FLORIDA KEYS
One of Florida’s most popular vacation spots is the Florida Keys. The keys are a string of tiny, sandy islands that stretch off the coast of southern Florida. A long road connects the main islands, or keys. The bridges linking the keys are miles long in places!
For many years, the famous American writer Ernest Hemingway lived on Key West—one of the larger keys. He wrote about the area in his novel Islands in the Stream. Today, you can visit the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West.


THE SEMINOLE PEOPLE
When the Spanish arrived, many Native Americans inhabited Florida. Diseases brought by the Spanish killed many native people. Others died fighting the Spanish. During the 1700s, the Creek people from Georgia moved into Florida along with escaped African slaves. Together, they were called the Seminole people.
The United States fought three wars with the Seminole, the last one ending in 1858. The Seminole fiercely defended their land, but they were finally defeated. The U.S. government moved most of the Seminole to Oklahoma. But some Seminole stayed. Most who did retreated to the Everglades.
Today, the Seminole have five areas called reservations set aside for them in Florida. They farm, hunt, and fish on the reservations. Some still live in traditional houses called chickees. These are houses on stilts with thatched roofs and no walls.
LITTLE HAVANA
Florida belonged to Spain for about 300 years. People who trace their heritage to Spain, called Hispanics, are important to Florida. Hispanic food, music, and art remain popular in Florida, and many people speak Spanish.
One part of Miami is called Little Havana. Many of its people once lived in Havana, Cuba. In 1959, a revolution overthrew Cuba’s government. Many Cubans left their country and settled in Florida, especially around Miami.

History
Early Spanish and French Exploration
Although the Florida peninsula was probably sighted by earlier navigators, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León is credited as the first European to visit the area. Seeking the fabled Fountain of Youth, Ponce de León landed near the site of Saint Augustine in 1513. He claimed the area, which he thought was an island, for Spain and named it Florida, probably because it was then the Easter season (Pascua Florida). Other Spanish adventurers, notably Pánfilo de Narváez and Hernando De Soto, later explored the region and established the fact that Florida was not an island. The vast region that comprises most of the SE United States was claimed for Spain, the whole being known as Florida.
It was the activity of the French in the area, however, that led to actual Spanish settlement of the Florida peninsula. In May, 1562, Jean Ribaut had discovered the St. Johns River, and two years later René de Laudonnière built Fort Caroline at its mouth. Alarmed at this encroachment by the French, Philip II of Spain commissioned Pedro Menéndez de Aviles to drive the French out of the area; this he did ruthlessly. Spanish colonization began when Menéndez founded St. Augustine in 1565. Florida had no precious metals to spur conquest (as in Mexico and Peru), its soil seemed infertile (Spanish Florida was never self-sufficient agriculturally), and the Native Americans resented their encroachment. However, the Spanish were compelled to hold Florida because of its strategic location along the Straits of Florida, through which rich treasure ships from the south sailed for Spain.
English Colonization
In the 1600s the English, who were trying to expand their American colonial holdings after 1607, began to threaten Florida. St. Augustine was attacked several times by English corsairs and in 1702–3 was besieged by a force from the English colony in South Carolina. In 1742, English colonists from Georgia under James E. Oglethorpe, Georgia's founder, defeated the Spanish in the battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simons Island, making Florida's northern boundary the St. Marys River. Spain's last-minute entry (1762) into the Seven Years War cost her Florida, which the British acquired through the Treaty of Paris (1763).
Under the British (1763–83), Florida was divided into two provinces, and St. Augustine and Pensacola were respectively made the capitals of East Florida and West Florida. Under the Treaty of Paris (1783), Florida was returned to Spain. Many colonists in Florida abandoned the region and moved to British possessions in the West Indies. Spain's hold over Florida, however, was extremely tenuous. Boundary disputes developed with the United States (see West Florida Controversy). In the War of 1812, Pensacola served as a British base until captured (1814) by U.S. General Andrew Jackson.
U.S. Occupation
In 1819, after years of diplomatic wrangling, Spain reluctantly signed the Adams-Onis treaty ceding Florida to the United States in return for U.S. assumption of $5 million in damages claimed by U.S. citizens against Spain. Official U.S. occupation took place in 1821, and Andrew Jackson was appointed military governor. Florida, with its present boundaries, was organized as a territory in 1822, and William P. Duval became its first territorial governor.


Settlers poured in from neighboring states, settling especially in the area around the newly founded capital of Tallahassee. A plantation economy flourished there, with cotton and tobacco the chief crops. Settlement expanded southward and displaced the Seminoles, and wars with them seriously impeded Florida's development. A group of Seminole, under Osceola, resisted attempts to move them to the West, but eventually most of them were transported out of the region at the end of the Second Seminole War (1835–42). However, a small band fled to the wilderness of the Everglades and their descendants live on reservations in the Lake Okeechobee area.
Statehood, Civil War, and Reconstruction
Florida was admitted to the Union in 1845 as a slaveholding state. After Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860 proslavery sentiment in Florida led the state to secede from the Union in 1861 and join the Confederacy. Florida furnished vital supplies (particularly salt and cattle) to the Confederacy. The most important Civil War engagement fought in Florida was the battle of Olustee (Feb. 20, 1864), a Confederate victory.
After the war Florida was placed under military rule by Congress. A constitution was drafted providing for black suffrage, and the state was readmitted to the Union in 1868. The constitution had been drafted by moderate Republicans, some of whom were from the North, and these same Republicans held most political offices until 1876, when the Democrats were returned to power and African Americans were once again relegated to an inferior position. In 1885 a new constitution replaced the Reconstruction charter of 1868.
Land Booms
In 1881 Florida sold 4,000,000 acres (1,618,800 hectares) of land to real-estate promoters. Northern capitalists such as Henry M. Flagler built railroads and hotels, and Florida began to develop. The drainage of the Everglades, begun in 1906, precipitated one of the state's periodic land booms. Because of environmental degradation due to farming these drained lands, areas are now being restored to their natural state through reflooding. The most famous of Florida's land booms started after World War I and reached its peak in 1925 when land values achieved fantastic heights, only to collapse completely the following year.
From Depression to Postwar Growth
Florida weathered the depression of the 1930s with the help of the federal government, and during World War II prospered from army, navy, and air force installations. After the war the state enjoyed phenomenal growth. Virtually unlimited water resources, as well as the pleasant climate, were important factors in attracting new industries. Manufacturing, particularly industries related to aeronautics, developed at an extraordinary rate.
Relations with Latin America
Close to Cuba, Florida has often been involved in the affairs of that island. During the latter half of the 19th cent., Cubans rebelling against Spain received sanctuary and aid in Florida, and the state enthusiastically supported and profited economically from the Spanish-American War (1898), in which Tampa was the chief U.S. base. Florida's relationship with Cuba has become even closer in the 20th cent. Political refugees from the Cuban revolution of 1958–59 poured into Florida by the thousands, creating acute resettlement problems. In 1980 more than 100,000 Cuban refugees came to the United States, mostly through Florida, after Fidel Castro briefly opened the port of Mariel to a flotilla of privately chartered U.S. ships (see Cuba).

SPANISH EXPLORERS
The first Europeans to reach Florida were from Spain. In 1513, the explorer Juan Ponce de León left Puerto Rico in search of the fountain of youth. This legendary spring supposedly had magical waters that could keep a person young.
Ponce de León didn’t find the fountain of youth. But he did find Florida. In 1565, the Spanish established a settlement on the coast of northeastern Florida that became Saint Augustine. It was the first permanent European settlement in the United States.


待续。