10) What happened to the Timucuas?
All the Timucuas are gone now. They’ve been gone since 1767 when the last Timucua Indian died. They died from many things.
1) The Timucuas got diseases like smallpox and the plague. These diseases sometimes killed half of the village, especially very old people and babies. The Indians had no immunities against these diseases.
2) The Timucuas were sometimes killed by the French and Spanish. The English, up in the Carolinas, also took many Timucua Indians as slaves.
3) As the Timucuas learned about Spanish culture (way of life), they really liked the Spanish ships and metal tools, their ability to read and write, and their family (inheritance) rules. They stopped acting like Timucuas and started to act more and more like Spanish people. Because of this, the young Timucuas forgot about their own way of life, and the Timucua culture was lost.
4) The Spanish missionaries taught the Timucuas about Christianity. By 1763, the Timucuas weren’t living like Florida Indians anymore. They were living like Spanish Catholics. In 1763, when Spain gave Florida to England, the last few Timucuas went to Cuba with the Spanish.
5) After the Timucuas, and other Indians like the Calusa, the Ais, the Tocobago, and the Apalachee, had disappeared from Florida, the Seminole Indians moved into their old lands. The Seminole were originally Creek Indians from Alabama and Georgia. As far as we know, there were never any Seminole Indians on Pelotes Island (northeast Jacksonville, Florida).
COOL FACT: The name "Seminole" comes from the word "cimaronne," a Spanish word that meant "renegade" or "Indian living far from a church or town."