The names of
rivers are like time capsules that preserve some pieces of their history. If we
dig deeper into those stories and expand on them, we often find they add welcome
color and context to stories we might know only superficially from dry history texts.
The five rivers on which I guided tours last week offer a good case study
First up was “Waccasassa,”
a river that’s name was given by the Seminoles and means, “Place with Cow Pens.”
Dig deeper and you’ll learn about the remote, cow-tending operations that were
generally called, “cow pens” among early settlers. William Bartram encountered several
of these on his 1774 explorations of Florida and Georgia. In Travels, he says cow
pens usually included “two or three acreas of ground, more or less, according
to the stock, adjoining a rivulete or run of water….” He doesn’t elaborate on
the housing situation other than to simply state there was a “habitation.” The residents,
despite what one “might reasonably expect, from their occupation and remote
situation (were) civil and courteous, and though educated as it were in the
woods, no strangers to sensibility and those moral virtues which grace and
ornament the most approved and admirable characters in civil society.” (Bonus
trivia—“Waccahoota,” the similar sounding name of a relct community off
Williston Road, means “Cow Pens,” and refers to a similar cow-tending operation
that once stood there. That cow pen later became the home village of Bowlegs,
brother of Paynes Prairie’s namesake Chief, King Payne. Those familiar with the
Hawthorn area might now have a better sense of the name origin of Cowpen Lake)
Ichetucknee is another interesting Seminole name. I think it
says good things about today’s Floridians that many people know this name means
“Place where there are Beavers.” What is less known is that the Seminole name
of manatees translates as “big beaver.” While I have no proof that the name alludes
to a time when manatees were more common in this river, I can’t help but
wonder.
Of all the
names in last week’s name-rich line-up, “Withlacoochee” might be
the least intriguing. Perhaps the most interesting (and telling) thing about
this name is that there are two of them. Like Wekiva, it appears
“Withlacoochee” was not a proper name for the river, but more of a descriptive
that was elevated to proper name status by white settlers.
Ironically,
the more modern sounding and clearly non-native name, “Santa Fe,”
is actually the oldest name in the lineup. Like so many Florida place names
that include “Santa” or “Saint,” this one refers to a Spanish Mission that
stood alongside the upper river in the 1600’s; long before the Creeks (later
called Seminoles) arrived. I sometimes wonder if any of the resident Timucuas
ever asked the missionary about the real Santa Fe, for whom the mission was
named. I like to picture the monk shifting nervously, with a deer-in-headlights
expression on his face as he tried to explain that Fe was a fourteen year old
girl who was brutally tortured and killed for holding fast to her beliefs and
refusing to convert to the religion of her oppressors.
Silver River has is the newest name of
all these five rivers. When the Seminole Agency was established at Ft. King
(later Ocala) the new agent changed the river’s name from the Seminole,
“Suailleaha,” which is said to have meant, “sun glistening water,” to Silver
River. While there is no record of the circumstances, I wonder if he was
attempting to give deference to the Seminoles by giving their name his best English
translation. Though, as even the driest, most superficial historical texts make
clear, giving the Indians deference was not high on the Indian Agencies “to do”
list.
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