Native American Indian History in the Florida Keys
Native American Dugout Canoe
FL Keys Monk Seal
The original Native Americans themselves were extinct in the Keys by 1763, emigrating to Cuba as the English came into Florida. By then they'd become allies of the Spanish and helped them salvage their ship wrecks and learn to fish the waters. The "allies" part, however, only came later since Native Americans in the 1500s would typically kill or enslave any Spanish citizen or soldier unfortunate enough to be ship wrecked on the Keys reef.
After the original Native American tribes (the Calusa and Tequesta) left, there was a period of time where the Keys were uninhabited for the first time in a thousand years. Then in the 1800s another tribe arrived, the Seminole Indians who were being displaced by American settlers moving into Florida from the north. This tribe had a rocky start with early Keys settlers as the U.S. Army hunted them there and in the swamps of the Everglades where they hid. In 1840s the Seminoles staged a successful attack on Indian Key killing several of the inhabitants. The threat of Native American Indian attack was so great the remaining farmers and fisherman throughout the Keys fled to Key West until the conflict was settled. Today there are still Seminoles in the Keys, but they're friendly and come by truck or car from other parts of Florida to fish and enjoy the beautiful waters.
If you're interested in learning more about the Florida Keys, check out our book The Florida Keys: A History Through Maps. Island Map Store also publishes decorative maps of the Caribbean, Florida and almost all coastal U.S. regions! If you have any questions or would like to place a custom order visit our site or call 239-963-3497, we're happy to help!
Hurricanes in the Florida Keys have been occurring as long as man has kept records. Spanish fleets were destroyed in 1622 when the treasure galleon
Atocha sank near the Marquesas and again in 1733 when more than a dozen ships were lost along the Florida reef launching a massive search, rescue and salvage operation from Havana.
When you live on the coast in Florida, hurricanes are as much a fact of life as wildfires in California or tornadoes in the Midwest. Like it or not, they just happen and during the fall you keep an eye on the weather channel. Over 30 hurricanes are reviewed in our new book on the Florida Keys beginning in the early 1800s when the Keys were first settled.
In 1846 all but eight of six hundred homes in Key West were destroyed, virtually all of the boats in the harbor sank. In 1906 a hurricane washed a vessel housing men working on the Over-Sea Railroad out to sea, killing dozens. In 1935 that same railroad came to an end as the great Labor Day Hurricane shredded the tracks and killed over 400, making it the deadliest storm ever recorded in the Keys.
The U.S. started naming hurricanes in 1953 and no one can forget the name "Irma". That category 4 hurricane hit the lower Keys on September 10th, 2017 with winds over 130mph and a storm surge of 8 feet destroying hundreds of homes and businesses, over 700 boats either sank or floated away.
I'm an Ocean Engineer and have been cleaning up after hurricanes my whole career. Marinas and shorelines often need to be rebuilt and we're called in to re-design and manage the work. In a sick kind of way hurricanes are good for business, but Irma badly damaged my own home and I got to experience the heartache myself enduring months of clean up and rebuilding. It's not really the storm that gets most people, I actually found it interesting, it's the aftermath working in the heat of south Florida without power and struggling to get supplies and rebuild. The trauma is very real and my friends in the Keys went through a lot of it.
For more information on this history of the Florida Keys, check out our latest book 
Who discovered Florida? That's the question we ask at the beginning of our new book on the Florida Keys. Who indeed? History tells us the story of Ponce de Leon, the search for the Fountain of Youth and his 1513 discovery of Florida. It's been an accepted story for generations. Really? Not so fast!
I collect antique maps as does my 
Great Inagua is the southernmost island in the Bahamas archipelago which stretches from there northwest to Walker’s Cay and Matanilla Shoal, almost 600 miles away. Inagua is actually closer to Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic) than to the nearest Bahamian island, Acklins, over 80 miles to the north. Great Inagua is east of the Windward Passage and just fifty miles off the coast of Cuba, which puts it near the nexus of major shipping routes to the Americas and Caribbean. The island was once a major shipping center in the early 1900s where Bahamian seamen would join passing ships as crews were exchanged. In 1902 more than 220 ships, sail and steam, anchored off Inagua to exchange crews.
The island’s primary industry is the production of sea salt via solar evaporation. Large flat areas of land just above sea level in the interior of the island are prime for salt production. This led to the founding of the Henagua Salt Pond Company In 1848, the same year the Turks and Caicos (then a major salt producer) ceded from The Bahamas. In 1936 the Erickson brothers from New England revived the salt industry which endures today under the name of Morton Salt.
The island hosts the Southwest Point Lighthouse built near the main settlement of Matthew Town. The lighthouse was built by the British Imperial Lighthouse Service in 1870. The town is named after George Matthew, who was governor of The Bahamas from 1844–1848. Wrecks are common due to the island’s location adjacent to the Windward Passage, a shipping lane going back to the days of Spanish exploration. A number of shipwrecks reported here include the Spanish Santa Rosa in 1599 and the Infanta in 1788, the British HMS Statira and Lowestoffe in 1802 and the French ship Le Count De Paix lost in 1713.
If you’re looking for a remote place to have an island adventure amongst rich bird life and piles of salt on the horizon, Great Inagua may be the place for you. Few people, including most of the Bahamians I know, have ever seen the flamingos and the trip is worth it for that experience alone.
For more information on Bahamas history check out our 
Conception Island National Park is a wonderful place I’ve enjoyed on numerous trips. The island is deserted and the only access is by boat. I often anchor off Cape Santa Marina at the north end of Long Island which is less than 20 miles away, but for most it’s distant journey which keeps the little island group pristine and uncrowded. It’s over 150 miles to Nassau. Conception was designated a national park in 1964 and is managed by the Bahamas National Trust. There are several mooring buoys offshore but otherwise no modern conveniences whatsoever.
The island has lovely beaches and rocky hills surrounding a large interior lagoon with a labyrinth of waterways that connect mangrove-lined bays and flats that can go dry at low tide. The lagoon is filled with life including fish of many types, turtles, rays and sharks that can be seen in the shallow water on the flats. Wading birds are all over the lagoon including great blue herons, smaller heron species, various ducks, terns, stilts, oyster catchers, ospreys and sandpipers with frigates and lovely tropic birds overhead. Sometimes the white tropic birds with their long tails appear to be blue as the sun reflects off the white sand under the shallow blue sea (I once had to convince a stubborn friend on my boat that the birds weren’t actually blue!). Conception may be home to the largest concentration of this elegant bird in the entire Bahamas. It’s a truly a magical place and Booby Cay, to the east of the main island, is a significant nesting site for terns and other seabirds.
There’s beautiful reef on the north side of Conception with a proliferation of unique corals and the remains of two ships from the War of 1812, including cannons and anchors submerged in shallow water. The British frigate “Southampton” had days earlier captured the smaller American brig “Vixen” and both hit the reef together one November night. Three hundred men made it to shore in the ship’s boats which were soon dispatched to seek help from Cat Island to the north and from Nassau further west. There were few supplies salvaged from the wrecked ships and the men lived primarily on the abundant conch they found and what little fresh water was available. They were eventually taken to Jamaica by several British ships that came to the rescue. A written narrative about the event estimated the men ate nearly 1,100 Conch in the 10 days they were on the island, over 3 per man per day. It’s also interesting in just those few days several “wreckers” showed up, an indication of how common ship wrecks were throughout the islands at the time. Wreckers were men who sought fortune by salvaging cargos off of shipwrecks after first rescuing any anyone aboard.
There’s little human history written about the Conception, though some ruins can be seen from an early attempt at settlement. The lack of fresh water no doubt played a role in any desire to live or keep livestock there. This has had the great advantage of keeping Conception in a pristine condition resulting in a spectacular national park of the Bahamas, far enough from civilization that it’s likely to stay that way.
For more information on other Bahamian islands check out our site or 
