The Calusa were a tribe of Native Americans known as the "Shell Indians" and some of the first Floridians. Fowler Williams, .Lucy"The Calusa Indians: Maritime Peoples of Florida in the Age of Columbus" Expedition Magazine 33.2 (1991): n. pag. In April of that year he made landfall and, calling this new territory La Florida, claimed it for the Spanish Crown. Tracking the Calusa: A Retrospective. Was this German silver mine really defended by two Roman forts and a line of "spike defenses? While thousands of Calusa people were enslaved, about 270 people, including Calusa nobles, escaped to the Keys where, after the last raid by the Creeks on May 17, 1760, the surviving 60-70. One is left only to imagine how lifelike these wooden figureheads must have appeared when used on ceremonial occasions. There is evidence that the people intensively exploited Charlotte Harbor aquatic resources before 3500 BC. The Chilling Mystery of the Octavius Ghost Ship, What is a Wendigo? The Calusa tribe lived along the Gulf Coat and inner waterways; their homes were built on stilts with roofs made from Palmetto leaves; these homes had no walls. Rituals were believed to link the Calusa to their spirit world (Art by Merald Clark.) The Calusa leader, Calus (called Carlos II by the Spaniards), agrees to accept a Jesuit missionary among his people, but the Calusa refuse to . Soon 20 war canoes attacked the Spanish, who drove off the Calusa, killing or capturing several of them. Such hierarchy and inequality are generally characteristics of societies that practice agriculture, he observed. Later periods in the Caloosahatchee culture are defined in the archaeological record by the appearance of pottery from other traditions. Each human had three souls, present in his shadow, his reflection in water and in the pupil of his eye. Native American art,