American Indians in Cuba

Like other American Indian peoples, the pre-Hispanic tribes of Florida had a dramatic end, but according to historical evidence, their genetic traces could still be identified in Cuba, about 90 miles to the south.

According to John E. Worth, an anthropologist specializing in the era of European colonial domination in the southeastern United States, this connection could lead to the identification of genealogical links between Cubans and Southeastern tribes.

Worth and other researchers, including archaeologist Robert Carr of The Archaeological and Historical Conservancy, have identified several emigrations of Native Americans to Cuba from tribes now considered extinct in the United States.

The first documented transfer of American Indians to Havana dates back to 1513, when Juan Ponce de León, who took possession of La Florida in the name of the Spanish Crown, took some Indians back from their expedition to be used as guides and interpreters.

Aside from the transfer to Havana of natives who rebelled against the Spanish, to be imprisoned or judged, several other shipments to Havana have been identified.

Calusa in Havana

One of these episodes was recorded in 1688, when several Calusa families were taken to Havana and located in the region of La Cabaña fortress, at the entrance to the bay.

This emigration was part of the procedures used by the Spaniards for the Christianization of the Indians and in Worth’s opinion set a precedent in the history of the Indians of southeast Florida in Cuba.

Carr, the principal investigator of the archaeological site known as the Miami Circle, whose construction is attributed to the Tequesta, says in his book Digging Miami that the reason for the emigration recorded in 1704 was the siege of the Indians of the cays of Florida by the Creek arrived (allies of the British and predecessors of the Seminole tribes)

The greatest group identified so far came in 1711 when the bishop of Havana Gerónimo Valdéz sent two ships to the cays to pick up allied Indians from Spain who was under siege, mostly remnants of the Tequesta, Calusa, and other tribes of Florida.

Data collected by Carr and other scholars indicate that although there was space for about 270 refugees in the two boats, about two thousand Indians tried to board the boat.

Finally, the available positions were granted to the tribal elites, including the chiefs of Jove, Maiyami, Concha, Musepa, and Rio Seco tribes.

Survivors in Cuba

To read more about the subject: Cuba and the United States: Early Contacts. Available in Amazon (Spanish edition)

According to John Gogging, one of the investigators of the subject, in 1716 or 1718 about 200 of these Indians returned to meet the Indian remnants of Florida, then estimated at six thousand.

In Cuba, according to Worth, the survivors were distributed among several families in Havana and the Bay of Jagua, in the center of the island.

Worth established that still in 1730 several survivors remained in places near Havana and the sacristan of the parish of Guanabacoa Don Cristóbal de Zayas Bazán was designated by the bishop to catechize the natives.

The records cited by the investigator establish that a Calusa woman baptized as Leonor de Sayas gave birth to two daughters of an unknown father: (Maria Antonia) in 1729 and (Maria Casilda) in 1731.

After a failed mission in 1932, because of the Indians’ refusal to travel due to rumors that the adults would be separated from the minors upon arrival in Cuba, Worth identified the sending of about 11 families in 1938.

In the context of the war between the British and the Spanish, with their respective allied tribes, an attack by the Creek registered on May 17, 1760, forced emigration to about 60 or 70 of the Indians who survived on the cays of Florida.

Unresolved mystery

These Indians were settled in La Cabaña, waiting to be returned to a garrison in Miami, something that never happened, as Worth quotes in his book A History of Southeastern Indians in Cuba, 1513-1823.

By 1761, another Tequesta group embarked for Havana, this time due to the persecution of the Uchis, also allies of the British, who forced them to leave their villages near the Miami River.

With the end of the Spanish dominion over Florida in 1763, several groups of allied Indians left Florida for Cuba as exiles, including what Worth considered the last pureblood Timucua, along with members of other tribes Calusa, Guale, and Yamasseey.

As for the Tequesta, in the opinion of Carr, his descendants in Cuba mixed with the population and those who remained in Florida, considered “Spanish Indians”, were absorbed by the Seminoles.

One of the few references that could be attributed to the presence of Florida Indians in Cuba outside their settlement in Guanabacoa is in a site reported in 1941 by Dr. René Herrera Fritot in Cueva del Muñeco in Cayo Ensenachos, north of the Province of Villa Clara, where a petroglyph of very controversial origin was found.

Cuban anthropologists Alfredo Pérez Carratalá and Gerardo Izquierdo (1) point out that this is a parietal manifestation made with a technique and style different from those used by Cuban aboriginal groups and presents an astonishing resemblance to Calusa masks made in wood.

This mystery still awaits clarification.

Note: (1) Intercambios socioculturales en el periodo aborigen con el Caribe. Alfredo PÉREZ CARRATALA* y Gerardo IZQUIERDO DÍAZ**
*Universidad Central de Las Villas. **Instituto Cubano de Antropología, Cuba.