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History may thwart development

A developer pulls its subdivision plan after research shows the site was the birthplace of part of the Seminole nation.

By DAN DeWITT
Published July 14, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - The County Commission already knew that much of the 464-acre site of a proposed subdivision was a wetland.

On Wednesday, the commission heard an even stronger argument for denying the project:

"This is the birthplace of the Seminole nation," said Doug Davis, an amateur historian and Brooksville business owner.

It is, at least, the birthplace of one branch of the tribe, said Willard Steele, a historic preservation officer with the Seminole Tribe of Florida who appeared at the commission meeting.

The Seminoles were formed by the Creek Indians, after they had been driven by white settlers from Georgia and Alabama, Steele said. One group wound up near Micanopy; another built a community southeast of Brooksville around what is now called Griffin Prairie and for many years was known as Chocachatti Prairie.

A large American Indian settlement was documented at Chocachatti in 1767 and was probably established several years earlier, Steele said.

Though U.S. military records show the Chocachatti community being destroyed in 1836, at least some Seminoles remained in the area into the 1840s, when white settlers began to arrive in large numbers, said Toni Carrier, who recently completed an archaeological dig on nearby land.

This dig and other historical research "is just now beginning to reveal the extent and significance of the prairie to the Seminole . . . nation," she wrote in a statement she read to the commission.

The Creeks along with refugees from several other tribes "forged a new cultural identity as Seminole," Carrier said.

"Many of the events that led to that new cultural identity took place on and around the Chocachatti Prairie."

The Tampa developer, Coastal Bay Properties LLC, planned to build houses, townhouses and a shopping center on the land, located south of State Road 50 and east of Emerson Road. Coastal Bay initially asked the commission to postpone hearing the plan, which the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended denying last month.

But Commissioner Nancy Robinson said she was ready to deny the plan based on the new information about the property's historical importance. Joe Quinn of Coastal Engineering and Associates Inc., who was representing the developer, withdrew the petition. County rules allow the company to resubmit a revised plan.

Steele and others hope that will not happen. They urged commissioners to ask the state or Southwest Florida Water Management District to acquire the property for environmental and historical reasons. Carrier said continued archaeological studies are needed to determine the size of the settlement.

Preserving the land as a historical site would be a nice change from the way the Seminoles are often portrayed, Steele said. Most historical sites are battlefields, and the stories of these conflicts are usually told from the viewpoint of the white settlers, Steele said.

Chocachatti, on the other hand, demonstrates the Seminole's prosperity and reliance on agriculture.

The prairie - flat, grassy, occasionally flooded - was ideal for grazing the tribe's large herds of cattle. The Seminole's wooden houses were built on the high ground to the east of the prairie, Carrier said.

Much of this land was later owned by the Hope family, one of the county's first families. In her archaeological survey of the Hope homestead, about a mile west of the prairie, Carrier uncovered numerous Seminole artifacts, including projectile points, shards of pottery and harness buckles and a coin from 1839.

Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6116.

[Last modified July 14, 2005, 00:31:19]