Thousands of years before Europeans arrived, a large portion of south east Florida, including the area where Miami, Florida exists today, was inhabited by Tequestas. The Tequesta (also Tekesta, Tegesta, Chequesta, Vizcaynos) Native American tribe, at the time of first European contact, occupied an area along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Florida. They had infrequent contact with Europeans and had largely migrated by the middle of the 18th century. Miami is named after the Mayaimi, a Native American tribe that lived around Lake Okeechobee until the 17th or 18th century.
The Spanish established a mission and small garrison among the Tequesta on Biscayne Bay in 1567. The mission and garrison were withdrawn a couple of years later. In 1743 the governor of Cuba established another mission and garrison on Biscayne Bay. As the mission had not been approved by the Council of the Indies, the mission and garrison were withdrawn the following year. The Spanish recorded that the inhabitants at the site of the 1743 mission were survivors of the Cayos, Carlos (presumed to be Calusa) and Boca Raton people, who were subject to periodic raids by the Uchises (native allies of the English in South Carolina). Fort Dallas was built in 1836 and functioned as a military base during the Second Seminole War.
The Miami area was better known as "Biscayne Bay Country" in the early years of its growth. The few published accounts from that period describe the area as a wilderness that held much promise. The area was also characterized as "one of the finest building sites in Florida". After the Great Freeze of 1894, the crops of the Miami area were the only ones in Florida that survived. Julia Tuttle, a local landowner, convinced Henry Flagler, a railroad tycoon, to expand his Florida East Coast Railway to Miami. On July 28, 1896, Miami was officially incorporated as a city with a population of just over 300.
Miami prospered during the 1920s, but weakened when the real-estate bubble burst in 1925, which was shortly followed by the 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression in the 1930s. When World War II began, Miami played an important role in the battle against German submarines due to its location on the southern coast of Florida. The war helped to increase Miami's population to almost half a million. After Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, many Cubans emigrated to Miami, further increasing the population. In the 1980s and 1990s, various crises struck South Florida, among them the Arthur McDuffie beating and the subsequent riot, drug wars, Hurricane Andrew, and the Elián González affair. Despite these, Miami remains a major international, financial, and cultural center.
The city's name is derived from the Miami River, which is ultimately derived from the Mayaimi people who lived around the shores of Lake Okeechobee at the time of European colonization.
Though spelled the same in English, the Florida city's name has nothing to do with the Miami people who lived in a completely different part of North America.
Early settlement The earliest evidence of Native American settlement in the Miami region came from about 10,000 years ago.Parks, Arva Moore. Miami: The Magic City. Miami, Fl: Centennial Press, 1991. p 12. The region was filled with pine hardwood forests and was home to plenty of deer, bear, and wild fowl. These first inhabitants settled on the banks of the Miami River, with their main villages on the northern banks. These early Native Americans created a variety of weapons and tools from shells.Wilkinson, Jerry. "Prehistoric Indians.". Retrieved January 29, 2006.
When the first Europeans visited in the mid-1500s, the inhabitants of the Miami area were the Tequesta people, who controlled an area covering much of southeastern Florida including what is now Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and the southern parts of Palm Beach County. The Tequesta Indians fished, hunted, and gathered the fruit and roots of plants for food, but did not practice any form of agriculture. They buried the small bones of the deceased, but put the larger bones in a box for the village people to see. The Tequesta are credited with making the Miami Circle.
16th to 18th centuries In 1513, Juan Ponce de León was the first European to visit the Miami area by sailing into Biscayne Bay. He wrote in his journal that he reached Chequescha, which was Miami's first recorded name,Parks, p 13 but it is unknown whether or not he came ashore or made contact with the natives. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his men made the first recorded landing in this area when they visited the Tequesta settlement in 1566 while looking for Menéndez's missing son, who had been shipwrecked a year earlier.Parks, p 14 Spanish soldiers, led by Father Francisco Villareal, built a Jesuit mission at the mouth of the Miami River a year later, but it was short-lived. By 1570, the Jesuits decided to look for more willing subjects outside of Florida. After the Spaniards left, the Tequesta Indians were left to fight European-introduced diseases, such as smallpox, without European help. Wars with other tribes greatly weakened their population, and they were easily defeated by the Creek Indians in later battles. By 1711, the Tequesta had sent a couple of local chiefs to Havana to ask if they could migrate there. The Spanish sent two ships to help them, but their illnesses struck, killing most of their population.Parks, p 14-16 In 1743, the Spaniards sent another mission to Biscayne Bay, where they built a fort and church. The missionary priests proposed a permanent settlement, where the Spanish settlers would raise food for the soldiers and Native Americans. However, the proposal was rejected as impractical and the mission was withdrawn before the end of the year.Sturtevant, William C. (1978) The Last of the South Florida Aborigines, in Jerald Milanich and Samuel Proctor, Eds., Tacachale: Essays on the Indians of Florida and Southeastern Georgia during the Historic Period. Gainesville, Florida, The University Presses of Florida.
18th and 19th centuries
In 1766, Samuel Touchett received a land grant from the Crown for in the Miami area. The grant was surveyed by Bernard Romans in 1772. A condition for making the grant permanent was that at least one settler had to live on the grant for every of land. While Touchett wanted to found a plantation in the grant, he was having financial problems and his plans never came to fruitionBraund, Kathryn E. Holland (1999), Bernard Romans: His Life and Times, in Romans, Bernard (1999). A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, Modernized reprint of 1775 edition, Tuscaloosa, Alabama and London: The University of Alabama Press. . p 6, 56, 354
The first permanent European settlers in the Miami area arrived around 1800. Pedro Fornells, a Menorcan survivor of the New Smyrna colony, moved to Key Biscayne to meet the terms of his Royal Grant for the island. Although he returned with his family to St. Augustine after six months, he left a caretaker behind on the island. On a trip to the island in 1803, Fornells had noted the presence of squatters on the mainland across Biscayne Bay from the island. In 1825, U.S. Marshal Waters Smith visited the Cape Florida Settlement (which was on the mainland) and conferred with squatters who wanted to obtain title to the land they were occupying.Blank, Joan Gill. 1996. Key Biscayne. Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press. . pp. 19, 27. On the mainland, the Bahamian "squatters" had settled along the coast beginning in the 1790s. John Egan had also received a grant from Spain during the Second Spanish Period. John's son James Egan, his wife Rebecca Egan, his widow Mary "Polly" Lewis, and Mary's brother-in-law Jonathan Lewis all received 640-acre land grants from the U.S. in present-day Miami. Temple Pent and his family did not receive a land grant, but nevertheless stayed in the area.Parks, Arva Moore. Miami, the Magic City. Miami: Community Media, c2008. p. 18-24.
Treasure hunters from the Bahamas and the Keys came to South Florida to hunt for treasure from the ships that ran around on the treacherous Great Florida reef, some of whom accepted Spanish land offers along the Miami River. At about the same time, the Seminole Indians arrived along with a group of runaway slaves. In 1825, the Cape Florida Lighthouse was built on nearby Key Biscayne to warn passing ships of the dangerous reefs.
In 1830, Richard Fitzpatrick bought land on the Miami River from Bahamian James Egan. He built a plantation with slave labor where he cultivated sugarcane, bananas, maize, and tropical fruit. In January 1836, shortly after the beginning of the Second Seminole War, Fitzpatrick removed his slaves and closed his plantation.Black, Hugo L., III. "Richard Fitzpatrick's South Florida, 1822–1840, Part II: Fitzpatrick's Miami River Plantation." In Tequesta, no. XI (1981).
The area was affected by the Second Seminole War, where Major William S. Harney led several raids against the Indians. Fort Dallas was located on Fitzpatrick's plantation on the north bank of the river. Most of the non-Indian population consisted of soldiers stationed at Fort Dallas. The Seminole War was the most devastating Indian war in American history, causing almost a total loss of native population in the Miami area. The Cape Florida lighthouse was burned by Seminoles in 1836 and was not repaired until 1846.
After the Second Seminole War ended in 1842, Fitzpatrick's nephew, William English, re-established the plantation in Miami. He charted the "Village of Miami" on the south bank of the Miami River and sold several plots of land. When English died in California in 1852, his plantation died with him.Parks, Arva Moore. Miami, the Magic City. Miami: Community Media, 2008. p. 36-38.
The Miami River lent its name to the burgeoning town, extending an etymology that derives from the Mayaimi Indian tribe. In 1844, Miami became the county seat, and six years later, a census reported that there were ninety-six residents living in the area.History of Miami-Dade county retrieved January 26, 2006 The Third Seminole War lasted from 1855 to 1858, but was not nearly as destructive as the previous one. However, it did slow down the rate of settlement of southeast Florida. At the end of the war, a few of the soldiers stayed and some of the Seminoles remained in the Everglades.
From 1858 to 1896, only a handful of families made their homes in the Miami area. Those that did lived in small settlements along Biscayne Bay. The first of these settlements formed at the mouth of the Miami River and was variously called Miami, Miamuh, and Fort Dallas. Foremost among the Miami River settlers were the Brickells. William Brickell had previously lived in Cleveland, Ohio, California, and Australia, where he met his wife, Mary. In 1870, Brickell bought land on the south bank of the river. The Brickells and their children operated a trading post and post office on their property for the rest of the 19th century.Carr, Robert S. "The Brickell Store and Seminole Indian Trade." In The Florida Anthropologist, v. 34, no. 4 (December 1981).McMahon, Denise, and Christine Wild. "William Barnwell Brickell in Australia." In Tequesta, no. LXVII (2007)
Other settlements within Miami's city limits were Lemon City (now Little Haiti) and Coconut Grove. Settlements outside the city limits were Biscayne, in present-day Miami Shores, and Cutler, in present-day Palmetto Bay. Many of the settlers were homesteaders, attracted to the area by offers of of free land by the United States federal government.
1890s: Fast growth and formation
In 1891, a Cleveland woman named Julia Tuttle decided to move to South Florida to make a new start in her life after the death of her husband, Frederick Tuttle. She purchased 640 acres on the north bank of the Miami River in present-day downtown Miami.