About 12 Millenia ago, Paleoindians lived in a much larger, much cooler and drier Florida.

9.000 years ago, Florida started warming up and the Glaciers began to melt. The native cultures started burying their dead in wetland cemeteries.

4,000 years ago, sea levels and climate have now approached modern conditions, Settlements were possible, they started making pottery. They could hunt and gather in one area and grow limited crops.

By the early 1500’s, these cultures had developed into powerful chiefdoms, including the Timucua.

The Timucua hunted, gathered, and farmed in the forest and swamps of Central Florida.

They were mound builders, and while most of the mounds were for Burials, others were used for refuge.

Their God was Yayjaba. Yayjaba created bottom dwelling creatures to hold lands in place below the water, and trees (The one-legged ones) to anchor the land in place above the waters. The one-legged ones were given the gift of life anywhere on Earth.

All animals of Earth including birds, and insects came from the Great Cave. They were ordered to respect the one-legged ones. Any show of disrespect; they would be destroyed by flood, dust or drought.

By the 1700’s most of the original inhabitants of Florida had been enslaved, devastated by disease and warfare from the European invasion, or relocated. This included the Timucua settlers still moving into the North American colonies had started pushing the various creek tribes from Georgia and Alabama into a nearly empty Florida. The cow keepers, Cuscowilla Band, and the Secoffe’s Band began to act independently of the other creek bands and eventually became known as the Seminoles. (Seminole is a creek pronunciation of the Spanish word cimarron or wild one.

Ocala is a Timucan word meaning, “Fair Land” or “Big Hammock.”