A Tropical Frontier: The Last Caloosa

(Rating: PG-13) The proverbial fork in the road: which path to follow? Bridges burned. No turning back. One can never know to where a single, momentary decision might lead.The mighty Caloosa people – undisputed overlords of the lower Florida peninsula, supreme in their resistance to the encroaching Spanish Empire – had lived and flourished along these verdant, tropical shores for a thousand years. As they, a people united, had watched the Spanish warships sail away that day, the mortally wounded Admiral-Governor Ponce de Leon onboard, a Caloosa arrow in his thigh, they had celebrated, victorious, unaware that they were witnessing the birth of their own demise.Three hundred and fifty years later, living along the shores of a winding jungled creek, the Caloosa’s once great numbers had dwindled to two: one named Purple Flower, and a boy named Little Chief, grandson of the notorious Chekeika, King of the Spanish Indians. Read more