Left, Katie Burke, daughter of Tim and Jennifer Burke,always manages to steal the show at DeSoto National Memorial. Anne St. Charles Photo. Plant City.
Cute Kids
At the Washington Oaks Earth Day Time Line, April 23 the littlest reenactor is the daughter of Sparky & Debbie Charpiatthis. It was her second event. Her first was at Fort King George several weeks ago. Her third was the Torch Light Tour at the Castillo on the same Saturday evening of the Earth Day event. Her parents named her Courtney, but she has been dubbed “Sparkle” after her father, who is a member of Men of Menéndez, East Florida Rangers, and is an NPS canoneer. Since she is genetically programmed for living history—even artillery fire doesn’t upset her. Geek Wench (a.k.a. Glory Weyman) Photo, Jacksonville.
It’s hard to resist climbing into a copper kettle as big as this one. Reenacting since she was two months old, Morgan King, 5, Tampa shares the fun with “Pig”, at the Menéndez Lost Colony event in April. Anne St. Charles Photo, Plant City.
First time reenactors, McKenzie Schmucker and Lauren Spicher from Espiritu Santo School, Safety Harbor, portray Tocobaga children at Menéndez Lost Colony event in April 22 & 23. NTS Photo.
CONTENTS
Volume 4 Number 4 Summer 2005
The Florida Frontier Gazette is published quartely by the Historic Florida Mlitia Inc.
“Where old news is good news!” Page 2.
HISTORIC FLORIDA MILITIA - The Arquebus: Arrival of the Gun
4.
FEATURE - Jerald T. Milanich
5.
COVER STORY - All in a Day’s Work: Making a Living by Fishing
7.
BACK COVER STORY - The Knappers
9.
FEATURE - The Story of Young Husband & the Three Owls
11.
COMMUNITY SPIRIT PARTNER - Panama Canal Museum
12.
FEATURE - Glyptodont
13.
COMMUNITY SPIRIT PARTNER - Panama Canal Museum
14. BOOKS 15. EDITORIAL 16.
CENTERFOLD - Menéndez Lost Colony
19. COMMUNITY SPIRIT PARTNER Indian Rocks Beach Historical Museum 20.
JOHNNY’S CORNER - A Gory Tale
22.
FEATURE - Warm Mineral Springs
24.
MAMMA’S KITCHEN - Yuck!
28 - 30. EVENTS & EXHIBITS 3 pages of fun filled weekends. 31 - 32. COMMUITY SPIRIT PARTNERS
Florida Frontier Gazette
5409 21st Ave. S. Gulfport, FL 33707 (727)321-7845 E-mail: tocobaga@verizon.net This publication has been financed in part with historic preservation grant assistance provided by the Bureau of Historic Preservation, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, assisted by the Florida Historical Commission. However, the contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Florida Department of State, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Florida Department of State.
STAFF Grant Administrator: George Watson Editor: Elizabeth Neily Graphics: Hermann Trappman Proof Reader: Lester R. Dailey plus our Special Volunteer feature writers, artists, and photographers with out whom this magazine would not be possible. 1
HISTORIC FLORIDA MILITIA
The Arquebus: Arrival of the Gun
by Don Roberto (Robert Hall), St. Augustine & Hermann Trappman, Gulfport Julius II, the Warrior Pope, used these matchlock There is a story about the matchlock musket and guns in ranks. He was very successful in his war a battle between conquistadors. Panifilo de Narváez against other Italian had landed on the Gulf coast of Mexico with an order states and the French. Now and again though, an ento arrest Cortez. Cortez struck at night. As Narváez’ tire rank of the Pope’s army would just explode. He felt soldiers rushed to defend their position with sleep it was better to use green soldiers behind the trigger still in their eyes, they were faced with a frightening of these early guns. That way Julius didn’t waste his spectacle. The deep tropical night was filled with the hardened veterans. lit fuses of matchlock muskets. It is said that the sight The Battle of Pavia in 1525, was where the arqueof all those muskets unnerved the soldiers and they bus gained real status. Pavia had served as the capital gave up with little resistance. In the morning light, it of the Lombard Kings around the middle of the 1300’s. was discovered that the fuses had been the lights of Facing the Ticino River and tucked between two fireflies. streams, the city of Pavia was a gem. Its large castle Although the arquebus (are-ka-bus) was the first garden, designed for royal strolls, was ringed with a gun to resemble a modern rifle, like an old time can15-foot wall. non, it still used a lit fuse, called a match, to ignite the On a dark and bitterly cold night, the army powder in the barrel. of Charles V, broke through that wall. King Francis I, In those long ago days, everything was handmade. was camped inside with his knights. They were the No two of anything were alike. Every gun had its own very flower of French nobility. The French had trapped look. Like those guns, words grew and were molded by the needs of the time and the countr y they passed through. Arquebus, harquebus, hakebus, or hackbut, all describe Pan Serpentine a small, long-barreled, cannon which was Flash Guard attached to a stock, shot from the shoulder, and could be fired by a triggering mechanism. When I say “triggering mechanism”, remember that each of these guns was a kind of experiment. The usual item found on the Fuse Pan Cover battle fields of Europe in the early 1500’s had a thingy called a serpentine. Sometimes formed like a dragon’s head, the serpentine Trigger Lever held a length of fuse. When the soldier pulled the opposite end of the serpentine, it dipped a Spanish force inside the castle. The Imperial Army the burning fuse into a pan of power. “Poof,” through came to save the trapped Spanish force. a small hole in the barrel, it ignited the main charge, In the morning, German soldiers, carrying arqueand “boom,” the gun went off. buses, stormed a small bastion—the Castello Mirabello. Don’t think, “an almost harmless toy.” The size of The French heard the fighting. Squires readied their the barrel was large. The gun often produced a sixteenFrench knights. The knights swung up onto their foot flame and could punch a hole in a man wearing horses, lances at the ready. Francis I rode into the armor at the other end of the field, 240 feet away. It battle with his noblemen. was a bad little cannon which could do terrible damage A little creek cut across the garden battlefield. in the right hands. Its problem was that it was dangerThe creek was bordered by a forest that hemmed ous to the person using it. Imagine handling a bunch the knights in as they rode toward their enemy. The of black powder while fiddling around with a lit fuse. knights in shining armor, atop their mighty steeds, “Bang!” were pressed ever closer together.
ARQUEBUS
2
Below, Tim Burke, Sarasota, of La Compañía de Calderón (Calderon Company) demonstrates three of the thirty steps it takes for the arquebus drill at DeSoto National Memorial in Bradenton.
Light the match.
Prime the pan.
When Francis was just about to smash into the army of Charles V, the arquebusers stepped out of the forest. The crash of their guns turned the battle into a scene of terrible carnage. Dying horses fell upon the living. As knights tumbled from their saddles, the thunder of shot roared on. The battlefield was wild. German soldiers shoved their arquebuses under the French armor and fired. In the end, 10,000 men, the flower of French nobility, lay dead. The Francis I was taken prisoner by Charles V. The personal gun had come of age. Certainly, the arquebus came to the New World. A few were used by Hernán Cortez in the conquest of Mexico and by the Pizzaro brothers in the conquest of Peru. Even though Narváez was well aware of the arquebus, they are not mentioned as being used on his expedition into the Tampa Bay area in 1528. De Soto is assumed to have had some his expedition in 1539 as he was very well equipped. Pedro Menéndez de Aviles, the governor of Florida had his first meeting with Carlos, the leader of the Calusa people
FUEGO! (Fire!) in February of 1566. “The cacique (ka-see-k = leader), hearing of the small number of men the Adelantado (Menéndez) had with him, came the next day in the morning with about 300 Indian archers, near the brigantines, down to the shore; while the prow of one touched the stern of the other, and the artillery in them was placed on the land side, with much hail-shot ready for whatever might offer itself; and the Adelantado (Ade-lan-ta-do) had a platform set up, that the cacique might sit there upon, and he did so with his principal Indians around him. The Adelantado disembarked from the brigantines, with 30 arquebusiers with their fuses lighted, and seated himself near him, the cacique and his principal men paying much homage to him.” Their second meeting is described: “And the day following that on which Cacique Carlos departed from the brigantines, the Adelantado went to dine with him, taking 200 arquebusiers with him and a flag, 2 fifers and drummers, 3 trumpeters, one harp, one violin and one psaltery, and a very small dwarf, a great singer and dancer, whom he brought with him. The Cacique’s house was about two arquebus shots from where they landed and 2,000 men might gather therein without being very crowded.” From the emphasis on the arquebus, it is apparent that this weapon had gained an important place in the struggle for Florida. For more on matchlocks visit La Compañía de Calderón website at: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ calderon/matchlocks.htm • Park Ranger Jay Martin stands in front a section of the stockade fence that was destroyed by fire ealier this year. at DeSoto National Memorial. A security camera caught two girls in their early teens fleeing the fire they allegedly started in the kitchen area. They have been charged with arson and are facing steep fines and other penalities. The fire was the third set in the camp over the past two years. 3
FEATURE Jerald T. Milanich
On May 13, 2005, Dr. Jerald T. Milanich received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Florida Archaeological Council.
by Kathleen Deagan, Gainesville In 1972, when Fairbanks sent some of us to Amelia Island to do a survey, Jerry dropped by for a visit. One day after work, we all piled into Maxine’s blue Volkswagen bug to go into town. With the radio blaring and everyone being very noisy as we sped along, we thought the sirens were just part of the rock n’ roll music. The Nassau County deputy made us go downtown. They took Jerry inside the police station, while the rest of us stayed fearfully in the Volkswagen. Jerry came out once, said, “Give me all your money”, and went back inside. He emerged alone and we left in a hurry. I’ve never asked Jerry the details of that episode. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1971, Jerry spent time at the Smithsonian working on a post-doc before returning to the University of Florida as a faculty member. Focused on Florida prehistory, Jerry has worked in nearly all areas of the State. In collaboration with Charles Fairbanks, Jerry did the first real synthesis of Florida
I have never known archaeology without Jerald T. Milanich. He supervised my first field school in 1968, sat on my dissertation committee and later, as chair of the Anthropology Department at the University of Florida, he hired me. Still later, I got to be his department chair! So my remarks about Jerry’s lifetime of achievement not only deal with his scholarly accomplishments, but also with the ways he has influenced the community of Florida archaeology. I first met Jerry at the 1967 Florida Anthropological Society meeting in Crystal River where he gave his first paper on the “Alachua Tradition”. He was already Charles Fairbanks “right hand man” by then and later that year was the grad student field supervisor at the Melton Mound site. While there, Milanich whisked a few senior field school people off to Sarasota to the Yellow Bluffs Whitaker site. The rest of us left behind in the woods, were green with envy at hearing rumors of really fun times at Lido Beach. Always looking for ways to be amused, early on in his career, Jerry put forth two (then) heretical notions—1. Even the most serious archeology Jerald Milanich with one of his many former students, Karen Malesky, a science teacher can and should be fun. 2. You in Bradenton. NTS Photo. don’t have to be uncomfortable to be an archaeologist. While he tackles intellectual problems and archaeological puzzles with single-minded dedication, he is always respectful of cocktail hour. I give credit for that to his wife of 35 years, Maxine Margolis. Jerry won an National Science Foundation dissertation grant to study the Wilmington-Savannah tradition on Cumberland Island, GA, but once he got started he discovered that his sites were actually Deptford. He quickly adjusted his research focus and produced a fine dissertation that redefined the Deptford phase in the lower Southeastern United States. Quick thinking and flexibility are among Jerry’s hallmarks. 4
prehistory and archaeology, published in Florida Archaeology in 1980. In the subsequent 25 years, he has continued to work with an eye on the big picture. He has been prolific in creating important, comprehensive syntheses, not only of Florida’s prehistory, but also of the Spanish contact period and its consequences, the native people of Florida, and the Florida mission systems. The results of his work along with research from a huge array of other archaeological and documentary sources, are published in 20 books. In them
Jerry has given us a broad and meticulously documented understanding of Florida’s past. And they are never boring, as so many scholarly tomes can be. One of Milanich’s greatest gifts has been his stubborn refusal to engage in technical jargon—the “secret language” of scientific writing. His books are accessible to—and more importantly read by—everybody. They have won prizes from the Southern Anthropological Association, The Florida Historical Society, Choice Academics, and the Association for State and Local History. Jerry has also published 90 journal articles and book chapters—not counting his many scholarly contributions as contributing editor of Archeology Magazine. His scientific and See Milanich page 8
COVER STORY
by Hermann Trappman, Gulfport
All In A Day’s Work: Making A Living By Fishing A wall of ominous darkness rolled up the last shreds of sunset. Spiny branches of lightning crawled across the sky. Thunder exploded and roared against the pitching bay waters. The flashes illuminated our busy hands pulling mullet through the snare of the gill-net. The two boats, a launch and its skiff, nosed around, away from the wind and the growing waves. Once the net has been run out, you can’t just quit and leave. Gill-nets are long with a cork-line on top to keep the net afloat and a weighted lead-line at the bottom to pull it down, so that it hangs vertically underwater. The fish, plunging into the mesh, weigh the net down, until the net begins to sink under their weight. We pulled the net up onto the flat deck at the back of the skiff—the net table. As we hauled the net up, we grabbed each fish, and with a twist, pulled them through the mesh. In one motion, the freed fish were tossed into the bow of the boat. The gusting wind piled the waves up in jagged rows of foamy crests. We began to feel raindrops, big cold drops that stung our faces and arms. They were scattered at first, but soon they came down in bursts. We didn’t think. We worked. The launch swung at the end of the rope, occasionally giving back of the launch. I held the skiff a hard jerk. The waves splashed in. We kept working. The skiff couldn’t rise on the waves, the heavy net held the stern down. The water rushed over the sides, swirling around our legs. We were knee-deep in water. The wooden skiff would only sink so far. Rain blinstinging our eyes, and streaming off our chins. The inky surface of the swells was burnished into a froth by the downpour. We kept working. My brother, Bill, looked back toward the launch. The weight of both the net and the skiff was dragging the larger boat down. “We’re sinking!” he shouted. He splashed to the bow of the skiff and hauled on the rope tying us to the big boat. Once we were close enough, he jumped to the
the net so that it didn’t feed back out, back into the dark, back churning water. Over my shoulder, in the flashes of lightning, I could just make Bill out, frantically bailing with a hand-bailer. The powerful and heavy inboard engine on the big boat would drag us down to the bottom. The launch had taken on so much water that Bill couldn’t possibly start the engine until the water level was drawn down. Without the engine, the pumps remained lifeless. “Get out!” he waved. “Get out!” I stood there bewildered for a moment, not certain of what I’d heard, not believing it. “Get out!” he shouted again through the roar of the thunder. I looked at the black water. “Get out!” I jumped. The water closed over me. It was warm beneath the waves. Take your time, I thought. Don’t kick. I rose to the surface and gulped a breath. Most of the net was still out. Fish struggled in the watery darkness, and that attracted predators. Sharks and dolphins swim along net-lines, looking for an easy meal. It’s been my experience that sharks don’t usually bother people, but in the confusion that I found myself, I didn’t want to tempt fate by thrashing around. Rather
than let my legs dangle, I tried to float to one side. Easy. Relax. Purposeful motions, I told myself. I’d gulp another breath. In the darkness, it was hard to tell where the boat was. Don’t loose sight of the boat, I’d remind myself. It seemed like a long time until I heard the sound of the motor 5
kick in. I knew that the pumps would save the launch.
Then, out of the darkness, I saw my brother’s hand. In moments I was back aboard the skiff. We both bailed as hard
as we could. The entire net had slipped overboard. We’d have to find it. It would be a long night. •
In The Mullet Run, I have attemped to depict Tocobaga women working frantically to process the fish harvested by the fishermen. I see it as a communal activity, where even small children could help by chasing away the ever-present seagulls. - Hermann Trappman.
Resources for
Reconstructing the Ancient Past To rediscover the feeling of ancient people fishing on Tampa Bay, I often think about my youthful experiences working as a commercial fisherman. I remember cold northwesters blowing off the Gulf and mornings that were so perfect, so beautiful, that they filled you with wonder. Sunlit ribbons danced down through the water and you could see fish in all their colors. There was a smell to wood saturated by saltwater and netting treated to withstand immersion. There was the taste of the salt-flavored wind blowing off the Gulf. There was the sound of seagulls and the skilled formations of pelicans drifting past. The mullet ran throughout the late summer and autumn. Schools of Spanish mackerel ran in the winter. I imagine ancient fishermen stringing their nets out on good days, scanning the horizon in hope that the weather would hold. At Key Marco, archaeologists found netting with sticks for floats and shells for leads. From my experience, it does not seem likely that these sticks could really hold up a net full of fish. Once the net sinks, the fish would just slip out. There is good archaeological evidence for the Native American fishing industry. William Marquardt and the team from the University of Florida in Gainesville have made a wonderful contribution to our understanding of fishing in the Charlotte Harbor area and more specifically at the southern end of Pine Island. Their research has established the importance of fishing to these early cultures.
6
The Gulf Coast estuary, rich in marine resources, its bounty so great, that the American Indian’s of this coast had an excellent economy which afforded them the growth of a sophisticated temple mound society. I imagine the ancient people working net-lines, strung along posts that were hammered down into the sandy bottom. Waist-deep, they work the nets with dugout canoes in tow. The struggling fish would attract blue crabs, as well as, sharks. Fishermen often display a stoical indifference to the dangers surrounding them. They are focused on the task at hand. Research for paintings depicting the original people of Florida is an adventure in itself. Often, there are long arduous studies, treks into a variety of scientific disciplines, punctuated by exciting discoveries. And in the end, it is our connections, the wonder of our common humanity, that is the most powerful discovery of all. •
BACK COVER STORY Having knapped projectile points myself, I have learned that just looking at specimens offers the least amount of appreciation for how and why they were made. Each point was sculpted by folks whose needs and skill- level was as unique as they were. My feeling is, that as the master craftsman worked, his nephews hovered close by. When a large enough waste flake was knocked off a piece of rock, the youngsters snatched it up and they would try to imitate their uncle. Theirs was the wonder of pure learning. I’ve had kids show me a point they’d found. Standing there, their open hand held out, with a look of anticipation
The Knappers by Hemann Trappman
hammer down at just the right angle, and a chert flake snaps off to reveal a razor sharp edge, I too feel that connection. For me, learning to knap was part of the process of learning to paint. Most likely everyone carried a bag or a kit. Their kit was made up of the tools they needed NTS to perform the tasks of their economy. There 1 Shaft were tools for knapping Straightener points, for straightening
Each new generation of knappers learned the ancient skill of sculpting projectile points by watching and practicing with master craftsmen.
and discovery in their eyes, they presented their treasure. My favorites are the kids whose prize is a very crudely sculpted point. I’ll sit down with them and describe the tools that were probably used to make it. We look at point for the imperfections in the stone. Pointing out how each stone flake was struck off begins to bring the process to life. I love to watch their face as I tell them that the point was probably made by a boy their own age. In a flash there is a connection between those children—one modern, one ancient. Artifacts are a human story, a story of skill, and thought fulness. When I pick up a piece of chert (the rock that most of our points are made of) and an antler hammer, and I bring the
spear, dart, or arrow shafts, and for making and attaching the fletching (feathers). Small precision tools were wrapped together in soft deerskin and tucked into this kit. Instead of buttons, kits were held together with bone pins. They also had tools to make these bone pins. Bone pin artifacts are carefully NTS carved, often decorated, and smoothed to perfection. The 2. Bone pin pins were likely used in a number of ways. fastener for kit. 7
An antler hammer would have been tucked into the same bag. Antler tines may have been used for pressure flaking. Pressure flaking can be done after the shape of the point has been roughed out. The tip of the tine is pressed against the edge of the point. Pressure from the tine pops off smaller flakes producing a serrated, razor sharp edge. In order to gain the control required to shape a point, an edge grinder is needed. I have found that a broken piece of
3 Antler Hammer
6 Coyote Jaw Atlatl Hook
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4 Pressure Flaker
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quohog shell makes a great edge grinder. To strike a flake off an edge with any certainty, a platform has to be ground. Running the shell rasp along the sharp edge of the point rounds out a platform. Now, flakes may be struck off using a large antler hammer. A quahog is a large saltwater clam. Its rough edge serves as an excellent file or rasp on wood as well. In The Knapper, one of the men holds an atlatl, (throwing stick) in one hand and a Florida archaic stemmed point, “a Newnan” point, in the other. The darts in the foreground are
5 Quohog Edge Grinder
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thousand years ago. Ancient people lived in a practical world, where the things they owned supported them and their families. Although their environment could be very difficult and challenging, they brought human care and organization to it. The world around them was powerful, mysterious, and beautiful. By fully utilizing their human gifts, their talents, they added quality to their world. They brought an element of delicate beauty to their work. In some wonderful and mysterious way, it made life better. •
Giclee prints on canvas of Hermann Trappman’s paintings are available at Native Earth Cultural Center at Indian Stuff, 1064 4th Street N., St. Petersburg or at Neily Trappman Studio, 5409 21st Street, S., Gulfport tocobaga@verizon.net or www.floridafrontier.com
Milanich from page 4. scholarly tributes to Florida in these publication was honored last year by the Florida Academy of Sciences, naming him the 2004 Academic Medallist. The Archaeological Institute of America named him last year to its governing board. Jerry has been relentless in hi encouragement (some might say browbeating) of his students and collegues to get manuscripts written. And we all soon learned that it was worth the effort—not only to stop the nagging and make Jerry happy —but also, because Jerry is a wonderful editor, and everything sounds better once he has lent his fine editorial hand to it. Moreover, he is always willing to do it! 8
fit into the hook of the atlatl when they are to be thrown. The hook of this atlatl is made out of the canine tooth of a coyote’s jaw. No artifact like it has ever been found but, knowing the native tendency for combining material skill with spiritual energy, I designed and built it. Acturally this atlatl throws very well. The hunter holding the atlatl wears a bone point and several blowgun darts in his hair. The points date the time period depicted in this painting to around the Middle Preceramic Archaic, from five to three
Jerry’s generosity extends not just to archeologists, but to everyone interested in Florida archaeology. He answers people’s letters and emails, gives huge numbers of talks around the State, and was honored because of this in 1980 with the Ripley P. Bullen Award from the Florida Anthropological Society. A testament to Jerry’s commitment to outreach was First Encounters, the blockbuster traveling exhibit he curated with Susan Milbraith in 1987, that was way ahead of the curve in acknowledging and questioning the Columbian Quincentary. I know we will be looking forward to reading Jerry’s books and articles yet to come, Thanks to all his hard work, not only are Florida’s past and its people much better understood, but Florida itself is a much more congenial place in which to be an archaeologist. •
FEATURE This is one of the ways that this story may be told. This is the way I understand it.
The Story of Young Husband & the Three Owls
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here was a young man. There are many young men, but this young man met an owl that buried her talons in his heart and carried him above the sky. This is the way that came to be. Before he became a young man this man had been a boy, and when he was a boy the summer fields were always filled with wildflowers. He delighted in nothing more than he did those fields of flowers. When he was a boy, this young man walked in those flowers to see their colors and to hear the wind speaking as it wound through their stems. The boy walked in stands of blue cornflowers. He waded through red wild mallow that grew as high as his waist. He walked among the cattails along the river when they were in bloom. The flowers filled the boy’s heart with songs, and he sang those songs to the wildflowers. The boy sang the flowers’ colors. He sang their scents. The boy sang the songs of butterflies, and seedpods, and new seedlings in the spring. And he sang the wind’s voice winding through the wildflowers’ stems. When the boy became that young man, he carved a flute from a cedar branch that had fallen to the ground in the winter cold. The young man sang his heart’s songs through the flute. The cedar flute repeated the young man’s songs to the entire village where he lived, and the people who lived there nodded and smiled when they heard him play. His songs brought the village the memory of spring and the brightness of the sun, and red wild mallow and blue cornflowers, and seeds and butterflies, and the voice of the wind passing along the fields of wildflowers. When the young man played his flute while the sun fell in the long summer twilight, a young woman stopped and listened to his heart’s songs. She stopped stacking dried clay pots in her grandmother’s kiln. This young woman watched the swallows collecting in the live oak where they roosted.
by Charles Bears Road Dunning
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This young woman dropped her scraper where she had been working the skin her mother had stretched in the wood frame beside the door. She listened to the young man’s flute.
he listened as the sun fell into the ocean sea far out past the edge of the darkening Gulf. At first, the sky reflected the sun, and then the sky became black. The young man’s flute songs climbed on the breath that rose from the whispering Gulf and then passed among the stars. She stood there in the summer twilight for many nights listening. Her heart climbed with his songs. The young man played his flute for the girl, and he found her in the shadow of her grandmother’s drying pots. Summer passed. Nights grew longer. Leaves dried and the summer rain ended. The flowers became seedpods, and the pods split. The scattered seeds rode the changing winds, and found the chilled earth, and slept. 9
The young man’s flute called the girl’s heart. She left the shadow of her grandmother’s drying pots, and the two became one. To bind their hearts, Young Husband brought his beloved a necklace made from blue stones cut from the mountains and red stones found in the Gulf. The stones reminded Young Husband of red wild mallow and blue cornflowers. He hung the stones on silver. Young Husband placed the necklace against her throat. He felt her heart beating there. Beloved held her husband’s hand against her heartbeat. They loved each other. Young Husband’s flute sang his love for her. When she heard his songs, or when she felt the stones’ weight dancing against her heartbeat Beloved stopped and listened to his heart, and she smiled. Young Husband and his Beloved made a home together, and dreamed, and planned. He began to build a house for her. When the day turned to long shadows and became night, he held his Bride’s head against his chest, and she felt her Young Husband’s love beating beneath the curve of her cheek. But they did not grow old together. Their dreams stayed dreams. Their plans were never more than plans. A hard wind blew across the Gulf, and the wind brought fever. The fever brought death. The children became sick
and died. The grandparents died. Then strong young men and young women began dying. The living were left to grieve. The fever that the wind carried in from the Gulf found Young Husband’s beloved Bride. She lay on their bed in the house Young Husband had started to build. She lay on their bed and shivered with the fever. Her eyes lost their sight. Her lips lost her songs. Her feet lost her dancing and that young woman died. Young Husband held his Beloved to him. He held her cheek against his chest and willed his heart to give her his life. His mother and hers carried Beloved away from Young Husband. His mother dressed her in her bride’s dress against the cold of the darkness. Her mother cut and sewed new moccasins for her child from the lightest skin, so she might begin the long walk that begins beyond the stars and never ends. He sat where they had slept. Young Husband wrapped his arms around his knees and held his thighs to his chest. His heart was cold. Young Husband picked up his flute and held it to his lips. But there were no songs in the carved wooden flute, no stars, no seeds, no flowers, and no rising wind. He desired nothing more than to throw the flute far away or to 10
smash it against a stone, but he didn’t. Young Husband set the flute down where she had slept. He turned his eyes from the cedar wood and rocked himself on their blankets. His mother came to him with a knife. That knife had been ground from the lip of a conch shell. She cut Young Husband’s long hair and carefully shaved his head. His mother collected his hair. She took his hair away, and she burned it. Beloved was carried to the shell mound where the people who died of the fever were buried. The Bride’s necklace of blue and red stones lay around her neck. No pulse stirred the necklace’s stones. Old men and women came to the shell mound to bury his Beloved, but before the old men covered her and sent her spirit on, Young Husband drew his flute from its case. He placed the flute in his Bride’s hands, and he held his hands around hers. He closed his eyes, and when he finally opened them Beloved’s Young Husband looked into the faces of the people gathered there. He looked beyond their faces into the sun, and his eyes watered against its brightness. He stood. The old women covered his Beloved with a fine white doeskin. The old men covered her with a layer of shells from the Gulf, and then they covered the shells with fine white sand. When the sand was smoothed over, the people left Beloved with the dead. Beloved’s heart climbed on the salt breath that rose off the whispering Gulf. Her heart passed among the stars to begin its long walk. Wild red mallow bloomed that spring.
Blue cornflowers grew along the garden paths, and cattails grew along the shore, but the Young Husband didn’t see them. He found no comfort in the wildflowers’ color. The wind whispering through their leaves did not speak to him.
Young Husband had forgotten how to listen to the wind. Young Husband built a cedar box. He folded the blankets that he and his Beloved had slept in. He packed those blankets in the box and took the box to his Bride’s mother. The older woman held the cedar box and, without asking, found a place to set it. He sat in front of the unfinished house he had started to build for his Beloved Bride to live in. When night came, Young Husband found the shallow spot where he had held his her against his heart. He slept on the ground, and dreamed, and shivered on the chilled ground. He ate what people fed him. If people forgot to feed him he didn’t eat. His mother washed him. He had given up caring for himself. She combed the knots that the wind
tied in his hair as it grew back. His hair grew long, until it hung in front of his eyes. To comfort her son his mother held him and rocked him, but Young Husband held his thighs pressed against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around them. That summer ended. The flowers in the field became seedpods. The summer leaves dried, and the rains ended. Young Husband’s nights on the cold ground became longer, but he still slept there. The seed pods split, and the seeds scattered and rode the changing winds, and found the chilled earth, and slept. One night as Young Husband lay asleep on the ground, a Black Owl flew down from the stars. The owl landed on the roof that Young Husband had built over his Beloved’s unfinished house. The owl called Young Husband’s name, but the young man shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. He huddled in the shallow spot where his Bride had slept. The owl stepped off the roof beam. She spread her wings and hovered over the house’s roof. Then that Black Owl dropped where the young man was shivering on the ground. The owl sat on the Young Husband’s shoulders. The owl seized the young man’s shoulders with her talons. The owl’s talons penetrated his skin and those talons raked the young man’s heart and wrapped themselves around it. The Black Owl spread her wings and lifted the Young Husband onto the breath that rose over the darkening Gulf. She carried him over the black water, and the owl flew among the stars. The Gulf and the land spun beneath them. The Black Owl carried Young Husband along the star paths, and then the owl settled down in a place it found above the sky. She drew her talons from the young man’s heart, and the owl let go of his shoulders. The Black Owl flew away into the stars, and the Young Husband opened his eyes. His Beloved stood there before him in her bride’s dress. She wore a fine doeskin over her shoulders. The doeskin rode on her back like a dance shawl, and the Young Bride wore a necklace made from blue stones cut from the mountains and red stones found in the Gulf, and the stones were all hung on silver. She smiled at her Young Husband. “You are thin,” she said. “Your eyes are deeper than I remember.” He gathered her to his chest, and Beloved held her cheek against her Young Husband’s heart. She felt his heart beat in that spot where she had always slept. He felt her heart
beat beneath the stones’ weight where she wore his necklace. They walked over the stars. Her soft white moccasins were fine and unworn. He held her hand in his, and then the Young Bride handed her Young Husband his cedar flute. “I kept it for you.” “I am happy you did.” “I have carried it against my heart, and I wanted you, and I wanted to hear you singing your songs through it.” Young Husband took the flute from her. He held it in both his hands. He began to breathe into the cedar flute. His heart’s songs passed through the flute, and his music danced on the star path. Beloved listened to his music, and then his Bride danced above the sky. He played the memories of spring and the brightness of the sun to her. He played songs of red wild mallow and blue cornflowers, and the life of seeds and butterflies. His music was the voice of the wind as it passed along the fields of wildflowers. Beloved danced above the stars. She danced beyond the sky where there was no time. Her soft white moccasins carried her feet. Young Husband’s heart echoed in his flute’s song. He loved her.
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he flute music came to its own end. Beloved stepped out of her dance. H i s B r i d e t u r n e d t o h e r Yo u n g Husband. She held her head against that spot where she felt his heart beating. He held her, and the stars turned around them. She kissed his eyes. “So you might see.” She kissed his lips. “So you might make music.” She held his hands. “So you might come to me again.” She stepped away from her Young Husband and walked alone beyond the stars. Beloved turned, and she waved to him and called, “It is only until you return to me.” He waved and he smiled, and her Young Husband played the sweetest notes he had ever played on his flute for his Beloved. A Gray Owl flew from the stars to Young Husband. The owl picked the man up in its wings, and she carried him back across the stars on her back. The Gray Owl flew through the sky and spiraled across the waters of the Gulf as the waves splashed in the new morning’s sun. The stars were turning above them. The Gray Owl set Young Husband at the edge of a summer field filled with wildflowers, and stands of blue cornflowers, and red wild 11
mallow that grew as high as his waist. He stood in the wildflowers and played his cedar flute. Young Husband’s songs were of stars, and flashing waters, and blue stones from the mountain and red stones from the Gulf, and his songs were of love. A White Owl flew into a tree above Young Husband and listened to the man’s song repeated in the flute wood. When the man’s song had been played, the White Owl spread her wings, and the White Owl’s wings carried that bird above the sky. The White Owl followed the Bride on the star trail. The woman waved at the owl as it passed over her. The owl dipped its white wings and flew above the woman. Their eyes met, and then the White Owl flew away over the stars. Young Husband returned to the village. He finished building Beloved’s house. His mother brought him new blankets. Beloved’s mother brought him a fine new skin. Young Husband lived in Beloved’s house until he was a very old man. He wore that new skin for a cloak until it grew worn with the years. He played his flute to his village again. The cedar flute sang of stars, and owls, and seeds, and flowers, and the flute sang songs of love and time. His flute repeated the old man’s songs to the entire village where he lived, and the people who lived there
nodded and smiled when they heard him play. The old man’s songs brought the village the memory of spring and the brightness of the sun, and red wild mallow and blue cornflowers, and seeds and butterflies, and the voice of the wind passing along the fields of wildflowers. Until, in time, a morning came when the old man did not come out of his house to greet the sun with his flute. He left his body in the old house, and the old man flew in the morning sun. He took the flute with him. The old man felt his heart grow young again. The young man’s heart flew above the Gulf and above the sky until the sky became stars and the stars became long paths. Young Husband joined his Beloved in her long walk that took them across the stars. That path has no end. Young Husband played sweet songs on his flute and Beloved danced for her husband. He played the memories of spring and the brightness of the sun to her. He played songs of red wild mallow and blue cornflowers, and the life of seeds and butterflies, and she danced. If you listen you can hear Young Husband’s flute playing in the night wind that rises up from the Gulf. If you look you can see the flash of his Bride’s dress in the starlight above the dark water. • This is the way I heard that story told. I have told it to you the way I heard it.
GLYPTODONT by Hermann Trappman
The animal life sprawling across Florida’s grasslands and forests a million years ago would have made modern Africa look positively anemic. This place was teaming with life. There were a number of critters with an unusual appearance. Brachyostracon (Brak-ee-o-stra-con) was a rather large mammal with a armadillo/tortoise-like appearance. Big as a Volkswagen beetle, the glyptodont is a fairly common Florida fossil from the early Pleistocene. In later years, a smaller glyptodont roamed this state’s wild places. Why was it good to be armored? Florida also hosted a variety of carnivores. The glyptodont shared its environment with the American lion, saber-tooth cat, cheetah, jaguar, Florida panther, dire wolves, wolves, wild dogs, black bears, and short-faced bears. The largest bears to have ever lived, short-faced bears must have been an awe-inspiring predator.
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Glyptodont illustration courtesy of Hermann Trappman
The teeth of this glyptodont were a simple affair created by a tall three-prism form. From these impressive grinding teeth, it is evident that they ate vegetable matter. The glyptodont above is depicted along the grassland edges where medium-size shrubs help hide its bulky shape. Most of its life was spent out on the grassland savanna among herds of bison, horse, camels, llama, and mammoths.
COMMUNITY SPIRIT PARTNER Learn about Panama Canal History without ever leaving Florida If somebody wanted to start a Panama Canal Museum in Florida, Panama City would seem the logical place to put it. But the Panama Canal Museum isn’t in Panama City; it’s in Seminole, a residential hamlet of 17,000 between St. Petersburg and Clearwater. The location is an accident of demographics. There are more than 300 “Zonians” in the Tampa Bay area, more than in any other single location, and their Panama Canal Society of Florida is headquartered in Seminole. A Zonian is an American expatriate who lived or worked in the Panama Canal Zone when Uncle Sam ran the place. The traveling exhibit that they assembled to take to the annual gathering of 4,000 Zonians in Orlando became the nucleus of the museum’s collection, which they eventually hope to move to the downtown St. Petersburg museum district. As early as 1534, King Charles V of Spain studied the feasibility of digging a sea-level canal across the 51-mile-wide Isthmus of Panama. The trouble is that there are 2-foot tides on the Atlantic side and 20-foot tides on the Pacific side. The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, California, in 1848 renewed interest in building a canal. After all, a shortcut through the isthmus would knock 18,000 miles off the trip from New York to San Francisco and eliminate the miserable passage around Cape Horn. Railroads were built across the isthmus so that mail and passengers from New York could be taken off ships on the east coast, transported by rail to the west coast and put on San Francisco-bound ships that had dropped off their passengers and mail weeks earlier, before going around the Horn with their heavy freight. But two French attempts to build a canal, including one led by famed Suez Canal builder Ferdinand de Lesseps, failed at a cost of 20,000 lives and billions of francs. In 1903, the American quasi-governmental Isthmian Canal Commission bought out the French with the intention of starting where de Lesseps left off. When the government of Columbia, of which Panama was a province, spurned the commission’s offer of $10-million for an American-controlled Canal Zone, President Teddy Roosevelt sent a gunboat to help Panamanian rebels break away from Columbia and establish an independent country. Panama accepted the commission’s offer, and work in the 10-mile-wide Canal Zone started in 1904.
by Lester R. Dailey, Largo
The Americans scrapped the idea of a sea-level canal and adopted a plan whereby the Chagres River would be dammed to form a 30-mile-long lake high in the foothills of the Andes. From there, water would flow downhill through the Gatun Locks to the Caribbean Sea and through the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks to the Pacific Ocean. The entire system would be gravity-fed, without a single pump in it. The 50,000 workers were paid in gold if they were skilled, or in silver if they were unskilled. In a variation of America’s Jim Crow laws, the best facilities were reserved for “gold” employees, who were virtually all Caucasian Americans and Europeans, and were off-limits to the “silver” employees, who were mostly black West Indians. The canal opened to shipping in 1914. It was operated buy U.S. federal employees until Dec. 31, 1999, when it was turned over to Panama under the terms of the CarterTorrijos Treaties of 1977. Through a skillful use of artifacts and photographs, the museum traces the history of the Canal Zone from its Spanish colonial beginnings and abortive French attempts at canal-building. It emphasizes the American era and chronicles the Panamanian takeover.
This mola of the museum logo was made by the San Blas Indians of Panama.
Volunteer Cheryl Russel, Sun City Center, (right) recently curated Molas! The American Influence an exhibit of Kuna Indian art. With her is Beth Brandenburg, Riverview.
Location: Seminole Office Center, 7985 113th Street, Suite 100, north end of the Seminole Mall parking lot. Hours: 10 AM to 4 PM, Monday - Thursday. Free admission. Tours available. (727) 394-9338 www.panamacanalmuseum.org 13
BOOKS Cafe Con Leché
by Jack Eugene Fernández Authorhouse, 2005 ISBN 1-4808-1906-2 Paperback $25.00
In Cafe Con Leché, the destinies of four Cuban immigrants are intertwined as they come of age through the upheavals of cigar workers strikes, amid the squashing communist insurgencies, and the terrors of personal demons. Named after the specialty Cuban coffee of Ybor City, this novel Jack Eugene Fernández explores racism during the Jim Crow era that has far reaching consequences both personal and political. As the story plays out through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Castro Revolution, each character delves into his or her psyche to confront their darkest secrets. Fernández confronts the sickness of racism through four powerful personalities. First there is Pablo, the privileged son of a wealthy Cuban sugar baron who rejects his legacy to marry the woman he loves. Pablo’s father epitomizes the proud arrogance of a man certain of his pure Spanish bloodline. Fernández writes, “Tall and still handsome in his early sixties, don Ignacio looked more German than Spanish with neatly trimmed sandy hair graying at the temples, blue eyes, and thick brown moustache turned up in imitation of Kaiser Wilhelm.”To the idea of his son marry Consuelo who has a distant slave ancestor, he suggests instead, “Fine!Get her an apartment; have her, but no marriage! Understand?” The idealistic young couple marry despite his parent’s disapproval, and shortly after settling in Ybor City, she becomes pregnant. She soon learns that her husband is not at all as thrilled as she is about the prospect of bearing a child which may have “tainted” blood. As a good Cuban wife, Consuelo dismayedand sadden by her husband’s attitude, she turns to the church for comfort as her husband spends more and more time away from home drinking cafe con leche or brandy with his cabelleros at the Café Cubano. Pablo discovers, that even while denying his father’s
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By Elizabeth Neily & Hermann Trappman archaic values, they permeate his own life, leading him into a desolate spiral of alcoholism and infidelity. Matilde is brilliant, mixed-race, and an idealist, who after losing his job as a cigar maker, comes into his own as a Tuskegee pilot in World War II. Returning home a war hero, he finds that attitudes towards blacks have not changed. Under the GI Bill, he enrolls at Florida A & M. He returns to Tampa to teach history. His progressive methods of getting students to think eventually gets him fired. Unwilling to tolerate the oppressive atmosphere of Tampa any longer, he moves his wife back to Cuba. Matilde’s exotically beautiful wife, Zoraida, emerges as the midwife to Consuelo and a devotee of Santería. She loves Matilde, bolito (numbers game), and revolutions. During the war, Zoraida relishes reading love letters from her husband out loud to her neighbors. It is through these letters that the inequities of whites and blacks in the military are revealed. Cafe Con Leché richly describes the melting pot that brewed around the cigar industry in Ybor City. Fernandez’s metaphors of cigars and coffee, blended with revolutionary ideas that all men and women should be treated equal, are pitted ominously against the tireless work of Jim Crow and McCarthyism. A self-published work, Cafe Con Leché is as rich and flavorful as the coffee for which it is named. • EN
None Can Have Richer Memories - Polk County, Florida 1940 – 2000 by Canter Brown, Jr. University of Tampa Press ISBN 1-879852-36-5 Cloth $39.95
Written with the appreciation of having grown up in Polk County, Canter Brown tells a story that is close to his heart. Polk County had that unique brand of citizen who recognized a wonderful human story in the hard and promising landscape of the interior of Florida. Folks with a sense of history and community came together early to write down their experiences. With records housed in the Polk County Historical and Genealogical Library, Canter
was able to craft these reflections into the feel of the time and place. From the hard-scrabble life in the Depression through the economic growth of the late forties and early fifties, the story has the feel of homespun truth woven through it. Throughout the 1940’s much of Florida still retained that sense of frontier generosity. Brown writes, “Hettie Lou Scanlin Whatley described conditions in Homeland in terms that applied in many county locals. “Everybody in Homeland was poor,” she recorded. “We didn’t know we was poor because every body was in the same shape. We … could not afford shoes and when the soles of our shoes wore out we put cardboard in the bottom. If some one had a little mishap we passed an apron around. Each family would sew a coin into this apron and nobody knew who the coins came from.” The people of Polk County were a little over anxious about he threats America faced in the Second World. The United States military enhanced presence in the County. They began training pilots at several airfields. The stress to the training took its toll. “Capt. J. C. Mayo, head of the Mulberry fire department, said the plane, flying low and west, bumped into a garage, then cut a Ford car in two before colliding with the negro house from the rear,” it continued. “The small frame structure was knocked down and the two negro women were crushed to death instantly, “ the item concluded. “The plane, in flames, immediately ignited the house as well as the one adjoining, both being burned to the ground.” The health of Polk’s traditional economic mainstays— citrus, tourism, phosphate, and cattle— provided the context within which these postwar innovations made their mark. Not since the Civil War had Polk Countians faced as many questions of fundamental importance as they did from 1955 to 1960. They entered the period, though, with government in crisis and society shaken by racial tensions and labor turmoil. Voices meanwhile had risen to offer guidance in forms and manners that aroused both passionate commitments and deep resentments. Fore some, distrust, alienation, and anger resulted; for others, hope. Well-meaning people all the while grappled with change and the impact of past decisions as they sped into the future atop a roaring economic tide that appeared to honor no boundaries. I hope this conveys Canter’s lively style, his interest in the human condition, and his attention to the facts. None Can have Richer Memories is a book and a history, lovingly crafted. •
EDITORIAL Considering Native People by Elizabeth Neily and Hermann Trappman For us, history is simply the most important subject we know. If we take a moment to look in the mirror, what we see is our history. History is our story mixed in with the story of our family, our neighborhood, our city, our state, our country, right to the very origins of our universe. It’s a cause and effect kind of story which is linked and interconnected with everything else. It is the story of who we are right down to the atoms which build our anatomy. Having said that, we’d like to take a look at how some modern writers view the story of the native people whose roots reach back into the ancient soil of this place. In a recently published book, purporting to tell Florida’s history from its highways, the Tequesta of the Miami area and the Calusa Indians of the western Glades and Charlotte Harbor are described as a “primitive warlike people”. This travel writer continues to promote the old saw begun 500 years ago by those who came to conquer, kill, and enslave the Indians. Based on this kind of thinking, it’s reasonable to assume that any country foolish enough to attack the United States of America would consider Americans a “warlike people”. America today is a collective of diverse human perspectives. There are farmers working small farms near rural mid-western towns. There are city folks who have traveled around our planet and settled in New York, San Francisco or Tampa. Some would argue that the farmer is “primitive” and that the world traveler is “civilized and sophisticated”. In fact, the world traveler would likely starve to death before he could grow a crop to feed himself, let alone his family. Truth is, the human mind is a complicated affair no matter where the head bearing it lives. People reflect their environment. It just depends how they focus. They can reflect a microscopic view or a cosmic view, but they probably can’t describe both of them at the same time. The people who lived here in Florida, just before contact with Europeans, were human beings and as such, had adapted to their environments. Like all human communities, they defended their property rights. They had learn to make a living there. This was their home after all and home is the place where we feel confident that we can raise our family among like-minded folks. The people on the other side of the swamp may not share our beliefs, but that’s alright as long as they stay over there where they belong. See Editorial on page 21 15
Menendez Lost Colony, 1567-1568 An unfamiliar clamor began to circle around the base of the ancient Indian mound in north Pinellas as the morning sun evaporated the dew-coated canvas tents. Children’s laughter rose over the clash of iron and copper pots being arranged for the camp’s kitchen. Firewood was stacked conveniently nearby and ship’s boys scurried off to fill wooden buckets. A few yards away, men clothed in linen and steel, lugged the heavy tubes of assorted sized artillery guns, setting them in place on their wooden bases. Boxes
Mark Berry, Melbourne fires a cannon to announce Menéndez’ arrival.
Laura Yee and daughter, Kiara, travelled from St. Augustine to participate.
Bill Burger, Brad Rivard, Collin King (Tampa), and He reenact the landing.
Thomas O’Conner is one of six students from Epiritu Santos Catholthic School in Safety Harbor that joined the reenactment. Left, as Tomás, he carries pails of water so that he and the other ship’s boys can wash dishes. Work done, he takes a well-deserved rest. Thomas plans to be a historian. 16
by Elizabeth Neily, Gulfport Photos by Anne St. Charles, Plant City and bags, pole-arms and crossbows all took their places in the assemblage. In a little while the air would be filled with the smells of smoke and gunpowder. The expedition had arrived. The Lost Colony was beginning to emerge. It was 1567. It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination if you close your eyes to listen, to smell, to feel what a Spanish camp was like over 400 years ago. The sheer power of this scene must have been intimidating, forcing the Tocobaga people fled for their lives.
Conquistador Tim Burke, Sarasota, discusses strategy with Bill Burger, Terra Ceia, who portrays “Fontenada”, the ship wrecked soldier, rescued by Menéndez from the Calusa Indians.
continued on page 18
Augustine and Morgan King, Tampa, (foreet Menéndez and crew on the beach.
Left, Hermann Trappman, Gulfport, demonstrates the atlatl, a Native American “throwing stick”, while Sheila Benjamin, Brandon, waits to demonstrate her crossbow.
Below, Sheila Benjamin watches her protogés Kiara Yee and Faith Mantia , St. Augustine, teach visitors about Spanish culture.
Above, artillery specialist, Brad Rivard, Melbourne, provided lots of excitement with ten of his handmade cannons.
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Having dispatched his village to the relative safety of the surrounding countryside, Tocobaga climbed the temple mound in a last effort to appease his creator and to pray for the future of his people before he died. A moonless night had delivered the people’s worst fears into the pale dawn. Spanish brigantines were anchored menacingly in the bay. The reputation of these fierce white men from the East had been told again and again around their fires. Those they didn’t kill with their weapons or their dogs, they could do so, merely, with their breath. The Tocobagas’ only recourse was to flee—to get as far away from these devils as possible—to warn others along the way.
Tocobaga agreed to meet with this new stranger from the East. He called in 29 of his sub-chiefs along with their “support staff ” of 100 or so “principal Indians”. So many Indians began to arrive, that the Governor was seriously concerned for his and his men’s safety. In the end, Tocobaga and his council agreed to allow Menéndez to leave behind a contingent of soldiers and three priests. They built a small fort with 24 houses and settled in to convert the Tocobaga to Christianity. It was not to be. A year later the Spanish were all dead, allegedly killed by the Tocobagas. The last that is heard of the Tocobagas is in the early 1700s, when we find that they have established
Tocobaga is portrayed by Henry Green, St. Augustine. The cacique reluctantly agreed to allow Pedro Menéndez de Aviles, Hermann Trappman, Gulfport, to establish a small colony in his city on Tampa Bay. Courtesy of Anne St. Charles. Right, Peter Emr, Safety Harbor, as court jester and herald for The Lost Colony.
But Pedro Menéndez de Aviles was not like the others—Juan Ponce, Narvéez, deSoto. He came to establish contact with the Tocobaga people, to arrange a peace with his newly established colony of St. Augustine. He also wanted peace between the Tocobaga Indians and their enemy, the Calusa, to the South. He came too, with the hope of finding his beloved son, whom had been lost at sea during one of the horrific storms that lashed this coast. And he came to find a short-cut, a river-route that he believed would carry him to the other coast, to St. Augustine.
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a village near Tallahassee. Working with the San Luis Mission, they accepted contracts to transport goods to a destination on the Sante Fe and Suwanee Rivers. From there the goods were picked up and carried on by others to St. Augustine. And it seems the Tocobaga Indians never did convert to the Christian faith. • Note: The Tocobaga and Menéndez story is based on research provided by archaeologist Jeffrey Mitchem, PhD and historian John Hann, PhD.
Mark your calendars - Menéndez Lost Colony event is scheduled for April 28 & 29, 2006. 18
Community Spirit Partner
by Wayne Ayers, Indian Rocks Beach
Indian Rocks Beach Historical Museum
Step inside the Indian Rocks Beach Historical Museum and be immersed in the rich and storied past of this unique community nestled between the Gulf of Mexico and the Intracoastal. Located midway between St. Pete Beach and Clearwater Beach on the barrier island beach strip known as Florida’s Beach, the Indian Rocks Beach area dates its past to native Indian tribes who visited the area in the 1500s. The legend of how Indian Rocks got its name relates back to an ailing chief from the Ocala area who was restored to health after drinking from the famed mineral springs in the vicinity. White settlers in the area noted the tribespeople who returned annually to drink of the miracle waters as they sat on rocks around the spring. Hence, the name Indian Rocks. The museum is housed in an authentic 1930s-era beach cottage that served as a vacation retreat and wartime residence for members of the Carl Moseley family. Moseley was a prominent Tampa lawyer and realtor during the beach boom era, and also owned the landmark Big Indian Rocks Fishing Pier. Moseley’s grandson, R. B. Johnson, is an Indian Rocks Beach commissioner and member of the historical museum’s board of directors. The museum features a number of exhibits and displays that take guests on a journey from Indian times to the days of pioneer settlement up to the modern motel and condo eras. Visitors to the museum begin in the Indian Room, where artifacts from the Tocobagas who inhabited the area until the 1600s are on display, along with examples of native dress and handicrafts from the Seminole Indians. The museum’s other display areas in the original beach house include an extensive collection of early maps as well as beach memorabilia that recaptures the “good old days” at the beach. Seashells of many types collected from local waters are also displayed and identified. The landmark swing bridge in the Narrows – which was opened with a giant key – is well represented with photos and artifacts such as the bridge tender’s recliner chair.
A music room contains vintage clothing and musical instruments recalling early home life. The beach cottage’s original kitchen and dining room house old-time cooking accessories and the house’s original dining room set. The main exhibit hall, which was added to the back of the house in the 1990s, features a timeline display covering the back wall. Vintage photographs with captions present a diorama that takes visitors on a pictorial journey through each era of Indian Rocks’ history. An exact replica of a local loggerhead sea turtle and displays on early businesses, the Big Indian Rocks Fishing Pier, the area’s unique cottage residences … and the region’s big draw, Tiki Gardens … complete the picture of Indian Rocks as it was. Left, a pictorial time line describes the history of this beach city. Below, the bridge tender turns the giant key that opened the swing bridge across the Narrows. Courtesy of Indian Rock Beach Historical Museum
LOCATION 4th Avenue (across from the post office) Indian Rocks Beach 727-593-3861 Hours: 10AM-2PM (subject to change) Wednesday – Saturday www.indian-rocks-beach.com/ historical_society.html 19
Johnny’s Corner
by Johnny Shaffer
Editors Note: There are reenactors who go way beyond the research stage of understanding the history they reenact. John Shaffer is one of them. His efforts to understand frontier life have taken him into the uncertain world of animal husbandry. John is now the proud owner of two rather self possessed oxen. But that’s another story.
A Gory Tale A friend called me one summer to see if I wanted another goat. Coyotes had decimated his herd and he only had one buck left. I consented to go fetch it before the coyotes got him too. It was a hot August morning when Jackie and I took off with a suitable cage for a goat in the back of the van. When we arrived, my friend was off on an errand and wouldn’t be back for a while. His wife showed us the goat pen, said that I was welcomed to capture the goat if I didn’t want to wait.
So there I was…… The pen was relatively small with a low, covered shelter. When I entered the pen, the goat and I did the circling thing until he bolted for the covered shelter. I’ve owned goats long enough now to know that you can’t chase goats! Only the most athletic and daring dirt-divers are able to chase and capture a goat. The fact that he went into the shelter seemed a real blessing. The easiest way to catch a goat involves either distraction or food and close confinement. A short piece of fence attached to the fence like a funnel will work well, if they haven’t seen it before. This shelter was low and small, leaving him little room for maneuvering and escape. I crouched in front of the entrance and crawled in far enough for him for him to attempt to bolt past me. He was a fine adult with a large set of horns. As he tried to rushed past me, I managed to grab a horn. As we wrestled, I attempted to maintain some kind of control. His horn must have had a sharp flake or splinter on it. I felt a sudden pain as he twisted his head free and 20
Illustration by Hermann Trappman
bolted off in another direction leaving me topsy-turvy on the ground and empty handed- except for the blood. His horn had ripped open a fair-sized gash in the thick portion of my left palm just below the thumb. Well, I retreated through the gate where Jackie and I assessed the damage. It was obvious by now that I was beginning to feel the effects of the hot weather as well. My wise wife suggested that I wait for help, but that’s never been my style. I wiped off the blood and put pressure on the wound with a paper napkin. I realized that I needed to find a better way to restrict the entrance of the goat’s shelter to keep him from escaping. I found the circular end of an old cable reel which I carried into the pen like a sheild. Apparently the goat hadn’t learn anything from our first encounter, because he bolted into to his shelter, again. So I crawled in behind him using the circular plywood as an additional door. Because he couldn’t go over me or around me, he took aim for my right armpit and tried to bolt once again.
This time I managed to get a death-grip on both horns and the wrestling match wason. We rolled around and around on the ground together until I was able to get him pinned down. Now I pride myself on my athletic nature, but I was surprised that this contest was leaving me gasping for breath and exhausted from the heat. As I tried to get up and rebalance myself, the goat suddenly twisted his head and almost broke loose. His horns tore into my blue jeans. I felt a sudden flow of cooling air on the side of my left leg. Looking down briefly, I notice a small hole in the fabric that I didn’t think anything of at the time. The brush of his horn was slight but he hadn’t broken free. I tightened my grip and held on for dear life. After catching my breath I managed to wrestle him through the gate. Red faced and covered with dirt and leaf litter, I hollered for Jackie to open the door of the van. Pulling herself away from this fascinating spectacle, Jackie opened gate, while I lifted the goat—whose feelings had been hurt feelings and was very angry—to the level of the van door. Just trying to keep from getting gored in the face, was a major task in itself. Finally, I stuffed him into the cage. Once the goat was settled safely in the cage, I assessed the wound on my hand. By now I had dropped the napkin, but the bleeding had just about stopped anyhow. I was exhausted and over heated. A feeling of light-headedness had come over me. My friend’s wife came out and invited us in for a cold drink and to examine my hand. Even though the water was cold and refreshing, I began to feel nauseous. I felt the urge to retreat to a bathroom. While washing my hands, I felt cool air on my leg and decided to investigate the hole in my jeans. I lowered my jeans and discovered yet another small hole in my undershorts that was surrounded by a slightly moist, reddishbrown stain. I decided not to investigate any farther until we got home.
Editorial from page 14 Hurricanes, floods, droughts, and even plagues can change the economy of an area. Suddenly, people who had plenty and raised lots of kids are hungry. When they look at their neighbors, they might see advantages that they once enjoyed. The neighbors may share their bounty, or not. The story of the Florida Indian’s is complex. As a culture, they are extinct, and so there is no one to speak for them. The modern men and women who study them have little to go on. All that remains are the culturally biased accounts of the conquerors and a scattering of archaeological evidence. For example, we all know that divorce is very serious stuff in our modern world. It changes our lives, even turns our world up-side-down. Imagine looking back a thousand
I didn’t say much to my wife or our hostess about the new discovery because I didn’t want to panic either woman. Jackie and I excused ourselves after a few minutes of cooling off and drove home, a drive of about one hour or so. When we got home, I quickly put the goat in his new pen and went in to nurse my wounds, still feeling a little woozie. That’s when I discovered a small hole in a most delicate place imaginable. It wasn’t just the heat I was feeling. My body was trying to tell me that the goat had done much more damage than I had reckoned. Jackie called our acute care clinic for instructions and the story just gets worse … “Your husband did what with a who?” I could almost hear the chuckles on the other end of the phone. “You better take him to the Emergency Room” they suggested. We lingered, as one does, in one of those emergency treatment rooms. you know-the ones with curtains that go most of the way around. Every once in awhile, new surge of laughter would break out as another nurse or attendant heard about the guy over there in # 11. I think they even drew lots to see who was to get the chore of stitching up my hand and my other problem. After a couple of hours and seven stitches (three on my hand and four in the worst place imaginable), we headed for home again. This “morning’s” adventure didn’t end until evening. Who ever said that farming is boring? EPILOG: Butch (short for “the butcher”) never did feel at home in my herd. He always shied away in my presence. Since goats are being used in an effort to clear exotic pest plants from the right of ways in the area around Tallahassee, Butch was turned over to “weed clearing” duty about a year later. I hope he’s happier. I know I am! •
years for a divorce when all the written information has long since disappeared. The few artifacts that remain could be interpreted in a variety of ways. Yet the divorce still had powerful consequences even if we cannot comprehend them. The nations of people who made up Florida before the coming of Europeans were just as complicated in their humanness. They experienced the interconnectedness of things and because they lived in a smaller world perspective than we do, they ascribed certain supernatural attributes to them. They struggled with these issues just as they struggled to insure a steady supply of food and safety for their families. Interpersonal issues were as challenging then as now. Their relationship with the resources of their world was critical. They traded to bring in needed supplies, See Editorial page 23 21
FEATURE
by Jude Bagatti, Gulfport
WARM MINERAL SPRINGS Okay, I admit it. Springs lure me like an alligator to a water hole. Be they hot, cold, sulfur, salt, fresh, bubbly, still, or even mud, I’ve sought them out on five continents. So why have most of Florida’s 600 springs eluded me? And why, especially, the one said to be the “original” Fountain of Youth, less than 100 miles distant? That discrepancy was remedied one magical February weekend when I drove down Route 41 (Tamiami Trail) to Northport, just south of Venice in Sarasota County, and turned east at the you-can’tmiss-it sign pointing to the Springs. I was directed past flower gardens adorned with fantasy figurines, and through a covered walkway with muraled walls. In swimsuit, I emerged from the dark womb of lockers into what could have been a serene, sunlit landscape painting by one of The Highwaymen. Grassy slopes, dotted with white lawn chairs, surrounded a naturally circular, 1.4acre basin of clear water. Sounds seemed muted. People sunned or picnicked under palms and shade trees, or sat at patio tables of the Springs Cafe, where homemade American and European soups, pierogis and cabbage rolls were on the menu, with Polish, Russian and Lithuanian beers. This place had promise beyond “mineral mystique,” I decided. The water drew me like a magnet. Its comfortable, year-round 87 degrees allowed an unflinching entry. According to the free information sheets provided by the Guest Services Office, WMS is buoyant with the highest mineral concentration in the U.S., and the third highest in the world. Nine million fresh gallons gush daily from its center 230 feet below. A slight current results as the water flows into a creek. A postcard aerial view of the Springs
reveals that it’s shape has an uncanny resemblance to a woman’s womb, the creek serving as birth canal. Immersed up to their necks, bathers walked or dogpaddled clockwise, round and round, along shallow, sandy ledges separated from the deep inner circle by ropes. Their sunhats, competing in color, style and whimsy, appeared to float disembodied. Some joined the free water aerobics class. I watched a few swimmers leisurely traverse the Springs’ deepest expanse, and felt the Springs challenging me to do the same. But I was without my goggles or nose clip. What if, halfway across, I inhaled water, panicked, and sank, unseen, down, down, into the depths? I wondered if drownings had ever occurred. Finally, casting aside my “what ifs” and buoyed by both the salts and the presence of lifeguards, I swam across with nary a nose or mouthful of water. It was a quick swim, shorter than it appeared. My imaginary fears were healed. Indeed, I learned many healings, are attributed to the water, from tumors and psoriasis, to burns and gunshot wounds. People drank it from dispensers for internal cleansing, but one salty sip was enough for me. Lifeguard Keith Williams said, “The idea is you have to believe in the water for whatever it does spiritually or for healing. That’s why not many Americans are here. They’ve been brought up in a pharmaceutical age.” One American mom told me she brings her young autistic son to WMS because it calms him down. Mavis Tracy, a nurse from Lake Suzy, FL brought a Wisconsin visitor, but not for healing. “Whenever I have out of town guests, I bring them here just to relax. You can’t shop all the time,” she laughed. Yet most languages I heard were
Water aerobics is one of the classes offered at the Warm Mineral Springs. Jude Bagatti Photo
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East European. Hispanics have also discovered the Spring since Telemundo aired a story. It’s true, I thought, Americans are missing out! That situation may soon change. Big plans are afoot as WMS expands use of its 105 acres. Manager Robin SanVicente looks forward to new bathhouses and villas, and starting evening hours for sweat lodges, fire circle ceremonies, drumming, full moon and jazz nights, women’s groups, even art shows. “That’s the beauty of this place. Our whole philosophy is our connection with nature, the earth, always respecting it. Our new wellness center will be holistic, attending to the interconnectedness of mind, body and spirit,” she said. A little blue heron fished along the banks. Grabbing my camera, I was surprised at how close it allowed me to
approach. I mentioned the bird to Robin. “That heron has lived around the Spring about five years, and is known as ‘The Guardian of the Spring,’” she said. Then she related the following mystical, but true, tale: “One evening about six months ago, Ed Ullmann, the Springs’ owner, was alone in the water. The heron was perched on the ropes nearby. Ullmann spied a panther crossing the adjacent open field, coming toward him and the fenced inner sanctum of the Springs. The panther could have easily jumped the low fence, she said. Then the heron took flight and flew in circles above the head of the panther until it left the area.” • Location:12200 San Servando Ave. North Port, FL 941-426-1692 Guest Services: 921-429-0579 Email: springsspa.com General Admission-$14; AAA/Military/Over 65-$12; Students-$9; Under 12-$5. Open 9:00 am to 5:00 pm daily. Group Discounts & Memberships. NO PETS.
Guardian of the Spring. Jude Bagatti Photo Editorial from page 21. as well as goods that enhanced the quality of their lives. They worked and learned to live in and deal with their environment. For some strange reason, the Florida Indians have been thought to be “exclusive feeders”. We were told that the Indians lived off shellfish. The really ancient hunters ate mammoths. Now it is assumed that they ate mostly fish. Because it isn’t understood how these so-called “primitive” people gardened, we conclude they didn’t. Most of the people who live close to the good earth aren’t exclusive. Green, growing things are a very consistent and reliable food resource. Given the most minimal of observational skills over the many thousands of years they lived here, is it not reasonable to assume that Florida Indians developed some kind of horticulture? In central and south America, anthropologist have discovered a very complicated system called a “milpa” where plants are placed so symbiotically close to each other that the casual observer would think their gardens were merely wild forests. Among the Calusa, modern scholars have determined that the leader or “cacique,” married his sister, Antonia, an assumption based on reports left behind by Spanish priests, which in itself should set off alarms. American Indians that we have interviewed say that “sister” refers to a woman of equal status. A “brother” would be a man of equal status. “Grandmother” or “grandfather” is a
revered elder. Moreover, marrying within your totem, a blood relative, would be absolutely forbidden. Interestingly, these same priestly reporters recorded that Antonia, the “sister/wife” of Carlos, sat with a large gathering of women behind her when meeting with Pedro Menéndez de Aviles. Could it have been that Antonia was the leader of the women’s society and not merely a concubine of the chief? In another incident, Antonia is porportedly “given to Menéndez” to take as a wife. Could another interpretation be that she was acting as an ambassador, given her social status? Her non-warrior role would make her a much more effective diplomat than her “warrior clan brothers”. Because Menéndez and his chroniclers were so socially inept as to not understand the subtleties of Calusa diplomacy, and women’s roles within that society, we should not negate the fact that she may well have been a much more influencial force it her community than she has been given credit. Only when we give native people dignity and open our minds to their humanity, we can stop looking at them as ignorant savages. And when we “dig” into their cultural heritage let’s make them human, with all the complexities of humans who were able to survive well for millennia before “civilized” Europeans arrived. •
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Mamma’s Kitchen
Yuck! Were Spices Really Used to Mask the Taste of Rotting Food? (Part 2)
by Jackie Shaffer
Editor’s Note: In the Spring edition of the Florida Frontier Gazette, Jackie reassured us that our ancestors used many methods of preserving food that did not involve the use of spices to cover up the taste of rotting foods. In that article she discussed food peservation such as dehydration, curing, salting, smoking, pickling, and fermentation. Below she continues her discussion.
Sugar: Since fermentation is based on the conversion of sugar into alcohol; sugar seems like the most likely next step. Preservation methods utilizing sugar must, by necessity, also include sorghum and honey. Honey dates back to the Roman Empire. The most interesting fact that I turned up in my research about honey has nothing to do with food; it was used as a means of preserving the dead. Alexander the Great selected this as the method by which he would be embalmed when he died (323BC). The means by which sugar preserves is one of environment; given enough sugar nothing can live in the environment except surface molds. So when sugar is used as a preservative, one must be particularly careful to protect the surface. In early times a cloth or paper permeated with wax was placed on the top of pots containing sugar preserved foods such as jams, jellies, marmalades etc. Later (around 1851) paraffin would be used. Of course every one is familiar with the staples: jam, jelly, and preserved fruit. But marmalade is another story. Today we think of marmalade as a substance made up of fruit and/or fruit rind in a jelly like base. Most well-known are marmalades made from oranges or peppers. This was not always the case; in the 16th century marmalade was so hard and dry that it could be packaged in a dry box and was a staple for sea-going vessels. It was not until the 17th century that the English adapted the recipes for the dryer marmalade into that of a moist jelly-like spread. 24
A discussion about sugar as a preservative would not be complete if candying were not included. Marzipan, candied almond paste, was very popular. As were many fruits and berries. Partial dehydration removed some of the liquid in the food, then when the food was immersed (sometimes boiled) in a solution heavy with sugar, the dehydrated food soaked in the sugar, thus replacing the water. It was common practice to preserve whole fruits and later coat the outside with sugar crystals. It was considered very vogue to adorn your festival table with a topiary decorated with many, fruits preserved and coated with sugar, creating a very life-like display. Certain edible flowers, grown in summer, were successfully preserved using sugar and egg white and stored in dry pots. Well into the winter months they could be used as edible decorations at an important dinner party or winter festival. Of course cane sugar was not easily obtainable until around the 16th century when it became a world trade commodity. Prior to that, sweetener, on most tables, consisted of beet sugar or honey. Cane sugar was considered a rare spice and as such was reserved for the very rich. Canning: Canning as we think of it was not perfected until the decade of around 1795; when Nicolas Appert, a well known chef, achieved success in sealing glass jars using heat. Even then it was not widely accepted or used until around 1810. At that time there was a common misconception that air spoiled food and if one could eliminate the air in a container it would preserve the food. It was not until after Pasteur (1861) proved
that living organisms were in the air, that the science of canning was fully understood. One must kill the bacteria in the food and in the air if the food was to be safely preserved. Canning actually dates back to the Romans who heated fruit and wine in jars. But it was largely a hit or miss proposition. This could be attributed to the fact that glass was very expensive and was not largely used by the common folk. Their containers would have included stoneware and earthenware, which were difficult to seal. Potting A more common form of preservation employed in the 15th through 18th centuries was potting; the practice of storing cooked food in a pot (usually stoneware or earthenware) being covered by a think layer of grease or lard. Potting was primarily used for preserving meats. The meats were cooked or drenched in hot grease then placed in a well-cleaned, preheated pot and covered with more hot grease. The pots were covered with a linen cloth or greased paper while still hot in order to prevent the flies from “blowing” the contents. Each time meat was removed from the pot; the remaining contents were reheated and the void filled with fresh hot grease or lard and quickly recovered with linen or paper. Like a lot of other food preservation methods this practice dated back to the early Roman Empire. Oil The use of oil was another means of keeping air away from foods to be preserved. Olive oil was the popular medium for storage. Olives, nuts (esp. walnuts), meats (esp. sausage), fresh herbs and some vegetables were all fair game for oiling. Jars of oiled foods could be successfully stored with no more than a cloth over the opening, for many months or even years. The trick here was to keep the oil at a “comfortable” temperature; overheating would cause the oil to become rancid giving the food an acrid taste. Concentrates Concentrating liquids is as old as the hills. The Romans’ methods for concentrating juices were still being employed by grape growers, well into the middle-ages and beyond. The juice was slowly boiled until it was thick, then a white-hot poker was repeatedly plunged into the liquid in order to further the evaporation process. While condensing milk is also an ancient process, and short-term storage was
possible it was not popular as an effective means of preserving milk. Due to its tendency to spoil, evaporated or condensed milk did not come into its own until the 19th century canning process was refined. The benefits of feeding meat broth to the infirmed is a long standing tradition—the preverbal chicken soup. There are recipes from the 17th century for making meat “glue”; actually a concentrated meat broth cooked until it had the consistency of glue. Stored in a covered pot, the glue was reconstituted into a hearty broth and fed to invalids during convalescence. And in the early 18th century “portable, pocket” soup was introduced for use at sea. This was nothing more than soup which had been reduced in volume by two thirds, making it much more space efficient. Captain Cook, who was among the first to use the condensed soup at sea, declared that the soup was as good as any freshly made soup he had eaten. However it was not until after the canning process was refined that the soup was generally accepted and used. Food storage (long term and short term) Before we can conclude our discussion on food preservation we must clarify the term preserving. Webster says to preserve is to “keep in perfect or unaltered condition; maintain unchanged; to prepare (food) for future use; to prevent (organic bodies) from decaying or spoiling”. There is a fine line between food storage and food preservation. If one stores potatoes, for instance, in such a way that the food is not changed in nature; is this not preservation? There are several means of food storage which prevents the organic bodies (food) from spoiling, maintaining it unchanged. According to Webster’s definition certain methods of long-term storage may be the only true methods that closely fit the definition of
These 16h century fishermen packed fish in salt or brine. The barrels were then shipped to markets in Europe. 25
a preservative; all the other methods we have discussed thus far change the food in some way. Therefore there are two methods worth mentioning here; refrigeration and banking. Refrigeration & Freezing T h e c on c e pt of re f r i ge r at i on i s an c i e nt , d at i ng back to the Eg yptians and Romans. Alexander the Great had trenches dug into which winter snow was packed and heavily covered with branches; so his men could enjoy cold wine. Butter and milk have been chilled using a fresh water supply for eons. Eskimos have known from the beginning of time that meat f rozen in winter could b e maintained throughout the summer and indeed for many years. Although ice houses had become popular and almost indispensable by the 17th century; it was not until the mid 19 th century, that refrigeration and freezing came into widespread use as a preservative technique. Prior to that ice was used primarily to chill drinks. In areas where ice houses were popular, certain foods were sometimes stored on shelves or hung from hooks above the ice. But this practice was primarily limited to the purpose of chilling pies, soups and other foods to be served during warm weather and not for long term preservation. In the warm climates of Florida, ice houses were either unknown or very rare. Florida’s climate is not favorable for the natural production of ice. Nor are there snow capped mountains, or for that matter, even snow covered mountains in the winter time. Ice had to be imported from northern states, a very expensive endeavor. Boston, had established an ice-shipping business in 1806. In 1844 John Gorrie, a resident of Appalachicola, was in the practice of purchasing ice from New England at a cost of one penny per pound of ice. A shipment failed to arrive in 1844 prompting him to invent a machine which would make ice using a chemical process involving ammonia. He obtained a patent for the process but was unable to secure backing for the invention and died, penniless in 1848. Ice-making machines would not gain popularity until sometime after 1865. Banking The term banking was used in an agricultural since long before it was used in the financial world. For eons, farmers have been banking (AKA damming) rivers and streams in order to ensure a fresh water supply; they also “banked� their crops. Whether you are talking about water, food, or money, banking implies exactly the same concept. You hold back a portion during better times against the need created during harder times. There were many ways to bank food and what worked well in one climate did not necessarily work well in another. For example, up-north root cellars were used to store crops against later use. However, in 26
Florida, a root cellar could more accurately be called a cistern and had a completely different purpose. In the south, a common form of banking was to dig a whole (below the freeze-line), line it with rocks (or shell fragments), and pad it all around with straw (or other dry material like Spanish moss). The food to be banked, (limited to a few fruits and vegetables) was placed in a conical pile on the bed of straw covered and tightly, packed all around with more straw, then covered with a mound of dirt. The rocks and straw lining kept water and moister from getting to the food, thus preserving it for later use. In Florida, where there was no frost line, a shallow hole and a larger mound would suffice, but there had to be plenty of dirt in the mound to prevent critters from breaking into the bank. The bank had to be placed so the hot sun would not dry out the food and yet it had to be placed where moisture was not a problem either. Another form of banking involves water; butter was often stored in a well or deep water supply, such as a spring. The butter was wrapped in cloth, and tightly packed into a bucket. The bucket then being filled with water, had a weighted lid applied and was sunk in the well or spring. It is debatable whether this was refrigeration or not. The water was undoubtedly cool, but wood is not a good conductor, so it may not be totally accurate to say this was a means of refrigeration. Air was kept from the butter and it remained good to eat for several months. Water in the Florida springs was very pure; being filtered through limestone, there was little bacteria or pollutants in the water. Silver Springs sports a dug out canoe over two hundred years old. It has survived so long because of the water purity. Other methods of banking involved encrusting food in clay, packing in special boxes that were heavily lined with hay, and dry-storing the food in heated jars or bottles sealed with wax.
Food packed for shipment was often preserved by many of the techniques discribed here.
Yes, you could say there was a lot of preservation going on; but remember, “Just because the food was preserved did not ensure that it looked good, tasted good, or was good for the health”. Cured foods, when left too long, often had a hard texture, no aroma, were difficult to chew, and therefore caused indigestion. Potted foods were greasy and were a primary cause of indigestion as well. While sugared foods were more palatable, they were subject to mold, which could also cause indigestion. Pickled foods often looked and smelled terrible. The acidic nature of pickling was also a cause of indigestion (esp. pickled cabbage). And fermented foods, though they were good for indigestion, were known to cause the “staggers”. So you might say Garvey (a.k.a. “wind”) was as common as the air you breathe. Now back to the question, “Did they really use spices to mask the taste of rotting food?” The “stock-pot” was common in most homes through the 18th century and into the 19th. The stock pot was kept at the edge or back of the fire. As a cook prepared her food, the uncooked bones were placed in the pot along with the uneaten meat and bones from the table. These were cooked until the stock was ready. Cooking the bones until all the marrow was cooked out and they were soft and pliable could take anywhere from a few days to two weeks, depending on how much meat was available and how long the fires were kept going. When cooled, a good stock would be stiff and gelatinous. Once ready, a stiff stew, pudding, or porridge was made from it. One of the documents sited to support the theory that spoiled food was eaten is a famous nursery rhyme (see below). To understand the nursery rhyme you must under-
Pease pudding hot; Pease pudding cold; Pease pudding in the pot Nine days old. Some like it hot. Some like it cold. Some like it in the pot Nine days old.
Florida Frontier Gazette editor, Elizabeth Neily, stirs up yummy “pease pudding in the pot” ...but its only one day old. NTS Photo
stand the nature of pudding and porridge in a historical setting. Porridge was served warm; if it cooled, and at room temperature, could be cut with a knife, like soft cheese, it was considered a pudding. Pudding was later associated with chilling, after the invention of the refrigerator. Even later it was almost exclusively used to describe a sweet congealed dish, most often served as a desert. The later and more common version of the nursery rhyme substitutes the word porridge for the word pudding. It is this earlier version that makes sense when you take into account the technology of the day. Pease porridge/pudding was made by heating the stock until it was once again liquid. Flour made from dried peas was added and cooked until the stock was thick and bubbly. It was eaten both as a hot porridge and as a cold pudding. Thus “some like it hot, some like it cold”. The phrase, “Some like it in the pot nine days old” probably refers to the making of the stock rather than to the length of time the pudding was retained. I am certain that some cooks would also dump tid-bits of leftovers or uneaten portions from their families and guests plates into the pot. This would undoubtedly depend on the cook and was probably influenced by the wealth of the family. The more affluent would consider it beneath their dignity to eat or reuse leftover food. All such morsels from a meal would be fed to the servants or the dogs. On the other hand, a poor family, who could not afford to waste even a scrap of bread, would not consider letting it go to waste or feeding it to any animal that was not destined to be eaten. I can imagine that such dishes were heavily spiced, lending credence to the thought that they ate rotting food. But again, I don’t think this was an everyday occurrence. •
Pea Soup 1/4 c. olive oil 1 large onion, chopped 2 or more quarts water 1 ham bone with lots of chunks of ham 2 large bags of dried split peas 1 cup chopped carrots 1 T. black peppercorns 1 tsp. ground cumin In a large pot, sauté onion in olive oil until translucent. Pour in water and add rest of ingredients. Simmer until peas are soft. Add more or less water depending on how thick you like your soup. Give bone to the dog.
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to Explore Pasco and Hernando Counties” Workshop for children led by Turtle Woman of the Heritage of the Ancient Ones. Sponored by May-Stringer Museum of the Hernando Historical Museum Association. Contact: Virginia Jackson, 352-799-0129
Events & Exhibits
July 23 St. Petersburg The Bones Connection: Touch and explore bones, teeth and mammal skeletons as you learn about manatees, sharks, dolphins, sea turtles and more. 11am-1pm at The Pier Aquarium on the 2nd floor of The Pier. 727-895-7437
July
August
July 4 St. Augustine Independence Day, Federal Navy Living History (American Civil War) at the Castillo de St. Marcos. (Reenactors must be at the fort before 11 AM.) Bring Mom, apple pie & a blanket to see fireworks on the Green in the evening. Contact Joe Brehm, National Park Service, 904-829-6506. www.nps.gov/casa/home/home.htm
August 6 St. Petersburg Sharks & Rays. Ever wonder what shark skin feels like? How big a whale shark can get? Learn the answers to these questions and more as we explore sharks and rays. 11 am-1 pm at The Pier Aquarium on the 2nd floor of The
July 4 Miami Old Fashioned 4th of July Picnic at The Barnacle Historic State Park. 11AM - 3:30PM. Features lawn games, kite-making, knot-tying demonstrations, antique cars and more! The house and grounds will be decorated in traditional July 4th bunting, as it was when Commodore Munroes family lived here. The public is invited to join the staff and volunteers by wearing a period costume or Roaring 20s bathing suit. Bring a blanket and a picnic lunch and enjoy the days celebration. Free with park admission. July 9 St. Petersburg Tidal Zone Wonders: Visitors learn about seashore invertebrates (creatures without backbones), and the places they live in this exciting hands-on experience that features live animals. 11am-1pm at The Pier Aquarium on the 2 nd floor of The Pier. July 9 Ormond Beach Tomoka Remembers. Tomoka State Park, 2099 North Beach Street. 9AM -3PM. East Central Florida history comes to life! Discover a different piece of the past, from Seminoles to Civil war to weaving & quilting. Focusing on just one time period, you will have a chance to talk with knowledgeable interpreters in an unhurried way. Park entrance fee. 386-676-4050 July 26 Brooksville Trail of the Lost Tribes, Brooksville City Council Chambers, Lori D. Collins, M.A., Archaeologist: “Prehistoric and Historic Trails across the Big Hammock: using GIS 28
Pier. 727-895-7437
August 6 Bushnell World War II Days - Salute to Veterans at Dade Battlefield Historic State Park.10:00 AM - 2:00 PM. WW II Era vehicle display, weapons demonstration, manual of arms and drills demonstrations, and interpretation of WW II uniforms of the Allied and Axis forces. Fees: $2.00 per vehicle. 352-793-4781. August 11 Tampa Third Annual Sushi Showdown 6:30 – 10:30 p.m. Sushi lovers unite at The Florida Aquarium. This is the third year for our sushi tasting and sushi chef competition fundraiser. Sushi masters from around Tampa Bay will compete for cash and the title of “Best Sushi.” You decide the winner as you savor their sushi and cast your vote. You’ll enjoy live entertainment and a silent auction in an exotic, Zen-like environment. Tickets are $50 for Aquarium members and $55 for guests. Call 813-273-4568 for more information. August 13 Hollywood Trail of the Lost Tribes 11 am-1 pm & 2 pm-4 pm at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel. Panel Discussion: Tina Marie Osceola, Executive Director, AH-TAH-THI-KI Museum “How the THPO and Archaeology Fit into the Mission of the Seminole Tribe of Florida;” Jim Pepe, M.A., RPA, Archaeologist and Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and Anne McCudden, M.A., Curator of Collections “The Cultural Resource Management of the Brighton and Big Cypress Seminole Reservations;” W.S. Bill Steele, THPO “Functions of the Tribal Historic Preservation Office” Sponsor: AH-TAH-THI-KI Museum. Contact: W.S. Bill Steele, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Seminole Tribe of Florida, 863-902-1113 Ext. 104.
August 20 St. Augustine Castillo Torchlight Tour. Reenactors must be at the fort before 7 PM for setup. Castillo Torchlights are evening guided (pre-ticketed) tours of the Castillo presenting a Time Line history featuring each era, including 1740s Garrison, 18th Century British, Fort Mose, Native presence, Civil War and civilians thru the 19th century. Recently the event has added WWI & WWII. Contact Joe Brehm, NPS; 904-829-6506. www.nps.gov/casa/home/home.htm August 20 St. Petersburg Monsters of the Deep. How and why do deep-sea organisms produce bioluminescence, and how can these processes be used to study life in deep ocean environments? Join us as we investigate the shapes of animals that can descend into the depths of the abyss, and produce light to survive. 11am-1pm at The Pier Aquarium on the 2nd floor of The Pier. 727-895-7437
September September 10 St. Augustine Menéndez Landing 1565 - 16th Century Men of Menendez event. Reenactors must be on-site before 9 AM. Enter from Pine Street off of San Marco Avenue into event field at Mission of Nombre de Dios (just look for the big Cross) in coordination with the Diocese of St. Augustine. Celebrates the 440th birthday of the City. Events begin with a reenactment of the landing by the city‚s founder, Don Pedro Menéndez de Aviles, at the Mission of Nombre de Dios ˆ the exact landing point of the Spanish colonists in 1565. Contact Brian Bowman, 904-824-9823 September 10 St. Petersburg Saturday Morning Coffee Break. Relax with a book about ocean animals or watch a video on ocean realms while enjoying coffee at The Pier Aquarium’s Book Nook by the Bay and the sea-life atmosphere. 10am-1pm at The Pier Aquarium on the 2nd floor of The Pier. 727-895-7437 September 17 St. Petersburg International Coastal Cleanup. Coastal Cleanup: Make Oceans Matter! Join The Pier Aquarium, The Ocean Conservancy, and Keep Pinellas Cities Beautiful in the Annual Florida Coastal Cleanup! Volunteers get FREE gloves, bags, data sheets, water and giveaways. To signup, call (727) 822-9520. 8:30-10:30 At Spa Beach and The Pier Aquarium Education Station. September 17 Miami Barnacle Under Moonlight - Outta d’ Blues. The Barnacle Historic State Park. 6-9 PM. This popular after-hours series features musical entertainment under the moonlit skies of
S o u t h Florida. Bring a blanket or lawn chair. Picnics and children welcome. No pets. No alcohol. Special event fee. September 17-18 North Thonotosassa/Tampa Second Seminole War Garrison at Fort Foster across from Hillsborough River State Park. located 9 miles north of Tampa and 6 miles south of Zephyrhills at 15402 US Highway 301. Free. (Reenactors may show up Saturday morning for the day or stay over to leave around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. Contact Steve Saunders, 813-684-6703 [h] or 813-215-7171.) email: fathersteve110@aol.com. For PARK info call 813-987-6771. September 24 Homosassa Bird Walk on Pepper Creek Trail. Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. 8 – 9:30 AM (Meet at 7:45 AM.) Novice and experienced birders are invited to take a guided bird walk on Pepper Creek Trail. Bring binoculars and field guide if you have them. This leisurely–paced walk is on an accessible paved trail winding through a hydric hammock along Pepper Creek. Please call the park office if you have questions. Free. Contact: 352-628-5343 September 24 Tallahassee A Point in Time 10 AM - 4 PM Living history interpretation of Florida history from Pre-Columbian Native American through the Viet Nam era. Archaeologists will be on site to explain artifacts, preservation, and research. Fees: Entrance fee is $2.00 per car. Contact: 850-922-6007. September TBA Jacksonville Fort Caroline Battle - 16th Century Men of Menéndez event. Details are still being planned. Located near the intersection of Monument Road and Fort Caroline Road, approximately 14 miles east of downtown Jacksonville.Park contact: Craig Morris 904-545-7711 Reenactors contact Brian Bowman 904-824-9823 for updates as they become available. www.nps.gov/foca/index.htm
Mr. Bailey, the Magician entertains the kids at the Tallahassee Trade Faire. Jackie Shaffer Photo
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Repeating Programs July 1 thru Sept.30 Dunedin Dunedin Museum of History Sailing Thru Dunedin, Alligators! Dragons in Paradise, Summer History Camp. Vintage 1890’s Baseball Games throughout the summer. Call the museum for information on the camp and Base Ball games. Weeks of July 11 & 18 Largo Heritage Village 2005 Living History Summer Adventures, accepting children between the ages of 5-11. Heritage Village, 11909 125th Street N. Call (727) 582-2426 to register or for further information. www.pinellascounty.org/heritage June 16 – Sept. 11 Gainesville FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Natural Curiosity: Artists Explore Florida at the Florida Museum of Natural History will showcase work by 17 artists. The artists’ works are focused studies of the natural world and their interpretations are as varied as Florida’s environment. Included in the exhibition, which is free and open to the public, are sketches and studies as well as finished works. (352) 846-2000. July 13 & 27 & August 10 Wednesday Wigglers (ages 2-5) 3-4 PM in the Discovery Room at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Preschoolers and their parents can come wiggle with us the second and fourth Wednesday of each month for child-friendly activities led by Florida Museum docents. Program’s themes are “Naturalist Nook” in June, “Critter Crazy” in July and “Aqua Adventures” in August. The program is free and open to the public. For more information call (352) 846-2000, ext. 277. June 16, July 7 & 21, Aug. 4 & 18 Behind the Scenes 10 a.m. - 12 PM in the Central Gallery at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Join us the first and third Thursday of the month as we take a “behind the scenes” look at the Florida Museum. Meet our exhibits team and see how our permanent exhibits were developed and fabricated. Interact with our research staff while viewing and learning about the Museum’s collections. The program is free and open to the public. June 14, July 12, & Aug. 9 Exhibit Exploration 1–2 PM Explore with us the second Tuesday of the month as we take an in-depth look at some of our permanent exhibits. Chat with staff and learn some of the fascinating stories behind the development, fabrication and interpretation of the Museum’s galleries. Free.
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July 2 Thru September Tampa The FLORIDA AQUARIUM, Explore Fun for the whole family at The Florida Aquarium Call (813) 273-4015 for all education program reservations. www.flaqurium.org. July 22 - September 23 Davie The MUSEUM GALLERY at OLD DAVIE SCHOOL Third Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Florida Artists, This project is funded in part by the Broward County Cultural Division and is intended to showcase the talented artists in the area as they interpret Florida themes. International sculptor, Benoit Menasche, will serve as this year’s jurist. Opening & Social on Friday, July 22 from 7 to 9 PM. Refreshments will be served with live music and awards will be presented to the winners. Admission free for this event. Workshops for adults and children will be presented in July and August. 6650 Griffin Road / Call 954-797-1044 for dates and times or visit our web site at www.olddavieschool.org. July 7, August 6 & September 3 White Springs STEPHEN FOSTER FOLK CULTURE CENTER STATE PARK. First Saturday Coffeehouse, Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park. 7 PM. Songs, stories, music or poetry may be performed at this open stage night held in the park Auditorium. Bring your own talent and be part of the fun. The entertainment is free. Coffee and desserts for sale. Fees: $1.00 Events are free with park admission unless otherwise indicated. Contact: 386-397-2733 July 2-3, August 6-7 & September 3 & 4 Fernandina Beach FORT CLINCH STATE PAR, Civil War Fort Garrisons, 2601 Atlantic Avenue Soldiers will be manning the fort during the following times: Saturdays 9 AM to 5 PM, Sundays 9 AM to 12 PM Fort entry fee: $2.00 per person. Fees: Park Admission Fee is $5.00 per vehicle (limit 8 people per vehicle).Pedestrians, bicyclists, extra passengers, passengers in vehicles with a holder of an Annual Individual Entrance permit. Admission Fee $1.00 per person.Single Car Occupant - $3.00 Motorcycle Fee (one or two persons) - $3.00. Contact: 904-277-7274
July-September St. Augustine The Florida Lost Tribes Museum Gallery has opened at 11-C Aviles Street, featuring the oil portraits of the early Florida Indians by Theodore Morris and reproduction artifacts for sale. Open 11 to 5 everyday except Tuesday. 904-829-3405 www floridalosttribes.com
We welcome our newest Community Spirit Partners Central Gulf Coast Archaeological Society P.O. Box 9507 Treasure Island, FL 33740 www.cgcas.org Heritage Museum 115 Westview Avenue, Valparaiso, FL 32580-1387 850-678-2615 www.heritage-museum.org
Museum of Florida Art and Culture at SFCC 600 West College Drive, Avon Park, FL 33825-9356 863-453-6661. http://www.mofac.org
Let us know about your stories, events, and exhibits. Email us at: tocobaga@verizon.net
FRONTIER GAZETTE
A publication of the Historic Florida Militia, Inc. (Living History Groups) 42 Spanish Street, St. Augustine, FL 32084 904-829-9792 www.historicfloridamilitia.org
MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTION ___INDIVIDUAL - $12.00 per year - 4 quarterly issues mailed to your home. ___COMMUNITY SPIRIT PARTNERS (non-profit) - $50.00 per year - 100 each quarterly issues to distribute to your patrons for FREE! Event listings. NOT FOR PROFIT DisplayAdvertising Rates: ____ 1/8 page (2-1/4” x 5”) at $50.00 per insertion ____ 1/4 page (5” x 5”) at $100.00 per insertion. ___COMMUNITY SPIRIT SMALL BUSINESS PARTNERS - $50.00 per year - 4 quarterly listings with Business Name, Address, Phone Number, and Website. ___COMMUNITY SPIRIT CORPORATE PARTNERS - $500 per year. Logo with Business Name, Address, Phone Number, and Website on 1” Banner across single page of the magazine.
FOR BUSINESS ADVERTISING RATES contact - tocobaga@verizon.net Name:__________________________________Community Spirit Partner or Business:_____________________________ Address:____________________________________________City:_________________________State:_______Zip:_______ Phone:(_____)_________________E-mail:__________________________Website:________________________________ Membership $______________
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Publication Deadlines: Spring-February 15, Summer-May 15, Fall -August 15, & Winter-November 15
Please make checks payable to FLORIDA FRONTIERS, 5409 21st Avenue S., Gulfport, FL 33707 31
Community Spirit Partners NOT FOR PROFIT PARTNERS American Waterski Educational Foundation 1251 Holy Cow Road, Polk City, FL 33868 863-324-2472 www.waterskihalloffame Collier County Museum 3301 Tamiami Trail East, Naples, FL 34112 941-774-8476 www.colliermuseum.org Dunedin Historical Society & Museum 349 Main Street, Dunedin, FL 34697 727-736-1176 www.ci.dunedin.fl.us/dunedin/historical-society Gamble Plantation Preservation Alliance 3708 Patten Avenue, Ellenton, Florida 34222 www.floridastateparks.org/gambleplantation Heritage Village at Pinewood Cultural Park 11909 125th Street N., Largo, FL 33774 727-582-2123 www.pinellascounty.org/Heritage/default.htm Indian Rocks Beach Historical Society P.O. Box 631 Indian Rocks Beach, FL 33785 727-593-3861 www.indian-rocks-beach.com/historical_society.html Matheson Museum 513 E. University Ave., Gainesville, FL 32601 352-378-2280 www.mathesonmuseum.org Native Earth Cultural Center at Indian Stuff 1064 4th Street N, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 727-821-8186 www.orgsites.com/fl/ourstory Panama Canal Museum 7985 113th Street, Suite 100,Seminole, FL 33772 727-394-9338 www.panamacanalmuseum.org Past Tymes (Living History Educators) 745 N.E. 117th St., Biscayne Park, FL 33161 305-895-7317 www.pasttymeproductions.com
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Pensacola Historical Society 117 E. Government Street Pensacola, FL 32502 850-434-5455 www.pensacolahistory.org The Pier Aquarium 800 2nd Avenue NE, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 727-895-7437 www.pieraquarium.org Randell Research Center PO Box 608, Pineland, FL 33945 239-283-2062. www.flmnh.ufl.edu/sflarch/pineland.htm Sacred Lands Preservation & Education 1620 Park Street N. St. Petersburg, FL 33710 727-347-0354 www.sacredlandspreservationandeducation.org St. Petersburg Museum of History 335 Second Avenue NE at the approach to The Pier. St. Peterburg, FL 33707 727-894-1052 www.stpetemuseumofhistory.org Tampa Bay History Center 225 S. Franklin Street, Tampa, FL 33602 813-228-0097 www.tampabayhistorycenter.org The Trail of The Lost Tribes 941-456-6128 www.trailofthelosttribes.org Warm Mineral Springs/Little Salt Spring Archaeological Society P.O. Box 7797 North Port, FL 34287 www.fasweb.org/chapters/warmmineralsprings.htm
BUSINESS PARTNERS Custom Locators USA 2322 Hercala Lane, Hernando, FL 34442 352-560-0056
Become a Community Spirit Partner
Join the fun at The Florida Frontier Gazette. Details on page 31.
Above, these two young ladies were delighted at being dubbed
the “Skunk Sisters” by Heritage of the Ancient Ones. Wearing a skunk skin on your head was so gross! NTS Photo
Left, Heritage of the Ancient Ones,“Many Names” (a.k.a. Doug
Pommel), St. Augustine, shows a young participant how to use an atlatl during the Trail of the Lost Tribes’ event at Weedon Island Cultural and Natural History Center, St. Petersburg in February. NTS Photo