Floridian Nature

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Florida Tribes: Ais Indians
The Ais were one of many tribes, consisting of several hundred thousand people, that lived in Florida prior to first contact with Ponce de Leon and the Spanish in 1513. They were not farmers, but hunter/gatherers. They collected food like sea grapes, coco plums, sea oats and palm berries. They hunted deer and other game, and fished with hooks they made out of the toe bones of the deer. The Ais, or Ays  ranged from present day Cape Canaveral to the St. Lucie Inlet, in the present day counties of Brevard, Indian River, St. Lucie and northernmost Martin. They lived in villages and towns along the shores of the great lagoon called Rio de Ais by the Spanish, and now called the Indian River. Little is known of the origins of the Ais, or of the affinities of their language. The Ais language has been tentatively assigned by some authors to the Muskogean language family, and by others to the Arawakan language family.

Observations on the appearance, diet and customs of the Ais at the end of the 17th Century are found in Jonathan Dickinson's Journal. Dickinson and his party were shipwrecked, and spent several weeks among the Ais in 1696. By Dickinson's account, the chief of the town of Jece, near present day Vero Beach, was paramount to all of the coastal towns from the Jaega town of Jobe (at Jupiter Inlet) in the south to approximately Cape Canaveral in the north (that is, the length of the River of Ais). Dickinson stated that the Ais "neither sow nor plant any manner of thing whatsoever", but fished and gathered palmetto, cocoplum and seagrape berries. Dickinson described the fishing technique of the neighboring Jaega people of Jobe thus:
[T]he Casseekey [of Jobe] ... sent his son with his striking staff to the inlet to strike fish for us; which was performed with great dexterity; for some of us walked down with him, and though we looked very earnestly when he threw his staff from him could not see a fish at which time he saw it, and brought it onshore on the end of his staff. Sometimes he would run swiftly pursuing a fish, and seldom missed when he darted at him. In two hours time he got as many fish as would serve twenty men
The Ais did not survive long after Dickinson's sojourn with them. Shortly after 1700 settlers in Carolina started raiding the Ais to capture slaves. By 1743, when the Spanish established a mission among them, the Ais numbers were declining due to slave raids, disease and rum. The Ais were gone from the area by 1760. A burial mound, used by the Ais tribe before they died out around 250 years ago, rises about twenty feet above the base of Old Fort Park, a peaceful place which marks the site of Fort Pierce, built during the Seminole Wars and named after the brother of a future President - Franklin Pierce. It is several hundred feet around, and a series of stone steps takes visitors to the top of the mound, which is close enough to the railroad tracks that they can hear the trains that take Florida citrus north. The Indian River, named after the Ais, flows by within sight, and the park is reached from Indian River Drive
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