The Tequesta tribe had only a few survivors by the time that Spanish Florida was traded to the British, who then established the area as part of the province of East Florida. They lived in the region since the 3rd century BC in the late Archaic period of the continent, and remained for roughly 2,000 years, By the 1800s, most had died as a result of settlement battles, slavery, and disease. The Tequesta lived in the southeastern parts of present-day Florida.
They had infrequent contact with Europeans and had largely migrated by the middle of the 18th century. At the time of first European contact they occupied an area along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Florida. The Tequesta, also Tekesta, Tegesta, Chequesta, Vizcaynos, were a Native American tribe. (from 3rd century BCE to mid-18th century)Ī bronze statue of a Tequesta warrior and his family on the Brickell Avenue Bridge, created by Manuel Carbonell. Approximate territory of the Tequesta in the 16th century in present-day South Florida