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Suwannee
County, the thirty-seventh county created in the State
of Florida, was formed on December 21, 1858 out of the
western portion of Columbia County. The word “Suwannee”
is sometimes thought to originate from the Native
American word sawani, meaning “Echo River”, “Muddy
Waters”, or something similar. A more probable origin is
that it was based upon the Spanish name for the river,
Rio San Juan de Guacara, which translates into the
“River of Saint John of Antiquity”, referring to John
the Apostle. As the Spanish gave way to English
dominance, the old Spanish name was anglicized to become
“Suwannee”. As Suwannee County is bounded on three sides
by the famous river, it only made sense that the new
county would be named in its honor.
The area
that is now Suwannee County has been inhabited for
thousands of years. Those inhabitants include the
Deptford Culture, which flourished from about 800 B.C.
to 700 A.D. It is characterized by sand-tempered pottery
decorated with carved wooden paddles. Little evidence
remains of this culture except for some burial mounds,
shards of pottery, and remnants of the plants and
animals they ate. Another local culture was the
McKeithen Weeden Island culture, which flourished
between 200 and about 750 A.D. The Weeden Island culture
was superseded by the Suwannee Valley culture around 750
A.D. Eventually, the Timucua developed and dominated
northern Florida and southern Georgia. We know more
about the Timucua than previous Native American cultures
because of written records from Europeans who met the
Timucua during early expeditions and colonization of
Florida. Unfortunately, the Timucua are one of the truly
extinct tribes within the United States. The last
recorded survivor of the Timucua, Juan Alonso Cabale,
died in Cuba on November 14, 1767. |
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