Kingdom Of Ais

[flagold]

Just putting this up for research purposes. The Ais Indians salvaged many of the treasure ships that wrecked along SE Florida from 1500-1625. To date little has been found. I suspect much (if not all) of it lies at the bottom of Fisheating Creek (where they had another mound complex), sacrificed to the moon and sun gods.

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Second half:

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[diggummup]

Nice vids. I am familiar with your website "treasuresites.com", keep up the good work and good luck to ya.

 

[flagold]

Thanks for the "attaboy" and best of luck to you as well!

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

As soon as I can fix my computer's sound, I would love to watch this video. Much has been found around Micco on the San Sebastian River.

 

[flagold]

Cap Z: an Oak will not grow over water, and if you can find oak trees amongst the cypress, there's a good chance there's a shell mound under it (we look for very old oak trees).

bigcypresshunter: I believe the real treasure isn't in the mounds, but is in the creek itself. If you're the King of Ais, sitting in the middle of an isolated swamp in the middle of nowhere, and you've got all this metal the Spaniards will die for stacking up, but you can't eat it, trade it, or use it for weapons, but it's obviously some potent stuff to somebody, what better way to get rid of it than toss it to the gods? I may be off base, but they recovered tons and tons of the stuff (get "Shipwrecks In The Americas - Robert Marx) and very little has been found in mounds to date.

 

[diggummup]

So maybe something will be dredged up here-
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,63940.0.html. Might it be worth checking out the containment pond off Micco road (or better yet, dive the river when it's done! )? The pond is on "District" land. Probably off limits.

 

[flagold]

Now that is extremely interesting and certainly worth checking out.

 

[morbiusandneo]

Now that is extremely interesting and certainly worth checking out.

One thing to consider is that these are the first "salvor's". They were paid for their services from the proceeds of the finds they brought up. I'm sure the spaniards gave them a pittence in payment. All this said, what do you think the odds are that a percentage of these divers CACHED what they were individually paid? Something to think about, anywayzzz.....HH! stvn.

 

[flagold]

Certainly understand the point, but this particular tribe (like the Calusa) did not work with the Spanish. They simply died out (imported diseases they had no immunity for). If the 1715 fleet had come ashore in the 1500's instead, there would have been no one left alive to tell the tale. This tribe controlled the East Coast of Florida until about 1580-1630 (no one knows exactly when they died out since nobody was foolish enough to go looking for them). They split what they salvaged with no one (but perhaps the Sun God). I'm an old buzzard now, but whomever ever figures this one out may see something on the order of King Tut's or the Atocha treasure. There is no telling how much loot they salvaged.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Certainly understand the point, but this particular tribe (like the Calusa) did not work with the Spanish. They simply died out (imported diseases they had no immunity for). If the 1715 fleet had come ashore in the 1500's instead, there would have been no one left alive to tell the tale. This tribe controlled the East Coast of Florida until about 1580-1630 (no one knows exactly when they died out since nobody was foolish enough to go looking for them). They split what they salvaged with no one (but perhaps the Sun God). I'm an old buzzard now, but whomever ever figures this one out may see something on the order of King Tut's or the Atocha treasure. There is no telling how much loot they salvaged.

I agree with most everything you say here and I often wonder why the Ais didnt simply murder the 1715 survivors like all the others. Maybe the tribe was already weakening. When the Seminoles arrived, the Ais were already gone. Some survivors were taken by the Spaniards to Havanna.

I thought that the Ais tribe was part of the larger Calusa and paid tribute to the chief (Carlos) in Port Charlotte and split proceeds with them.

 

[flagold]

I think by 1715 they were dead. Just took another 30 years for the Spanish to figure it out (a Friar reported sighting no Indians in the region (about 1750). In studying the Narvaez, De Soto, Marx's book, and other expeditions, I have come to the conclusion Florida was split. East Florida was the Ais, West (and South) the Calusa, Central (around Orlando) the Jaega, and N. were the Timaucuan (and another I can't remember).

A lot of what I think (and everyone else as well) is simply conjecture. No one really knows the difinitive answer that I've ever seen.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

I think by 1715 they were dead. Just took another 30 years for the Spanish to figure it out (a Friar reported sighting no Indians in the region (about 1750). In studying the Narvaez, De Soto, Marx's book, and other expeditions, I have come to the conclusion Florida was split. East Florida was the Ais, West (and South) the Calusa, Central (around Orlando) the Jaega, and N. were the Timaucuan (and another I can't remember).

A lot of what I think (and everyone else as well) is simply conjecture. No one really knows the difinitive answer that I've ever seen.

No. The Ais Indians actually helped the 1715 survivors. I dont know why.
Yes by 1750 they were probably gone.

I believe the Ais, Jaega, and a few others were members of the Calusa, or ruled by them. They were highly organized. I believe they had to pay tribute to Calusa.

I wish my computer's sound worked so I could hear your video. If the Ais were not Calusa, and their boundary ends at the big Lake Okeechobee, then why do you think the Ais carried treasure to Fisheating Creek which is on the Calusa side of the big lake?

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

The Creek is possibly in the Mayaimi Indian territory. Either way not the Ais. Here is a map I posted earlier of Florida's ancient Indians. Here is a link to an old thread. http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,23740.0.html
Cappy and I have been working this idea for a while now. He wont mind me sharing.

 

[flagold]

You may be on the road to getting it figured out (and I hope a payday).

I wish my computer's sound worked so I could hear your video. If the Ais were not Calusa, and their boundary ends at the big Lake Okeechobee, then why do you think the Ais carried treasure to Fisheating Creek which is on the Calusa side of the big lake?

I really have no answers for any of that since I simply don't know (and don't know if the Indians abided by any modern maps either). I made the film, had a stroke, and dropped all that. If people coming behind can get it figured out and find the loot -- I'm all for it!

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

I wish my computer's sound worked so I could hear your video. If the Ais were not Calusa, and their boundary ends at the big Lake Okeechobee, then why do you think the Ais carried treasure to Fisheating Creek which is on the Calusa side of the big lake?

I really have no answers for any of that since I simply don't know (and don't know if the Indians abided by any modern maps either). I made the film, had a stroke, and dropped all that. If people coming behind can get it figured out and find the loot -- I'm all for it!

I certainly believe that the Ais carried treasure to the opposite side of Lake Okeechobee because treasure has been found there. I know much treasure has been carried inland. I just wanted to hear your opinion because I have no sound.

You may be on the road to getting it figured out (and I hope a payday).

Thanks.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Hernando D'Escalante Fontanedo was shipwrecked and captured off the coast of Florida by the Indians. He was spared at age 15 and brought up among them, and learned to speak four Indian languages. In his 1575 memoirs he writes on how the Indians found gold bars and Mexican jewelry belonging to shipwrecked passengers. "The chief retained the best part for himself, and divided the remainder among the Ais, Jaega, Guacata, Mayajuaca, and Mayaca Indians". [quote Hernando D'Escalante Fontanedo].

 

[flagold]

I have not seen his memoirs. Was he wrecked on the W. Coast? The only similar person I am familiar with was Juan Ortiz (raised by the Calusa) died with DeSoto.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

I have not seen his memoirs. Was he wrecked on the W. Coast? The only similar person I am familiar with was Juan Ortiz (raised by the Calusa) died with DeSoto.

The keys.

• During the period between 1519 and 1617, when the Calusa Indians were at the height of their power, the King of Spain's “plate fleets” transported millions in New World gold, silver and precious stones. The leader of the Calusas was named Carlos, and he also ruled over a vast Indian federation that controlled the entire southern Florida coastal region. and they were able to salvage any of the cargo.As tribute, the other Indians of the federation would give him most of the booty they collected whenever a ship sank along the eastern coast of Florida
Accounts of Carlos’ wealth and power were recorded in the memoirs of a ship wrecked Spaniard. Hernando Fontaneda was only a boy of 13 en route to Spain when he found himself stranded on one of the Keys. He was soon taken captive by the Calusas and brought to the village of the chief, where he managed to amuse Carlos by performing songs and dances.

The young castaway’s life was spared and he spent the next 17 years as a member of the tribe. He learned several Indian dialects and served as a translator for Carlos in dealings with other tribes. Finally, when he was about 30, he managed to escape.

In the book entitled Narrative of Le Moyne, an artist who accompanied Laudonniere, mention is made of the proposed expedition that Fontaneda wanted to make back to try and recover some of the treasure Carlos had accumulated. “They (Fontaneda and his companion) also reported that he (Carlos) possessed a great store of gold and silver and that he kept it in a certain village in a pit not less than a man's height in depth and as large as a cask; and that, if I could make my way to the place with a hundred arquebusiers, they could put all the wealth into my hands besides what I might obtain from the richer of the natives.”
When Fontaneda eventually found passage to Spain, he wrote an account of his experiences in Florida and delivered it to the King of Spain. By doing this, he hoped to win favor and enter the King's service. In one section of Fontaneda's memoirs, dated 1575, there are several references to Calusa wrecking activity and the tribe's enormous wealth. The following is but one example: “I desire to speak of the riches found by the Indians of Ais, which perhaps were as much as a million dollars or over, in bars of silver, gold, and in articles of jewelry made by the hands of the Mexican Indians, which the passengers were bringing with them. These things Carlos divided with the caicques of Ais, Jeaga, Guacata, Mayajuaco and Mayaca, and he took what pleased him, or the best part.”
To this day, Florida historians, archaeologists and treasure hunters are still looking for leads to the tribe’s lost gold. It is known that Carlos’ village was near what is now called Charlotte Harbor, on the West Coast of Florida, near Fort Myers.

Treasurelore.com.

 

[flagold]

Interesting.

To the broader point, I still contend the treasure(s) have been right under our noses, in the water, and will eventually be found there. Little (in the scope of the number of ships salvaged) has been found in mounds and many of them were completely destroyed and used for road fill and landscaping in the last century or looted by archeologists.

Sounds as if you are well on the way to figuring things out (or adding to more questions).

Good luck and find a bucketfull!

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

I only became interested because I spend so much time in the swamps hunting deer and wild hogs etc. all my life and so became familiar with the areas. I am waiting for better weather at this time. Too hot right now. Fisheating Creek is now partially owned by the State. I am glad a deal was made with the Lykes Bros., who wanted to develop this beautiful area. I wish I could hear your video. I am still wondering why you singled out Fisheating Creek.