Ais

The Ais occupied a long stretch of Florida's Atlantic coast along the lagoon that Spanish visitors called the River of Ais. Their towns and seasonal camps drew on fish, shellfish, turtles and plants from the coastal waters and woodland. Chiefs governed the towns under a paramount leader, whose settlement lay near the southern part of the lagoon.

In 1605 the Spanish governor sent Álvaro Mexía from St. Augustine to seek relations with the Ais. He recorded Pentoaya, a winter town at the meeting of the Banana River and Indian River lagoons. Nearly a century later, the merchant Jonathan Dickinson was shipwrecked to the south and travelled north through Ais country. His account of the journey described the people and towns he encountered before reaching St. Augustine.