The History of Eckerd College and Surrounding Areas

In 1528, Pánfilo de Narváez led an unfortunate expedition from Spain with orders from the king to conquer Florida (Bandelier et al., 2007). The journey began with five ships holding 600 men, but two were lost and around 200 people died on the way due to storms, drowning, diseases, and desertion. The remaining landed at the Jungle Prada site on Boca Ciega Bay in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Upon arrival they faced an impressive temple mound and traded with the indigenous people for food. The party then split in two, with some staying on the ships, and others making their way by land to the next harbor. Few would survive this trip, and they would never be reunited with the rest of the crew. One of only four survivors, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, later wrote about his experience in a book titled “La Relación” (Bandelier et al., 2007). The people they encountered at Jungle Prada have been identified as Tocobagan based on this account (Milanich, 2018). They enslaved or imprisoned many of these people on their way north, forcing them into guide roles or other labors (Bandelier et al., 2007). Often they attacked and raided tribes, murdering those who resisted.

We know exceptionally little about Tocobagan culture. What we do know is that the people passed on their knowledge through the honored tradition of oral storytelling. Therefore, they had no need for written language. From Cabeza de Vaca’s account, we know that they lived in mound-based villages encircling an internal meeting plaza, similar to many other local tribes (Bandelier et al., 2007). The homes of their chiefs were built on top of mounds, as were their temples, and burial mounds were constructed on the outskirts of the village (2002). Houses were often round with palm-thatch roofs. They ate manatees, deer, rabbits, armadillo, and squirrels for meat while wearing deer skins over their heads to disguise themselves. A spear-like tool called an atlal was used to kill the animals (2002). Because the remains of their kitchen middens primarily consist of shells, we know they also ate a lot of shellfish (usually clams), which they dug up using an adz (2002). They probably ate both fresh and saltwater fish due to their easy access to Tampa Bay and several freshwater sources. Tribes in the area ate plants such as cabbage palm, nuts, and berries. From midden heaps, and Cabeza de Vaca's account, we know that the Tocobagans had corn which is very unusual for the area (Bandelier et al., 2007). Narvaez’s company forced enslaved indigenous people to lead them to corn ripe enough to eat, and harvest it for their own usage (Bandelier et al., 2007). 

In 1539, Hernando de Soto passed through the area (Manatee County). De Soto is best known for his scheming and exploitation of indigenous peoples he encountered on his past expeditions through Latin America. These expeditions earned him the position of ‘First Governor of Panama (Prescott, 2000).’ He took part in the conquests of Peru and Nicaragua while running an encomienda before returning to Spain (Van Hagen, 1955). De Soto returned to conquer North America, and although debated, it is likely he arrived in South Tampa Bay with nine ships bearing 620 men (Hernando de Soto). Near the area where Narvaez had landed, De Soto encountered a Spanish man living with the Mocoso people named Juan Ortiz (Milanich, 2018). Ortiz had been part of a party sent to seek out what had become of the Narvaez expedition. Ashore, the members of the party were allegedly murdered by the indigenous people, except for Ortiz, who was taken into the town center of Uzita. Ortiz was supposedly saved from execution several times by the chief's daughter. He was then put to work guarding bodies at the charnel house. One night, a wolf stole a small child’s body, and Ortiz pursued and killed the wolf. He returned with the the body and received better treatment. 

A few years later, Uzita was attacked and burned down by the Mocoso, and the city had to be moved (Milanich, 2018). The gods called for Ortiz’s sacrifice, but the chief’s daughter warned him and helped him escape to the Mocoso. He lived in peace for eleven years before he rejoined his countrymen on the de Soto expedition. Oritz was able to serve as their translator and guide after having learned the indigenous peoples’ languages during his time there. The Mocoso language was a dialect of Timacaua commonly spoken throughout the area (Milanich, 2018). Because the Mocoso were friendly to de Soto and did not stop their spread, tensions rose between their tribe and others around Tampa Bay. 

Having experienced violence at the hands of Narvaez’s crew, it is no wonder the locals thought it best to dispose of Ortiz’s people as soon as possible. Unfortunately, de Soto did little to improve this image. He journeyed up the coast into Georgia, then further north, before heading west, with his men murdering, raping, enslaving and pillaging everywhere they went (Sloan & Duncan, 1996). After de Soto’s death, his men attempted to go home, but most did not survive. This conquest was considered a failure by Spain because no colonies were founded and no gold was discovered. 

In 1549, the Dominican priest Father Luis de Cancer led a missionary expedition sent by King Charles V to convert indigenous tribes in the Tampa Bay Area to Catholicism. He believed a community could be built between the indigenous people and the Spanish using religion as a base (Sacred Heart Parish History). In the past, Father Luis had great success using this method in the Caribbean and Guatemala. Although many told him to avoid the Gulf coast, he persisted. The history of aggressive conquistadors ensured Father Cancer’s doom. The first tribes he encountered were seemingly receptive and directed him north towards the more populous territory of the Tocobagas. The majority of his expedition team was captured or killed and Father Cancer was clubbed to death shortly after reaching modern day Pinellas County (Sacred Heart Parish History).

A wave of diseases like smallpox and the common cold arrived with the colonists. Disease and mass genocide decimated indigenous populations. The Tocobaga people were set on a course towards extinction. It is thought that they either never recovered and died out within the next hundred years (2002) or they survived long enough to feel the effects of Queen Anne’s War from 1702-1713, before they were wiped out (Taylor, 2006).

Queen Anne’s War is also referred to as the second French-Indian war, The War of Spanish Succession, the Third Indian War or the Second Intercolonial War (Taylor, 2006). The uncertainty of who would take the throne of Spain following the death of King Charles II raised tensions among the European colonists, leading to a war for control of North America. This was fought on four fronts along the east coast and involved British, Spanish and French troops. Each group looked to ally themselves with various indigenous tribes (Weber, 2009). The Spanish wartime policy said they should pacify the indigenous peoples who lived in areas they controlled, including Florida, but would not provide them with weapons for fear they would be used against them. Early in the war, the population of indigenous peoples in the area dropped from 8,000 to 200 following raids by English colonizers. In 1704, a raid was led by Colonel Thomas Moore in a desperate attempt to restore his ruined military reputation following his failure to capture Fort Marion (Arnade, 1962). Moore led his troops south through Florida and claimed to have killed or captured every indigenous person as far south as the Everglades. After this war, the area known today as Pinellas county stood abandoned for many years.

During America’s war for independence, and for several decades before, there was a time that a branch of the Underground Railroad ran south into Spanish Florida (2022 Black History). Escaped slaves, freedmen, and displaced indigenous peoples fled along this route and made their way to freedom. Spanish forces encouraged this as the decimated number of indigenous people following the raids and diseases left their colonies open for easier sieges (Opala, 2022). They sought out people on the run and told them to move into empty indigenous territories. Many of these displaced people allied themselves with the people of the Seminole nation, which led to the birth of Afro-Seminoles (Opala, 2022). Some Afro-Seminoles were re-enslaved by Seminole leaders having slightly more rights like the right to bear arms. The Seminoles worked with the British to repel American settlers from further invasion. Other escaped people developed maroons, or escaped slave communities, with the closest to the site in question being Angola (Millett, 2015). This was only a few-hour boat trip across Tampa Bay or a day's journey around it on foot, in Bradenton, near Manatee Springs State Park. Additionally, it was the largest of all maroons in Florida, home to around 750 people.

By the end of the century, the French and Indian Wars were over. Florida split into Eastern and Western territories. Occupancy of the areas shifted until the British territories declared independence and became the United States of America. After indepence was gained, we began to have a much more complete record of what happened in the St. Pete area. Around 1810, the Seminole War(s) began (Mahon, 1967). While the The Seminole War consisted of three separate wars, it is considered one long reign of terror and loss. During the war, the United States’ attempted to recapture escaped slaves living among the Seminole. By 1819, Spain was forced to cede the territory of Florida to the United States (2010 The U.S.). In 1830, congress passed the Indian Removal Act leading to the second phase of the Seminole War (Jackson) beginning in 1835 (Mahon, 1967). The United States forced many of the remaining tribes of Florida onto reservations and eventually westward in a land grab scheme. The Indian Removal Act was used to offer lands west of the Mississippi to affected tribes. Many Tribal Nations resisted this forceful relocation including the Seminoles (Mahon, 1967). They rallied under Chief Osceola and used the Everglades to hide those who couldn’t fight before deploying their strongest warriors into combat. Under a flag of truce, the United States captured Osceola and succeeded in moving many people out west (Mahon, 1967). The final phase of the Seminole War began in 1855, when the United States tried to flush out any last resistors. For over a decade, the United States attempted to bully and bribe the Seminole leader, Billy Bowlegs, into leading his people out of Florida despite his assertions to be left in peace. At the time, three hundred or so Seminole people were left in Florida. After several raids and a visit from a Seminole tribe in Oklahoma, Billy Bowlegs surrendered and moved his tribe to Oklahoma. The elder chief, Sam Jones, refused to be relocated and moved deeper into the Everglades with a handful of people. The United States sought out those they could and forced them on the Trail of Tears. 

Among those captured was a girl named Emateloye, also known as Polly Parker. Emateloye was put on a ship called the Grey Cloud and taken to Egmont Key with plans for further relocation to New Orleans and then a forced march (Gallagher, 2015). Luckily, the ship stopped to refuel near Fort St. Marks where Emateloye and a group of girls escaped. They ran for weeks, ate what they could forage, and eventually, led by Emateloye, made it safely back to Okeechobee. A staggering amount of modern-day Seminole people in Florida trace their ancestry to Emateloye and her bravery. Sam Jones died in 1860 and little is known about the next twenty years except that the population of Seminoles in the Everglades nearly doubled (Gallagher, 2015). 

During this time, Pinellas County began to repopulate. When Spain occupied the area, Fishing-Ranchos were a great way to make money (Fuller, 1969). Cuba wanted fish and had a monopoly on the salt market, so they had control of the fishing market in Florida until it was ceded to the United States. Around 1812, Antonio Maximo Hernandez moved to the area to work for fishing ranchos (Fuller, 1969). During the first Seminole War, the Seminole people had been backed into the Tampa Bay Area while Maximo’s then-employer, William Bunce, fled to Palm Island (Tierra Verde). Maximo took several indigenous people and former slaves with him to Maximo Point located across Frenchman’s Creek (opposite to Eckerd College). At Maximo Point, he started his own fishing rancho in the middle of several shell mounds. Maximo failed to apply for legal ownership of the land during the 1824 Homestead Act but eventually gained legal ownership of the land. Walter Fuller, a local historian, said that Robert E. Lee came through the area hunting down Seminole people and used Maximo as a guide. Lee commended Maximo to the War Department and Maximo was given the land (Fuller, 1969). 

In 1848, Maximo died and his body was shipped back to Cuba for burial. He left behind his widow Dominga and their newborn baby as the new owners of the rancho. One month later, on September 23, 1848, the Great Gale hit the area. Dominga was suddenly responsible for the lives of around 200 people (Fuller, 1969). It is believed that Dominga had the employees of her rancho climb atop the highest mound at Maximo Point, 20 feet above sea level, to survive. That gale was the most destructive to ever hit Tampa Bay and it completely destroyed Dominga’s rancho (Fuller, 1969). She lost her deed to the land in the storm, but managed to reclaim it through an affidavit and a Homestead application in 1852. The affidavit was signed by an attorney and a land agent of the area, both of which said they believed Dominga to be the true owner of the property. Dominga soon remarried to a man named Gomez and had three more children before selling her hard-won lot of land thirty years later.

The first portion of the land was purchased from Dominga in 1880 by Alfred Lechevalier, a French-Canadian bird plume and skin hunter. Lechevalier was said to have set up shop just west of Point Maximo, most likely on the land Eckerd College resides on today. John Bethell, a local hunter who lived in Big Bayou, wrote the ‘History of Pinellas Peninsular’ where he described Lechevalier as “the worst scourge that ever came to Pinellas Point” (Fuller, 1969). Bethell describes Lechevalier’s exploits as inhumane - murdering every bird he came into contact with, even using pelican’s gular pouches to hold his tobacco. Bethell said that some settlers in the area worked for Lechevalier and he took them into Maximo Rookery where they slaughtered all adult birds, leaving the young to starve and a horrible stench in the air. Shortly after, Lechevalier moved on to the Everglades, Ten Thousand Islands, and the modern-day Miami area. It is unknown whether he was forced out by the other settlers or was unable to continue his work following the decimation of the rookeries.

Dominga sold another portion of her land to four men. One of these men was Claude Van Bibber, whose father was W. Chew Van Bibber, a doctor in Baltimore, Maryland. Bibber believed that Pinellas Peninsula was the healthiest place on the planet, as stated in a speech he gave at the 1885 American Medical Association convention in New Orleans. One of the people he quoted in the speech was William C. Chase who was inspired to buy a plot of land in the area. Chase came with Van Bibber’s son and two others, Whitridge and Dulin. The four men purchased the property and tried to start an international health institution that ultimately failed.

With Lechevelier gone, the doctor out of interest, and Dominga unable to find other buyers, the taxes on the property went into default and the land was collected by a tax deed speculator. The land was then sold to Roy Hanna who had been enchanted by the area when stationed there in 1898. However, he never had a chance to use the land as he could not keep up with the taxes and eventually lost the property to the city. After this, the land was empty for over one hundred years until it was donated to Florida Presbyterian Church who founded a college in 1958.

Florida Presbyterian College was designed by the Perkins & Will Architectural Firm (Perkins & Will, 1968). The firms' architectural notes currently reside in the Eckerd Library archives. In these notes, details were written about projects undertaken in the early days of design including changing the shoreline, expanding certain buildings, building dorms capable of holding 1200 students and constructing the chapel. The notes state that there was an ‘Indian mound’ located on the property, but no other details were mentioned.

The college has always strived to develop globally-minded students who seek out justice (2022 International). Since the first year of classes in 1960, all freshmen have been required to take a course titled “The Human Experience". This class encourages students to think critically and from the perspective of others (Mission & History 2022). Since 1961, it has held Winter Term courses that go abroad as part of its international education program, beginning with Professor Clark Bouwman’s “An Introduction to the Fields of Anthropology and Archeology in Mexico” class. The school was also the site of two protests during the Civil Rights Movement: In 1962, all but two faculty members quit in protest of the Board of Trustees refusal to admit its first black student. Ten years later, in 1972, twenty-four black students held a sit-in at Brown Hall protesting the lack of diversity and the poor treatment of minority students on campus. Later that year, following a 10 million dollar donation by Jack Eckerd, the school changed its name to Eckerd College.

In 1999, Eckerd invited representatives onto campus from over 200 tribes, from Canada to Peru, and held a two-day festival (Seminole Chickees 2021). This festival, Discover Native America, drew famous indigenous musicians such as Buffy Saint-Marie, had pow-wow dancers, crafts, and a ‘Children’s Village’. Seminole Chief, James Billie, and a group of Seminole people from Big Cypress constructed four traditional chickees near Fox Pond. These structures have an open-sided design that allows breezes to flow through and has a palm-thatch roof to keep the rain and sun out. Bobby Henry, a Seminole medicine man, blessed the college’s grounds during the festival.

Many people have forgotten the heritage of the lands they currently occupy. Eckerd College is making an effort to retain its roots and help students think globally and act locally.

Bibliography 

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August 13, 1968. Perkins and Will "Master Plan". [Notes] Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida.

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