Free The History of Florida by Michael Gannon Page B

area in
    the Carolinas, the history of Florida might have unfolded quite differently.
    Instead, the Spanish towns of Santa Elena (1566–87; Parris Island, South
    Carolina) and St. Augustine were built on the sands of the Atlantic coastal
    plain; that is, on soils with limited agricultural potentials, aside from run-
    ning cattle in the pine woods, characteristics that, along with the absence
    proof
    of minerals, limited Spanish interest in the colony. Only Florida’s strategic
    location on the Bahama Channel and the pleas of the Franciscan missionar-
    ies prevented its abandonment in the early seventeenth century.7 For most
    of the rest of the first Spanish period, the colony depended on its situado
    (civil list or subsidy) as the main engine of its economy, although Apalachee
    is known to have exported deerskins and foods to Havana. During the Brit-
    ish, second Spanish, and early American periods, a more diverse economy
    gradual y built up based on the export of hides, oranges, naval stores and
    timbers, and cotton produced at various places mostly north of the I-4 cor-
    ridor of today. Cuban fishermen developed that industry along the lower
    west coast, but it did not depend on the qualities of soils.
    In peninsular Florida, geologists have identified sections of as many as
    five of the eight terraces of the lower coastal plain in the strip of land be-
    tween the Atlantic Ocean and the 15-meter (50-foot) contour west of the
    St. Johns River and general y north of the Tampa–Daytona Beach line. The
    higher ground of the flatwoods of the upper St. Johns and Kissimmee River
    basins as well as the flatwoods between Sebring and Lake Okeechobee, and
    in southwest Florida along the Caloosahatchee River and between Fort My-
    ers and Tampa Bay are also classified as parts of these coastal terraces. On
    The Land They Found · 45
    the western side of Florida’s central ridge north of Tampa Bay, some of the
    terraces also are evident, for example on State Highway 24 between Cedar
    Key and Gainesville. The terraces of the middle coastal plain that are no-
    table features of Virginia and the Carolinas (three and four terraces, respec-
    tively) but less so in Georgia (two terraces) continue in Florida to form four
    identifiable terraces east of the Haines City Ridge in central Florida and
    west of the Trail Ridge feature (and 15-meter contour) of northern Florida
    and southeastern Georgia. Less certain is whether the highest elevations
    of Florida’s central ridge should be classed as continuations of the upper
    coastal plain found in Virginia and the Carolinas.
    Whatever the relationship of the central ridge to geologic features farther
    north, the western highlands and the Mariana, Tal ahassee, and Madison
    Hills are part of the south and southeastward tilted “southern” or Tifton
    uplands that extend into adjacent parts of southwestern Georgia. Streams
    and rivers have carved this upland into hil s and val eys with general y mod-
    erate (10–25°) slopes. The soils are mostly Udults, with red-yel ow sands
    over clayey subsoils west of the Madison Hil s and gray-brown sandy loams
    on those hil s. Early-nineteenth-century atlas maps described these hil s as
    having “good soils” because they, like similar soils on the central Florida
    ridge, have moderate to good fertility and general y excellent drainage. The
    proof
    Tal ahassee Hills were home to the Apalachee Indians. In the nineteenth
    century, cotton plantations were established on al three sets of hil s. Be-
    cause of the slopes, these hil s have as many as thirty-five species of trees
    per acre and general y support one of the more diverse ecological areas in
    the Southeast.
    The central ridge and its outlying hil s to the east and south are general y
    covered with gray-brown sandy soils (Quartzipsamments) of varying slope.
    The so-called Arredondo-Kendrick-Mil hopper Association of red-yellow
    sandy loams (Udults) cuts across the ridge in a north to south pattern.