Tequesta

Background

Everglades places the Tequesta in southeast Florida, with the Calusa to the southwest and the Jeaga and Ais along the east coast to the north, and estimates about 20,000 people lived in south Florida when the Spanish arrived. Unlike neighbours who turned to corn and other crops, they worked the sea, which left them more time for art and religion and let complex social structures develop. Biscayne writes that as settlements in the area grew and split apart from one another, the smaller and more distinct cultures that developed in southeast Florida are the ones now known as the Tequesta. By 1763, when England took the colony, the population was down to several hundred, reported to have migrated to Cuba with the Spanish.

Parks on its homelands

Biscayne National Park

NPS says that as the shell-midden settlements on this shore grew and split apart, the smaller, more distinct cultures that developed in southeast Florida are the ones now known as the Tequesta. Unlike neighbours who turned to corn, the Tequesta lived off the sea, which left them more time for complex social structures, and by the mid-1700s disease had wiped out virtually all of the area's Indigenous people. Source

Everglades National Park

NPS places the Tequesta in southeast Florida, with the Calusa to the southwest and the Jeaga and Ais up the east coast. It estimates about 20,000 people lived in south Florida at Spanish contact. By 1763, when England took the colony, that population was down to several hundred, reported to have migrated to Cuba with the Spanish. Source

Sources

• https://www.nps.gov/bisc/learn/historyculture/native-peoples.htm
• https://www.nps.gov/ever/learn/historyculture/nativepeoples.htm

Checked September 2026.

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