"This is the third book in a series of books about the adventures of young Charlie Pierce, one of South Florida's earliest pioneer settlers. The story follows teenage Charlie and his fearless little sister Lillie in the late 1880s, when South Florida was America's last frontier. Together with his Seminole friend, Tiger, Charlie experienced one of the most intriguing and exotic lives imaginable. His adventures as a young boy growing up in the wild, untamed jungles of Florida became legendary. Perhaps no other person experienced firsthand as many important events and met as many influential characters in South Florida's history." --Introduction.

"In the late 19th century, hunters killed millions of birds in the Florida Everglades to supply the booming trade in bird feathers for ladies' fashion. As teenagers, Charlie Pierce and his friends traveled deep into the unexplored Florida Everglades to hunt plume birds for their feathers. They never imagined the challenges they would encounter, what they would learn about themselves, and how they would contribute to American history"--P. 4. of cover.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • “Altogether gripping, shocking, and brilliantly told, not just a tour de force in its stylistic range, but a great American novel, as powerful a reading experience as nearly any in our literature.”—Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River, and Bone by Bone—Peter Matthiessen’s great American epic about Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson on the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century—were originally conceived as one vast, mysterious novel. Now, in this bold new rendering, Matthiessen has marvelously distilled a monumental work while deepening the insights and motivations of his characters with brilliant rewriting throughout. Praise for Shadow Country “Magnificent . . . breathtaking . . . Finally now we have [this three-part saga] welded like a bell, and with Watson’s song the last sound, all the elements fuse and resonate.”—Los Angeles Times “Peter Matthiessen has done great things with the Watson trilogy. It’s the story of our continent, both land and people, and his writing does every justice to the blood fury of his themes.”—Don DeLillo “The fiction of Peter Ma­­tthiessen is the reason a lot of people in my generation decided to be writers. No doubt about it. Shadow Country lives up to anyone’s highest expectations for great writing.” —Richard Ford “Shadow Country, Matthiessen’s distillation of the earlier Watson saga, represents his original vision. It is the quintessence of his lifelong concerns, and a great legacy.”—W. S. Merwin “[An] epic masterpiece . . . a great American novel.”—The Miami Herald

An overview of the archaeology and development of the coastal southwest Florida site complex at Pineland from AD 50-1710.

"A fascinating account of both the historical and current struggle of Native Americans to recover sacred objects that have been plundered and sold to museums. Museum curator and anthropologist Chip Colwell asks the all-important question: Who owns the past? Museums that care for the objects of history or the communities whose ancestors made them?"--Provided by the publisher

The Bigtree children struggle to protect their Florida Everglades alligator-wrestling theme park from a sophisticated competitor after losing their parents.

"With this latest book, historian John Hann has completed his remarkable trifecta on Florida's Indians, adding South Florida to his previous UPF volumes on the Apalachees and Timucuans. Hann deftly weaves a diverse range of Spanish documentary sources into a comprehensive overview of the nonagricultural peoples of the southern Florida peninsula, providing readers with a wealth of much-needed information in a single volume. This book will instantly become required reading for anyone studying South Florida's indigenous peoples."--John Worth, Florida Museum of Natural History "Finally, a concise, authoritative, and exhaustively researched ethnohistorical synthesis of the native peoples of South Florida. This book presents important documentation on the culture, religion, and political organization of the aboriginal peoples of South Florida, including some of the most politically complex groups in all of North America. . . . A marvelous exposé of Florida's lost natives and how they lived and interacted with each other and the Spanish, ultimately leading to their demise and extinction."--Randolph J. Widmer, University of Houston John Hann, a preeminent authority and prize-winning author of books on Florida's native peoples, offers here the first survey available of Indians of the peninsula south of Timucua and Apalachee territory, from their earliest contact with Europeans to their disappearance in the 18th century. The book will have broad appeal for residents of South Florida interested in learning about the Indians and colonial history of the areas in which they live and will be of specific interest to historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Hann discusses the peoples who occupied an area south of a line drawn roughly from the mouth of the Withlacoochee River eastward to Turtle Mound, located a little north of Cape Canaveral. He focuses on the Calusa of the southwest coast, the people of the Tampa Bay region, and the Surruque and Ais and their kin of the east coast from Turtle Mound southward through the Keys, as well as their hinterland kin from the St. Johns through the Kissimmee valleys. Using original unpublished sources that are virtually unknown to most anthropologists and archaeologists, Hann examines documents from the first periods of contact in North America. He also analyzes archaeological investigations from the last quarter century, particularly those involving the Calusa and the Tequesta living at the mouth of the Miami River. Common features among these people, he concludes, are the almost total absence of agriculture in their lives and their slight, episodic contact with Spaniards. Hann offers new insights on subjects such as the marriages and political alliances of chiefs, and his topics range from beverages and household utensils to ceremonial items, musical instruments, and fishing techniques and tools. He also presents an unparalleled compilation of information on indigenous Native American belief systems. This important work will be significant for understanding aboriginal culture not only of Florida but North America in general. John H. Hann, historian at the San Luis Archaeological and Historic Site in Tallahassee, is a member of the Florida Department of State, Bureau of Archaeological Research. He is the author, coauthor, or translator of many books on the native peoples of Florida, including The Apalachee Indians and Mission San Luis (with Bonnie McEwan, UPF, 1998) and Hernando de Soto among the Apalachee: The Archaeology of the First Winter Encampment (with Charles R. Ewen, UPF, 1998).