Native Americans at the River

Native Americans lived in Northwest Florida for some 15,000 years, and about 7,000 years ago they began settling along the St. Johns River. In the late 1500’s, French and Spanish explorers arrived in what is now Palatka and met Timucuan Indians led by Chief Utina. The Timucuan farmed, hunted, fished, and gathered snails and mussels from the waterways, and archeologists believe they probably used the ravines freshwater source. By the mid 1700’s, Florida’s Native American population had died from warfare and European diseases, and Creeks and other Indians from Alabama and Georgia migrated into Florida. During the British occupation of Florida from 1763 to 1783, botanist William Bartram visited a Creek village in the Palatka area, possibly in the hammock area south of St. Johns Avenue, where he was welcomed with a feast of oranges and watermelons grown by the Indians. By the 1800's, these various Indian groups were known as the Seminole. As Florida became a U.S. territory from 1821 to 1845, American settlers moved in and displaced the Seminoles. Conflicts over land escalated into the Second Seminole War from 1835 to 1842. In Palatka, Fort Shannon was built to protect troops and supplies crossing the St. Johns River, but it was burned in 1836. At the end of the war, the Seminole were either transported to Oklahoma or forced south into the Everglades.

Palatka, Florida · United States