Pioneer Era: 1860-1900
When the Spanish arrived in Florida in 1513, the southeastern fringes of the state were occupied by the Tequesta and Jaega tribes. After years of disease and oppression, these Native American tribes were not able to survive; they are now commonly referred to as the “Lost Tribes” of Florida. Later, throughout the 1800s, groups of Creek Native Americans from Alabama and Georgia were pushed past northern Florida and into the Everglades during three Seminole Wars. After the Homestead Act of 1872 white settlers began occupying the barrier island of Palm Beach, which was considered to be not much more than remote “jungle” wilderness at the time. However, they carved self-sustaining communities out of a dense mass of marshy swamps, sandy dunes, and forests thick with oak and pine. Most of the homesteaders came to South Florida in order to farm or make the most of what was available—not to cultivate a particular image of paradise—that would evolve decades later.
Starting in the 1890s, it was ultimately because of people like Henry Flagler that Palm Beach was transformed into a seasonal destination; the development of this destination, however, came at a steep price. Attractions like the Garden of Eden suggest that the early winter residents of Palm Beach were interested in a cultivated image of “natural” Florida which would sometimes mimic rather than truthfully represent its native ecology.
