IN RECOGNITION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ DAY - OCTOBER 11, 2021

 

IN RECOGNITION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ DAY

OCTOBER 11, 2021

From Linda Lee Greene, Author/Artist

“The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”

        -Mark Twain

 Across the Overseas Highway and at the end of State Route A1A, Key West forms the tailbone of the 1,700 island-long vertebral column of the Florida archipelago. The contiguous city occupies not only the diminutive four- by two-mile island of Key West itself, but also extends to the whole, as well as portions of, nearby islands. A look at a map of the Florida Keys shows the archipelago veering to the west as it approaches the Gulf of Mexico. There exists a mistaken assumption that the city’s name derives from this western movement of the land masses. The true derivation of the name is coiled in tragedy, not unlike almost any place in the United States—where the wholesale slaughter of an indigenous people gave rise to a new identity.

Key West’s contemporary identity is tied to Old World European settlers, in other words “invaders,” who massacred hordes of the indigenous (Calusa) Indians and left their carcasses strewn on a beach—and exposed to the brutal elements and wildlife, all that remained were litter upon litter of bleached bones. “Cayo Hueso” in Spanish pronounced as “‘kajo ‘weso” meaning “Bone Key” and transliterated by English speakers to “Key West” took root over time and stuck. A footnote to that brutal history states that a contingent of the Indians who escaped the bloodbath wrought upon them by the whites, fled to Cuba.

Plying the Everglades’ and coastal waterways in 15’ cypress dug-out canoes that flew sails and were controlled by oars, trading trips across the Florida Straits and into Cuba by the Calusa people had been common in their day. When in their own territory, the men donned in tanned deerskin breechcloths and belts, and the women in skirts of woven palmetto leaves and Spanish moss, their estimated 50,000 had peppered the hot, sandy shores and guarded their terrain aggressively—for they were a powerful, fierce, and warlike people—statuesque, good-looking, and proud.

Unlike neighboring tribes that made a living as farmers, the Calusa were fisherfolk, and the by-product of their work was sea- and river-shells of every type and description. Known as “The Shell Indians,” they used the shells as tools, utensils, jewelry, and ornaments for their shrines. The men hunted and fished with spears and arrows they had pointed with shells. Calusa shell mounds remain in many parts of southern Florida, which are protected by environmentalists and conservation groups. One such mound, constructed entirely of shells and clay, is the ‘Mound Key’ at Estero Bay in Lee County. It is believed to have been the main town of the Calusa and the site of Chief Carlos, the hereditary king of the tribe at the time of their first contact with the Spanish. This occurred shortly after the 1566 establishment of St. Augustine in northeast Florida by the Spanish. Artifacts excavated from the mounds by archaeologists are on display in many Florida history museums. These superior Calusa sailors put their skills to use as well attacking ships of white explorers and salvaging shipwrecks for whatever treasure they could recover.  

The Calusa people were done away with by a combination of European diseases and warfare with the Spanish, English, and Creek Indians. The last Calusa king died in the early 1700s. While pure-blood Calusas are no more, there are doubtless people of mixed-Calusa descent alive to this day, stemming from the Calusas who were sent to Cuba as slaves by the Spanish and who melded with Cubans over the years. Others who traveled there voluntarily to escape the epidemics and turmoil of the late 1600s and 1700s might also have descendants in Cuba. Still other Calusas who survived the chaos, joined the people of the Seminole Nation and intermixed with them over time. The Calusa language and culture have died out, however.

The Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León is credited with having discovered Florida in 1513. It is said that it was a Calusa arrow that shot Ponce de León in his thigh, the wound that shortly thereafter killed him. Fair enough, if you ask me!©

 

 

Multi-award-winning author Linda Lee Greene’s A CHANCE AT THE MOON finds Hawaiian Koa Kahlui and Navajo Sam Whitehorse hatching a plan to stop environmental terrorists in their tracks, strategies the two friends concoct over meals in Sam’s Nevada ranch-house kitchen. A novel of love, betrayal, murder, a touch of paranormal, and captivating psychological suspense, it is available for purchase at https://tinyurl.com/3dc75u6p

 

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