Timucua

The Timucua were the largest native people of northeast and north-central Florida and southeast Georgia, about 35 chiefdoms speaking dialects of one language and never united under a single ruler. The group also covers the Calusa of the southwest coast, who built a powerful realm on fishing from their town of Calos, and the Tocobaga around Tampa Bay.

French Huguenots founded Fort Caroline among the Saturiwa in 1564, and the Spanish founded St. Augustine in 1565 and planted missions in the Timucua towns. Disease cut the Timucua from about 200,000 to 50,000 by 1595 and to about 1,000 by 1700; in 1703 James Moore of Carolina led slave raids that killed and enslaved hundreds more.