Where Oceanography Makes History SO' W
gold and silver that had been lost there." Fontaneda recommended a fort on the Straits to protect shipwrecked men and property from the Native Americans.
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MAP BY BRI AN D. AN DREWS
eral encoumers with the Native Americans of the Florida Straits. The coastal natives included the tribes of the Tequestas, Calusas, Ais, and Jeaga. Some tribes had lived in the area for over 2,000 years, using the Straits and local waterways for fish, shellfish, and marine mammals. Hernando D 'Escalante Fontaneda, who lived in the area for over fifteen years, gave a circa 1575 account describing Calusas hunting whales in the Straits with a lasso. Fontaneda also explains that the natives canoed across the Straits at times, some settling in the Bahamas and in Cuba. He tells of how tl1e Ais were poor, but salvaged Spanish wrecks: "[The Ais grew] rich from the sea by the reason of the many ships laden with
SIRFAM OF Gow, SILVFR, & CoMMERCE
grow1d, and in 1628, the Dutch pirate Piet Heyn, with 30 ships, raided a Spanish Beet off Matanzas, Cuba. In total, Heyn captured 18 vessels and 46 tons of silver. In 1822, the US established a naval base at Key West to mow1t a campaign against West Indian piracy and to protect American commerce. Key West is only 90 nautical miles from Havana. Commodore David Porter led the Beet and wrote of Key West's geography in 1823: "The arrivals and departmes of the American vessels from the port of H avana alone average about thirty a week, and those from Matanzas about twenty. Not a day elapses but that great nwnbers of American vessels are to be met passing through the [Straits]." Even afi:er the age of Spanish galleons and pirates, the Straits of Florida was still a path of gold. The preferred route, though more expensive, to and from California during the Gold Rush was overland at the Isthmus of Panama or Nicaragua. Steamers, stopping in Havana to reload coal and replenish supplies, regularly made the run from New York to Central America, from where gold seekers crossed by road, or later by rail, to catch another steamer bound to San Francisco. From 1849-1869, nearly a half million people sailed on steamers westbound through the Straits of Florida and 370,000 passengers sailed back to New York. Passengers, mail, government intelligence, and at least $757 million dollars in gold traveled through the Straits during that period.
The Dutch cartographer Herman Moll, in his 1720 map of Norili America, is possibly the first to write "Straits of Florida" on a map. He also wrote, in a long sweeping line starting in Veracruz, across the Gulf of Mexico: "The Tract of the only Passage of Flota from Vera Cruz to ye Havana occasioned by ye Trade Winds." His line stops in Havana and continues northbound ilirough the Straits of Florida and out beyond the Bahamas, saying "TI1e only Passage of the Gallions for Spain." In the 16th and 17th-centuries, Spain sent Beets filled with riches from Central and South America, primarily from Vera Cruz, Portobello, and Cartagena. In 15 51 alone, 84 vessels returned to Spain from the New World, most by sailing through the Straits of Florida. Because of the dangers of the Straits, Spain lost dozens of ships. The most famous excavated shipwrecks of the Straits of Florida include the Santa Margarita and the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which wrecked in 1622 in a hurricane. Spain also lost galleons in the "Fleet of 1715" and the "Fleet of 1733." Twentieth-century treasure hunters have earned millions of dollars finding and salvaging these wrecks. SUGAR & SLAVES The vessels sailed in company for Afi:er the European settlement of Cuba and protection, as flora, because their cargo the Caribbean, gold was not the only source of attracted pirates and privateers. The wealth. When the Spanish moved on to CenSpanish strung a chain across the harbor of tral and South America to find more gold and Havana for defense, and to protect the floras silver, settlers planted sugar in the Caribbean. they established St. Augustine in Sailing into Key West on a clear day-from one 1565, the first permanent European mile out, the land is barely visible. settlement on the US East Coast. For pirates, the intricate islands and shallow coves of the region provided hidden anchorages as well as areas where small vessels could escape deeper drafi: ships. Pirates could careen and re-provision their vessels on uninhabited islands. Privateer John H awkins sailed the Straits in the 16th-centwy, stopping at the Dry Tortugas for food. In 1555, pirates burned Havana to the
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