Tocobaga is the name of a group of Native Americans who lived in
chiefdoms along the middle gulf coast of the Florida peninsula at the
time of European contact in the 16th century.
It was also the name of the most important of those chiefdoms the
largest town and of the chief of that chiefdom. The Tocobaga had a
few brief contacts with Spanish explorers, but were little affected by the
contact. The Tocobaga declined severely in the 17th century and
disappeared early in the 18th century.
The Tocobaga area coincided with that of the Safety Harbor culture,
which developed in place from the earlier 500 BC - AD 700 Manasota
culture.
The Tocobaga lived primarily in villages next to the shore.
The chiefdoms consisted of about 15 miles of shoreline, and extended
about 20 miles inland. Each chiefdom had a principal town or capital
with a temple mound and central plaza.
Fifteen such towns have been identified along the Florida Gulf coast
from southern pasco county to northern Sarasota county, an area that
includes all of Tampa Bay. Only one principal town has been found
inland.
Descriptions of the villages by Spanish visitors mostly agree with
archaeological reconstructions. Capitals had a central rectangular plaza.
A truncated pyramidal mound up to 20 feet 6.1 m high and up to 130 feet
40 m long on each side at the base stood on one side of the plaza .
The Tocobaga Indians lived in small villages at the northern end of
Tampa Bay from 900 to the 1500s.
Each village was situated around a public area that was used as a
meeting place. The houses were generally round and built with
wooden poles holding up a roof of palm thatches.
The Tocobaga
Indians built mounds within their villages. A mound is a large pile of
earth, shells, or stones.
The chief's home and the tribe's temple were each built on a mound.
The Tocobaga also built burial mounds outside the main village area
as a place for burying the dead.
The women of the Tocobaga tribes
had a garbage heap called a midden, which was located next to their
kitchen.
Middens were created by the Tocoboga's use of shellfish for food.
The midden consisted of a mound of shells that had grown and packed
together throughout the years as shells were discarded after every meal.
In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared
an autumnal feast which became the first Thanksgiving.
This meal, to celebrate the harvest, represented cooperation between
the Indians and the early British colonists.
Were our IRB Tocobaga
Indians also celebrating and giving thanks simultaneously with their
northern counterparts. Not exactly. In fact, it was just about the time the
colonists and the Wampanoags broke bread together in Plymouth that our
Tocobaga were on the verge of extinction.
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