COACOOCHEE
From an old print
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATES LAND DEALS
Like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky came the demand—from the United States Government, in 1913, to Florida’s high officials—“Investigate—investigate!”
Twenty thousand purchasers of lands in the Everglades, backed by the power of American democracy, had demanded their lands or the return of their good American dollars. The Federal Government, through Congress, exposed the crooked deals (the lands still being under water and unsurveyed) made by the vampire speculator, with the result that another survey was ordered and the Florida State government put sixty men into the Everglades at an expense of $40,000. The citizens paid for the survey and “800 square miles” still remain—unsurveyed! Less is known and, it can be said without fear of contradiction, less is “told” to the reading world of inquiries in this 20th century than was given to history four hundred years ago.
For best accounts touching the interior of the Everglades we must have recourse to historical documents. From French delineations upon old maps as well as from Spanish and English authorities, we learn that more than three hundred years ago Florida’s Everglade country was cut up by large rivers, extensive ponds, lagoons and lakes which connected with each other.
That the drainage of the Everglades was contemplated by the authorities of the Spanish government, is an established historical fact and as late as 1840, during the Seminole War, a canal was found large enough to float a large craft. This piece of engineering work is credited to the Spaniards, but owing to the treacherous straits of Florida’s coast, interior navigation was abandoned and the Spaniards and the Frenchman left the country to the intrepid and enterprising Indian, whose knowledge of the water world of the Glades was then, as is now, superior to his white engineering brother; for the Indian knows every foot of this interminable morass and travels through these uncharted waters in his “dugout” canoe, with no compass but the stars overhead, as he is guided by the whispering winds brought him from the Great Spirit.