Tequesta

The Tequesta (also Tekesta, Tegesta, Chequesta, Vizcaynos) were a Native American tribe. At the time of first European contact they 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. The Tequesta lived in the southeastern parts of present-day Florida. They had lived in the region since the 3rd century BCE (the late Archaic period of the continent), and remained for roughly 2,000 years, By the 1800s, most had died as a result of settlement battles, slavery, and disease. The Tequesta tribe had only a few survivors by the time that Spanish Florida was traded to the British, who then established the area as part of the province of East Florida. The Tequesta tribe lived on Biscayne Bay in what is now Miami-Dade County and further north in Broward County at least as far Pompano Beach. Their territory may have also included the northern half of Broward County and the southern half of Palm Beach County. They also occupied the Florida Keys at times, and may have had a village on Cape Sable, at the southern end of the Florida peninsula, in the 16th century. Their central town (called "Tequesta" by the Spaniards in honor of the chief) was on the north bank of the Miami River. A village had been at that site for at least 2,000 years. The Tequesta situated their towns and camps at the mouths of rivers and streams, on inlets from the Atlantic Ocean to inland waters, and on barrier islands and keys. The Tequesta were more or less dominated by the more numerous Calusa of the southwest coast of Florida. The Tequesta were closely allied to their immediate neighbors to the north, the Jaega. Estimates of the number of Tequesta at the time of initial European contact range from 800 to 10,000, while estimates of the number of Calusa on the southwest coast of Florida range from 2,000 to 20,000. Occupation of the Florida Keys may have swung back and forth between the two tribes.