted vessel, under the command of Captain Gonzalo Gallegos, was dispatched from the Havana and arrived at Santa Lucia during the Christmas season. He found the condition of the colony "deplorable" with the garrison subsisted on "palmettos, grasses and water." Gallegos left part of his cargo at Santa Lucia, then sailed to St. Augustine.
        The supplies were soon consumed by the starving garrison. A concerned Lt. Ayala, "saddened by the suffering of his soldiers," launched an open boat from the shore in an attempt to seek help in Havana. Ayala and the garrison's chaplain, Father Mendoza, battled the contrary currents of the Gulf Stream until exhaustion forced them back to the outpost.
        Six days later a sail was spotted on the horizon. The caravel "Ascencion" arrived in March 1566 with additional supplies. Its arrival sparked a mutiny by the garrison.

The Santa Lucia Mutiny
       Gonzalo Solis de Meras, the brother-in-law of Menendez, documented the event. "The master of the caravel in order to do so, wished to unload the maize when he arrived at Santa Lucia; whereupon the soldiers seized the master and prepared to make off with the caravel."
        Solis reported, "Because Captain Juan Velez wished to prevent this, they tried to kill but wounded him and Ayala, his ensign, who was likewise preventing their making off with the caravel; and they had all embarked on board her and were on their way to Havana..."
        The "Ascencion" and Santa Lucia garrison were intercepted at sea March 19 by Adelantado Menendez and a Spanish fleet near the Florida Keys and taken to St. Augustine. Fort Santa Lucia was deserted and reclaimed by the native Jeaga Indians.
        Despite the loss of the Santa Lucia outpost, and two mutinies under his command, Captain Velez remained on good terms with Adelantado Menendez. He was relieved of his command of the Santa Lucia survivors in July 1566, and reassigned to a Spanish fleet organized by Menendez to fight pirates in the Caribbean.
        Most historians believe Santa Lucia was permanently abandoned in 1566. Some sources indicate the site may have been briefly occupied by refugees from the Spanish Tekesta colony at Biscayne Bay in 1567. By 1568 Menendez had abandoned all his outposts in South Florida.
        Today, the exact location of Fort Santa Lucia remains one of the great mysteries of Florida history. The Jupiter Inlet (i.e. Rio Hobe, Jobe, Jove, Jupiter) and adjacent estuary (the Rio Jeaga) would remain free of colonization through the remainder of the Spanish colonial period.
        Elsie Dolby Jackson, the author of  "Loxahatchee Lament, Early History of Jupiter," made the following observation in 1918: "We have another Indian monument which we may speculate about. It is where the lighthouse now stands. A high ridge in the shape of a horseshoe is situated west of the mouth of the Jupiter Narrows."
        "In the center of this ridge is a central mound," she wrote. "From the river to the convex side is, apparently, is an approach. Some call this an amphitheater. Others have called it a fortification."
        A simple U-shaped fortification with its open end facing the river would have required little time for the harassed Spanish garrison to build and defend from hostile Jeaga Indians. It also would have allowed easy access for supply ships entering the inlet.
        The history of Fort Santa Lucia is a story with an ending still waiting to be written by researchers and archaeologists.
(c.) Revised 2015.

INDEX of ARTICLES: (2014 - )

• "Navidad at Fort Santa Lucia: December 1565." December 2014.
• "Cha-chi's Village Rests Beneath West Palm Beach." December 2014.
• "Uncovering the History of the Santaluces Indians. January 2015.
• "Palm Beaches Used as the Confederacy's Last Hideout." March 2015.
• "Civil War Blockade-Running at Jupiter Inlet: 1861-65." May 2015.
• "The Jeaga Indians of 'Abaioa' (Palm Beach) in 1513." July 2015.
• "USS Jupiter Became America's First Aircraft Carrier." August 2015.
• "Muck Monster Legend Becomes Part of Our History." October 2015.
• "Battle of the Atlantic Comes to the Palm Beaches." November 2015.
• "Welcome to Historic Downtown 'Figulus': 1881-93." February 2016.
• "Inside the Eye of Hurricane Cleo: August 1964." March 2016.
• "The U.S. Navy's Expedition to Lake Okeechobee: 1842." April 2016.
• "A History of the Tequesta Indians in Boca Raton." June 2016.
• "The Short Life and Sudden End of God's 'Chosen' City." July 2016.
• "Final Voyage and Sinking of 'SS Inchulva' Off Delray." August 2016.
• "Digging Up the Haunted History of Palm Beach County." Sept. 2016.
• "The Last Campaign of Major William Lauderdale." October 2016.
• "True Tale of  Captain Gus and the Old Palm Beach Pier." Dec. 2016.
• "John Prince's Memorial: A County Park for the People." Jan. 2017.
• "Wartime POWs, 'Spy' Reports in Palm Beach County." Feb. 2017.

NOTE: These digital articles are indexed and archived at the Florida Department of State (DOS), Division of State Library and Archives, in its "Florida County Histories" site. DOS Address: http://dos.myflorida.com .
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