"Finally, a comprehensive set of translations now exists for the
enigmatic Calusa. Hann and Marquardt have assembled an exhaustive
and diverse set of documents which locates the Calusa in their
rightful place of importance in North American ethnography."
-Randolph Widmer, University of HoustonWhen Europeans arrived in
southwest Florida in the early sixteenth century, they encountered
a complex and powerful society. The Calusa, subject of this study
by two of Florida's most eminent scholars, pose an enigma to
anthropologists and historians. Their high political
development--marked by class distinctions, a special military
force, and an elaborate belief system--is typical of many
agricultural societies. But the Calusa, a fisher-hunter-gatherer
people, raised no crops.The work provides missing information on
the ethnography of the Calusa, a society that inhabited the area of
Florida now known as Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties. The
compilation of historical documents includes many reports never
before translated into English, including letters from Pedro
Menendez, reports from governors, bishops, soldiers, and King
Charles II, and eyewitness testimony from priests and laypersons
about mission efforts from the sixteenth through the eighteenth
centuries.Hann introduces Spanish contact with the Calusa from the
early seventeenth century, focusing particularly on the ill-fated
Franciscan attempt in 1697 to convert the Calusa to Christianity.
His documentation for this effort, more voluminous than for any
other Spanish mission to Florida, is particularly valuable for its
description of the role played by the Crown in instigating the
mission despite little enthusiasm from religious authorities.Over
two centuries the Calusa's relations with the Spaniards changed
from wariness and hostility to a solid alliance with them against
other Europeans. During the final fifty years of Calusa existence
as a culture, other Native Americans, acting as agents of European
opportunists, literally pushed the Calusa into the sea.John H.
Hann, historical sites specialist for the Florida Bureau of
Archaeological Research, Florida Department of State, is the author
of Apalachee: The Land Between the Rivers, winner of the 1988
Rembert W. Patrick Memorial Book Prize for best book on Florida
history. William H. Marquardt is associate curator in archaeology
and director of the Southwest Florida Project at the Florida Museum
of Natural History on the University of Florida campus. He also
directs "The Year of the Indian," an archaeology/education project
that includes volunteer-assisted excavations at archaeological
sites in southwest Florida.
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