The Tocobaga People Lived Responsibly and Cared for the Jungle Neighborhood for Over 600 Years

“The Tocobaga people left this land as they found it. They took from the earth only what they needed. They lived responsibly and cared for the land for over 600 years.” ^[1]

Tocobaga Tribute Mural, 2914 1st Avenue North, St. Petersburg, FL

There is no recorded history of Florida before 1513 – that's when Ponce de Leon first traveled to the east coast and Europeans began documenting the exploration of La Florida.

Although much of Florida's past is a mystery, we know from archaeological evidence that nomadic hunters roamed Florida and the Pinellas peninsula during the Paleo-American period which began about 14,500 years ago. Like prehistoric man in other parts of the world, these people were nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Around 900 AD, the first permanent settlements in the Tampa Bay area were established by the Tocobaga Indians. There is no evidence of agriculture – instead, the Tocobaga lived off the abundant seafood, plants and animals that could be found nearby.

There was a Tocobaga village center on Boca Ciega Bay in the Jungle near 1620 Park Street North, St. Petersburg. This location is known as the Narváez/Anderson Site or the Jungle Prada Site. A plaza, burial mounds, and a midden (a mound of discarded sea shells, animal bones and pottery fragments) are found here. Numerous artifacts have been discovered and still more lie beneath the surface. The site is on private property and, unlike other mounds in St. Petersburg, it has remained relatively undisturbed. Guided tours are available: for more information, visit discoverfloridatours.com.

 Artist's reconstruction of the Narváez/Anderson Site ca. A.D. 1528  ^[3]

The Tocobaga Indians harvested fish, conchs, clams, oysters and turtles from Boca Ciega Bay and they hunted deer, rabbits, squirrels, birds, gophers, raccoons, dogs and armadillo in the Jungle neighborhoods.

In 1964 near the former The Science Center on 22nd Street North in the Jungle, a construction worker saw something that caught his eye in the brown sandy soil. It was a cluster of stone artifacts - knives, chisels, scrapers, and projectile point fragments ^[4] – the types of stone tools that were made by the natives who lived in the Jungle hundreds of years ago.

These stone tools were unearthed less than a mile from the Jungle Prada Site, where similar artifacts in larger quantities have been discovered.

  A collection of arrowheads found at the Jungle Prada Site. ^[3]

Pictured: ancient artifacts on display at the Jungle Prada Site museum, including a spearhead thought to be about 2000 years old. (brownish object in center of photo).

Map of Southeastern United States Indian Tribes ^[2]

Spanish explorers. State Archives of Florida (Colorized)

In 1528, Spanish explorer Pánfilo de Narváez and his expeditionary force made landfall at the Jungle Prada Site disrupting the stable Tocobaga culture with cruelty, violence and warfare. During the Spanish exploration of Florida, many natives were killed or enslaved for labor in distant lands. Even more devastating were the deadly diseases the Spanish introduced to the New World – smallpox, bubonic plague, influenza, measles, and malaria.

After 1700 there is no record of the Tocobaga people. Some of the survivors intermingled with the Seminoles who moved into Florida.

^[1] https://www.change.org/p/saint-petersburg-mayor-and-city-council-change-the-name-of-saint-petersburg-to-tocobaga
^[2] Wikimedia commons. Nikater (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USA_Südosten-Tocobaga.png), „USA Südosten-Tocobaga“, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode
^[3] State Archives of Florida
^[4] Florida anthropologist » Volume 26 » Number 3 

Copyright © 2020 The Jungle Country Club History Project