HISTORY OF THE EVERGLADES

The real history of the Everglades necessarily would have to start with its geological origin. To any regular park visitor, the first shocking impression is that there is nothing here. The sense of emptiness, flatness and vast expanses of just grass sometimes block the beauty and diversity of the life hidden in each small pool of water, in each hammock, in its prairies and around its ponds.

Water is the main element of the Everglades, the second important constituent of this topographical phenomenon is the limestone rock underneath the water and the marl and peat deposits accumulated on top of the limestone during the past few thousand years.

Although not perceptible to the visitors, the ground is tilted toward the south and west, with an average seaward slope of no more than a few inches to the mile. This imperceptible altitude difference allows the slow moving of the water of this "River of Grass."

The modern history of the Everglades, starts with the arrival of the first humans to this region. The Indians that the visitors can see in the various villages along the Tamiami trail or in any of the other Indian towns around the Everglades and Immokalee were not the first residents of this area. There is no proven evidence of the first Indian establishments in the Everglades. Probably it occurred about 10,000 years ago.

The first Indians in this region used weapons for hunting, had the use of fire and cooked their food in pottery vessels. Their shelters were made of bark. These Indians were related to the tribes from the Middle West known as "Mound Builders" who built sand and earth mounds for their temples or as graves for their dead. Probably these Indians lived here for hundreds of years in complete isolation from the tribes in the north regions. Archeologists call this civilization now, the "Glades Indians." The first Europeans that had contact with them, found them to be shrewd, independent and warlike. Actually, when Ponce de Leon in his second trip to Florida landed in the Ten Thousand Islands, the Indians of this region killed some Spaniards and even the wounded Ponce de Leon died on his way back to Havana.

The early Spaniards explorers found different tribes and villages extending from South Florida into the keys and named some of them as the Matecumbe, the Tequesta, the Calusas, or the Miamis, sometime these were just misnomers from the lack of understanding of the indian language by the colonizers. Eventually all the Glades Indians were ravaged by the white man's diseases. According to William B. Robertson, Jr. in his Everglades - The Park Story booklet, "there is a legendary account that the remaining few sailed in their canoes to Cuba, away from the crowding white men."

Pushed from the North and running away from the invading American colonizers there was a movement of indians from North Florida, Georgia and Alabama. During the American Revolution many moved down into Spanish Florida, where they were free to live as they choose. One of the earlier tribes moving into the area were the Miccosukee. They move down to the west coast of Florida into the Everglades and the Big Cypress. They probably mix with the last of the surviving Calusas.

In 1821 Florida was acquired from Spain for $5,000,000. In 1832, John James Audubon visited Key West and Indian Key and studied and described the some of the birds now protected in the Everglades. In 1845 Florida became a State and this brought more settlers into South Florida. A movement to drain the Everglades started a little later as well as to catch the Indians in the area. The State of Florida declared war against the Indians. Many Indians and white men died in this miserable war. The Federal Government intervened to end it.

In 1896, Miami sprang to life with the arrival of the railroad. The completion of the Tamiami Trail in the middle 1920s gave easy land access between the east and west coast of southern Florida. These advances kept reducing the natural life and wilderness of the Everglades. In April of 1906 works started on the first project to drain the Everglades. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state government officials have contributed to the desecretion of this land by authorizing subsequent digging of miles of canals, the creation of impoundments to store water, and the installation of structures designed to regulate the flow of water.

New road and canals kept dividing the area and interrupting the natural flow of the water that was vital to the survival of the glades. Farms and ranches were established north of the Trail, new subdivisions took precious land away from this unique place in the world.

The fight to protect the Everglades is not new. It started before 1900 by the National Audubon Society to save the plume birds. Eventually more strong, effective and organized conservation movements were created. In 1920 Charles Torry Simpson concluded in his book, In Lower Florida Wilds, that "to-day most of its hammocks are destroyed, the streams are being dredged out and deepened, the Everglades are nearly drained; even the pine forests are being cut down." Around the time Simpson wrote these strong words, the first real organized efforts to preserve the Everglades as a national park started. However, it took many long years to finally see that happening 50 years ago.

In 1916 the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs made the first land purchase to protect the trees on Paradise Key, a hardwood hammock rich in plant diversity. The plans were to cut the trees down in order to plant a citrus orchard. The land was given to the State with the provision that it would become a state park. In 1928 Ernest Coe began the first organized effort to protect a million acres for what he called the Tropical Everglades National Park. Coe finally succeeded in convicing Congress to designate the Everglades as national park in 1934 and president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the legislation passed by the Senate. However, it took another 13 years to find the necessary fund for the park. In December 6, 1947, President Truman finally dedicated the Everglades National Park.

The major contributor to the long campaing in favor of the Everglades is Marjory Stoneman Douglas that in 1947 published her well-know book The Everglades: River of Grass. In this book she describes the Everglades as the unique and magnificent place that it is. Ms. Douglas dedicated her life, until her recent death in 1998, to the cause of this beautiful but fragile region of the American natural heritage.

However, no one still can claim full victory of those who are trying to preserve this area against the forces of industrialists, land developers, or even politicians that use the "Everglades cause" only for their own interests without really realizing that if the battle for saving the Everglades is lost, the region at large will loose. This is a problem that affects everyone and consequently everyone must help to solve the problem... and all should be willing to pay the tab for it. Otherwise we will not have South Florida or Florida Keys much longer after the Everglades would disappear.

(The photo included at the top of the page is a reproduction of the 1997 National Stamp issued by Eastern National Park & Monument Association to celebrate the park 50th Anniversary).

Recommended Further Reading:

• Marjory Stoneman Douglas, The Everglades: River of Grass, Pineapple Press, Inc., Pensacola, FL, 1997
• William B. Robertson, Jr., Everglades -- The Park Story, Florida National Parks & Monuments Association, Inc., Homestead, FL 1989.
• Loren G. "Totch" Brown, Totch. A Life in the Everglades, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 1993.

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