Okeechobee

The wetlands around Lake Okeechobee were home to the Mayaimi, whose settlements formed part of the Belle Glade culture. Their distinctive pottery and large earthworks, with mounds, ditches and embankments, mark a long history of life around the lake. Fish and turtles furnished food alongside bread made from roots. In the sixteenth century, Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda described the Mayaimi as tributaries of the Calusa, the powerful people of Florida's southwestern coast.