Chiefdoms of Hispaniola
The Taíno of Hispaniola were an Arawak people related to the inhabitants of the other islands in the Greater Antilles. At the time of European contact, they were suffering attacks from a rival indigenous group, the Island Caribs. In 1508, there were about 60,000 Taínos in the island of Hispaniola; by 1531 infectious disease epidemics and exploitation had resulted in a dramatic decline in population. An estimated 600.
Indigenous people of the Everglades region
The first contact with Spanish explorers occurred in 1513 when Juan Ponce de León stopped at a bay he called "Chequescha", or Biscayne Bay. Finding the Tequesta unwelcoming, he left to make contact with the Calusa. Menéndez met the Tequesta in 1565 and maintained a friendly relationship with them, building some houses and setting up a mission. He also took the chief's nephew to Havana to be educated, and the chief's brother to Spain. After Menéndez visited, there are few records of the Tequesta: a reference to them in 1673, and further Spanish contact to convert them. The last reference to the Tequesta during their existence was written in 1743 by a Spanish priest named Father Alaña, who described their ongoing assault by another tribe. The survivors numbered only 30, and the Spanish transported them to Havana. In 1770 a British surveyor described multiple deserted villages in the region where the Tequesta had lived. Archeologist John Goggin suggested that by the time European Americans settled the area in 1820, any remaining Tequesta were assimilated into the Seminole people. Common descriptions of Native Americans in Florida by 1820 identified only the "Seminoles".