Centuries ago, Native Americans fled Spanish Florida for Cuba

Posted on Saturday, 04.13.13

Centuries ago, Native Americans fled Spanish Florida for Cuba
BY DANIEL SHOER ROTH
dshoer@ElNuevoHerald.com

There may be people walking the streets of Havana or Miami who carry
blood traces of South Florida's pre-Columbian civilizations. If so,
their DNA would confirm a little-known chapter of shared history: the
migration of Native Americans from Florida to Cuba when the territories
were united under Spanish rule.

With their arrival in Florida 500 years ago, the Spanish planted a
heritage that flourishes today, nourished by waves of Latin American
immigration that have pulled the state back to its Hispanic roots.

The 300-year history of Spanish Florida — from 1513 to 1819 with a
two-decade interval of British control — has not been a major area of
scholarship, and narratives tend to focus on English colonization of
North America.

Even less attention has been given to the link between indigenous
Floridians and Cuba, yet tribes such as the Tequesta, Calusa and Jobe
had a closer relationship with Havana than St. Augustine, headquarter of
the colonial expansion in the Southeast.

"Most of the last remnants of both the Christianized mission Indians of
northern Spanish Florida and the unconverted South Florida Indians were
ultimately transported to the outskirts of Havana during the 18th
century, where it may eventually be possible to discover living
descendants of serval extinct Southeastern Indian cultures," writes John
Worth, a University of West Florida anthropologist who specializes in
the European colonial era in the Southeastern United States.

The sporadic transport of small numbers of Florida Indians began in the
16th century when Cuba was used as a staging ground for Spanish
expeditions. Between Juan Ponce de León's 1513 arrival and Pedro
Menéndez de Avilés' establishment of the first colony, St. Augustine, in
1565, Havana became the home — temporary or permanent — to Florida
natives used by the Spanish as interpreters and guides.

Menéndez de Avilés married a Calusa chief's sister, baptized Doña María
Antonia, which gave him an advantage in dealing with other South Florida
tribes, says Miami historian Arva Moore Parks, a pioneer in the study of
South Florida natives.

Near the end of the 16th century, there was a shift in the often-fraught
relationship between natives and newcomers "that was to mark the next
200 years," says archeologist Bob Carr, executive director of the
Broward-based Archaeological and Historical Conservancy.

"The Indians and the Spanish became solid allies. The [Franciscan]
missions had some effect, but what brought about a closer relationship
were economic exchanges," Carr says.

The value of South Florida Indians to the Spanish, he says, was evident
in their zealous salvaging of shipwrecks along the peninsular coast and
in the Bahamas. The natives were good divers and received, in exchange
for their work, alcohol, tobacco, iron implements and beads.

"The courting of South Florida Indians was successful in 1607, when they
were invited by the Florida governor [Pedro Ibarra] to attend a festival
in St. Augustine," writes Carr in his book Digging Miami. They were
summoned again in 1628 because the Spanish hoped they would "keep an eye
on the expanding Dutch and British presence."

It was not, however, an entirely pacific relationship. During the 17th
century, indigenous insurgents from North Florida missions were tried
and jailed in Havana, according to Worth's research. The island's native
Taínos and Ciboneys, meanwhile, had been all but wiped out by Spanish
subjugation and disease.

In 1688, the cacique or chief of the Calusas on Florida's southwest
coast expressed interest in converting to Christianity. The Santiago de
Cuba diocese sent representatives to negotiate with him. They invited
the chief to visit the island, but his advisors warned that he could be
turned into a slave upon arriving. Instead, the chief sent ahead a few
Indian families to test the Spanish intentions.

"Marking a precedent-setting event in the history of Southeastern
Indians in Cuba, the band of Calusa were settled by Cuban authorities on
the bluff called La Cabaña directly across the harbor from downtown
Havana," writes Worth.

At the dawn of the 18th century, British soldiers and their Native
American allies from the Carolina colony descended on Florida,
determined to eradicate the Spanish presence.

Already depleted by disease, the native people of Biscayne Bay, called
Tequestas by the Spanish, faced an existential threat from the advancing
warrior bands. The arrival of the Lower Creeks (later called Seminoles)
forced local tribes into the Keys. For many, the only option was to seek
sanctuary with the Spanish in Cuba.

In 1704, Cuban officials approved the permanent immigration of a group
of Tequesta, Calusa and Jobe Indians, among others, from the Keys. Some
2,000 sought escape, but the two vessels sent by Bishop Jerónimo de
Valdés could only accommodate 270, with the chiefs given priority.

The bishop's rescue mission unleashed controversy in Havana due to the
use of funds from the Spanish crown. And in barely three months, some
200 of the 270 migrants had died, mostly from typhoid and smallpox.
Others returned to Florida, according to Spanish records.

The rest, Worth writes, were "dispersed among a number of Cuban
residents willing to take them in, including not just the immediate
vicinity of Havana but also other regions of Cuba" including the Bay of
Jagua in the current province of Cienfuegos.

Parks, who reviewed primary documents from Spanish archives, has
documented two subsequent group migrations of Indians from Florida to
Cuba, one in 1711, which was successful, and another in 1734, which failed.

A document found by Worth indicates that more than 200 Indians formed a
community in Havana, and at least one baptized Calusa woman gave birth
to two daughters.

"It was really a rescue between allies," says Parks. "Most people don't
know the close alliance between the Cubans and the natives of South
Florida."

Spanish soldiers and missionaries returned in 1743 to build a fort and
mission for what remained of the Tequesta nation on the north bank of
the Miami River, she added.

Sporadic migrations continued. The indigenous population fluctuated
around La Cabaña, and natives served as a labor force for the emerging
Cuban fishing industry.

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended both the Seven Years' War and the
first Spanish colonial period in Florida, with Spain ceding Florida to
the English to ransom Havana. With the evacuation of Spanish troops,
some remaining Indians in the Keys also left and settled in Guanabacoa,
a small city in the outskirts of Havana.

"Their few descendents became part of the quilt of Cuban mestizos and
mulattos," says Carr. "And those who survived in Florida, many also of
mixed blood, who became known as the Spanish Indians, would eventually
become absorbed by the Seminoles and Miccosukees.

"There was a lot of mixing and there were offspring," he says.
"Ironically, many of the Tequesta descendants might have returned to
Miami after Fidel Castro."

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