By comparison, the Europeans who came to Florida were in a competitive race to control New World resources before other nation states could. A useful way of looking at these two points of view can be found in The Florida Reader by Rollins College professors Jack Lane and Maurice O’Sullivan. They argue that Florida has the longest literary tradition in North America and that the narratives of Florida represent two different perspectives that both originate in the story of the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis in the Bible. The first story, from Genesis 1:1-2:41, describes Eden as a place where man surrenders to nature and is “restored and renewed without significant effort.” It is the land of milk and honey. This point of view represents connection to nature and can be seen in the romantic prose of novelists who visited the state and the writings of energized environmentalists. It is a narrative of unity and stewardship with nature. In this perspective, Florida’s indigenous people were benevolent stewards of their environment and their spirituality was derived from the natural world around them. Some historians point out that it has become fashionable to romanticize indigenous peoples’ connection to the nature, but there can be little doubt that they perceived the world much differently from the Europeans who would come to claim Florida.

The second creation story, from Genesis 2:4b-2:25, requires man to act upon nature and establish “a state of harmony not only with the land but with himself.” This perspective represents man taking dominion over nature. In 1565, Spaniard Pedro Menéndez wrote to his King, Philip II, that Florida would provide “many riches and it will be worth more to Spain than New Spain (Mexico) and even Peru.” The Spaniards sought to utilize natural resources to suit the needs of man, with little regard for the impact it could have on the environment or the indigenous people. In the 16th century Spanish point of view, their conquest was justified because Native Americans “had no religion.”ⁱⁱ

These two narrative traditions represent different worldviews, both of which have been present in the state since the arrival of the first Europeans. The European “conquest” perspective has dominated the way the state’s natural resources such as water have been utilized. Ironically, the idea of Florida as a paradise persists in marketing the state and that concept can be seen throughout the state’s history, from the myth of the Fountain of Youth to the current messaging at VisitFlorida.com.

The reality, however, is that Florida—our Garden of Eden—has been fouled by lousy gardeners. We have been poor stewards of this earthly paradise, and our state’s waters have suffered greatly. This is the result of an imbalance in our attitude toward the environment, over 500 years of seeking to exert our will over nature. In order to restore the environment of the state, I suggest we need to get more people to invest in the notion that the natural wonders of Florida truly are a paradise. And we need to see water as an essential ingredient of life, worthy of protection, worthy of perhaps even worship. We need more “ibi” consciousness and less concentration on MFLs, or Minimum Flows and Levels, the state’s solution for maintaining what was once a wealth of clean water.

Our Sacred Springs

“Religious and everyday life were intimately entwined; chiefs and native leaders were responsible for seeing that the proper community ceremonies and were carried out. But even so, individuals probably performed many rituals themselves. The Timucua Indians and their pre-Columbian ancestors sought to live in harmony with nature and the supernatural.” – Jerald T. Milanich

According to archeologist Jerald T. Milanich, people have been in Florida for at least 12,000 years, hunting animals now long extinct. Evidence for this lengthy existence can be found in the discoveries of manmade objects found in the Ichetucknee River such as a spearpoint made from a mammoth tusk found in the 1920s. We identify the people of that time as Paleoindians and they occupied the state during an arid period when the Ichetucknee was little more than “limestone catchment basins or watering holes.”ⁱⁱⁱ These locations attracted animals, which in turn brought people, who hunted and butchered the animals, leaving evidence of their existence in what is now the bottom of the riverbed.

Archeologist Jason O’Donoughue writes that for the indigenous people who came later, springs became much more than hunting and watering holes, stating that that springs were “depended upon to provide places of coalescence and community building.”iv There is archeological evidence of structures built for religious ceremonies near springs including the “largest native gathering site in the prehistoric southeast” at Silver Glen Springs in the Ocala National Forest.^v

More contemporary native people, including the Seminoles, also have an oral tradition that tells of springs being so sacred that they were exempt from any type of inter-tribal conflict. They were considered to be oases of peace.