The Tequesta, also Tekesta, Tegesta, Chequesta, Vizcaynos, were a Native American tribe on the Southeastern Atlantic coast of Florida.

They lived in the region since the 3rd century BC in the late Archaic period of the continent, and remained for roughly 2,000 years,[1] By the 1800s, most had died as a result of settlement battles, slavery, and disease.

[4] The Tequesta situated their towns and camps at the mouths of rivers and streams, on inlets from the Atlantic Ocean to inland waters, and on barrier islands and keys.

On a map the Dutch cartographer Hessel Gerritsz published in 1630 in Joannes de Laet's History of the New World, the Florida peninsula is labeled "Tegesta" after the tribe.

[9] The archaeological record of the Glades culture, which included the area occupied by the Tequestas, indicates a continuous development of an indigenous ceramics tradition from about 700 BCE until after European contact.

[10] The Tequesta were once thought to be related to the Taino, the Arawakan people of the Antilles, but most anthropologists now doubt this, based on archaeological information and the length of their establishment in Florida.

Carl O. Sauer called the Florida Straits "one of the most strongly marked cultural boundaries in the New World", noting that the Straits were also a boundary between agricultural systems, with Florida Native Americans growing seed crops that originated in Mexico, while the Lucayans of the Bahamas grew root crops that originated in South America.

Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, who lived among the tribes of southern Florida for seventeen years in the 16th century, described their "common" diet as "fish, turtle and snails, and tunny and whale"; the "sea-wolf" (Caribbean monk seal) was reserved for the upper classes.

[12] The Tequesta gathered many plant foods, including saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) berries, cocoplums (Chrysobalanus icaco), sea grapes (Coccoloba uvifera), prickly pear (nopal) fruits (Opuntia spp.

In particular, most of the inhabitants of the main village relocated to barrier islands or to the Florida Keys during the worst of the mosquito season, which lasted about three months.

Other tribes in southern Florida lived in houses with wooden posts, raised floors, and roofs thatched with palmetto leaves, something like the chickees of the Seminoles.

[citation needed] The Tequesta men consumed cassina, the black drink, in ceremonies similar to those common throughout the southeastern United States.

While en route from Havana to Biscayne Bay in 1743, Spanish missionaries heard that the Native Americans of the Keys (apparently including the Tequestas) had gone to Santaluz (the village of Santa Lucea was at the St. Lucie Inlet) for a celebration of a recent peace treaty, and that the chief of Santaluz was going to sacrifice a young girl as part of the celebration.

Radiocarbon-dating of sea shells eaten at the site date back as far as 730 BCE, and suggest a permanent settlement was established here more than 2,700 years ago.

Recent archaeological work has found a larger Tequesta site on the north side of the river that likely existed concurrently with the Miami Circle.

In March 1567, Menéndez returned to the Tequesta[3] and established a mission within a stockade, situated near the south bank of the Miami River below the native village.

Starting in 1704, it was the policy of the Spanish government to resettle Florida Native Americans in Cuba so that they could be indoctrinated into the Catholic faith.

The first group of these Native Americans, including the cacique of Cayo de Guesos (Key West), arrived in Cuba in 1704, and most, if not all of them, soon died.

The petition, which was written in Spanish and showed a understanding of how the government and church bureaucracies worked, asked that missionaries be sent to the Cayos (Florida Keys) to provide religious instruction.

He also forwarded the missionaries' plan to Spain, where the Council of the Indies decided that the proposed mission on Biscayne Bay would be costly and impractical.