A look back: The first residents fished and farmed where two counties now join

By PENNY FLETCHER

The first of a two-part series about Native Americans living at the headwater of the Little Manatee River.

Step across the clear freshwater brook on the south side of the 18-acre Redhawk Ranch Native American Retreat on C.R. 579, and you step from Hillsborough into Manatee County.

If you close your eyes, you can almost see the spirits of the past through the long, thick, Spanish moss hanging from branches of oaks with trunks as wide and round as modern-day hot tubs. The cleared area is expansive and green but many thickets have been deliberately left in their native state with a bench here and there among the palmetto brush and wildflowers, so you can sit and listen to the sounds of nature.

There are several small waterfalls in the brook that forms just west of the headwater of the Little Manatee River. Looking at the colored stones that shine so clearly through the pure spring water, you’d never guess this same water begins to roar just a few miles west, growing gradually into an opening large enough to hold several islands before pouring into Tampa Bay.

Its current owners, Quahneah and Red Feather, say they are just the ranch’s caretakers; that nobody owns land.

Like their ancestors, Quahneah and Red Feather love and care for the land where they live. They take pleasure in the eagles and hawks and plethora of small birds that take flight through the trees, and the deer, squirrels, rabbits and other creatures of the ground.

Here, at Redhawk Ranch, is a shop called The Native Way that holds many handmade Native American items, both for décor and functional use. More importantly, the land is used for scout troop camping, artists painting and groups that come and hear about the history of the area from its caretakers.

Red Feather is of Mamaceqtaw-Menominee descent; his Anglo name is Bud Hoshaw. He has made an in-depth study of the area and its people, searching records and books, the Internet and talking to Old Ones from various tribes.

In all but the hottest months of the year, every third Saturday, just before dusk, visitors gather at the ranch for a Native Circle, honoring the gifts of “Great Spirit” through nature and connecting with the grandfathers and grandmothers who came before.

“You don’t have to be Native American to come and enjoy it,” Red Feather said. People gather; many bring food and talk before the fire is lit and the drums start to beat. “The drum is the symbol of the heartbeat of Mother Earth,” he said.

Last year Scoutmaster David Mortus made contact with Ed Connolly, known at the ranch as Brave Eagle, and offered Ruskin Scout Troop 661’s help with the first Native American Arts & Crafts Festival held in the area. Last December, people came from all over the states and wore authentic costumes of various tribes, creating a blur of color as they danced and sang during the two-day event.

Another festival is planned for Saturday, April 2, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with Native American music and dancing and art of all kinds. Non-Native American artists have been invited as well.

Using their “everyday” Anglo names, Bud and Brenda Hoshaw say they were called to the land in a strange but wonderful way. As Brenda was looking at her computer while living in Bradenton, an ad kept popping up. It was for the land for sale at 4110 C.R. 579 in Wimauma (100 yards from being called Parrish in Manatee County).

“It wouldn’t go away,” she said in a recent interview.

So she and Bud went and looked at it.

“We had to crawl through vines and brush to get in from the road,” Brenda said. “We knew it would take a lot of work, but it was something we both wanted to do right away. We felt we were called to do it.”

Both have Native American and Anglo bloodlines, and they soon found the land they had bought was rich in Native American history, which Bud began to study avidly.

Paperwork now held at the Ranch shows old DeSoto Trails and also that their acreage was part of what was called the Paracoxi Village.

As verified by “America Unearthed” (shown on the History Channel), many of the region’s artifacts show that very advanced societies lived on this land long before they were ever recorded or dated.

“The Vero Man discovery of a picture of a man hunting mastodon with a spear (as seen on “America Unearthed” on the History Channel) proves co-existence of man and animals long before recorded time,” Bud said. “This site, off Vero Beach, was approximated [to be] during an interglacial period, maybe 70,000 to 100,000 years ago,” Bud continued, showing maps and documents. “Fossils and bones are now being found in the Gulf 20 to 30 miles offshore, which means it had to have once been dry land.”

Many artifacts have also been found on and surrounding the ranch.

The first people who came to North America were Norse Vikings and Celts. Asians came across the land bridge from Russia, a little-known fact also shown on the History Channel.

“Ancient peoples may have been driven down to Florida, along with animals, because of vegetation as temperatures began to rise again, and then approximately 500 to 900 A.D. South American people migrated through the Tortuga Islands from Cuba, and Jamaica and Puerto Rico to South Florida and merged with the Timucan peoples.”

The Paracoxi Village, where the ranch now stands, shows evidence of these people farming, according to archeological reports. Hand-held axes and stones showing finger marks from hundreds — perhaps thousands — of times beating the tannin from acorns or palm fronds to make tea or maize (corn) into meal.

But the Calusa tribe, known as the “shell people,” also lived in the area, and they did not farm.

After talking with archeologists from the University of Georgia, they found that the Calusa lived along the Bay and inner waterways, including the Little Manatee River, and used nets made from palm tree webbing to catch mullet, pinfish and catfish.

Spears were used for catching eels and turtle. Fish-bone arrowheads were used to hunt deer and small animals. They gathered shellfish, including conch, crabs, clams and oysters. Farther south, they also caught lobsters.

The Tocobaga and other tribes farmed inland, and the tribes traded what they needed with each other.

“It’s been proven now that they grew their beans and other climbing vegetables right up the corn stalks,” Bud said.

Brenda always knew she had Native American blood because her “Unci” (meaning grandmother in Cherokee) named her Quahneah, which means Morning Dew. Brenda’s great-great-grandmother, White Fawn, escaped from the Trail of Tears.

Bud, however, although of Menominee descent, had never been tribal or named until about 10 years ago at the ranch, by an elder from a group of Apaches and Cherokees that hold Native Circles in Bradenton where Bud and Brenda  attended before moving “North.”

“These people sent their fire keeper to start our first ceremonial fire,” he said. “He brought 200-year-old ashes from fires in Cherokee, N.C., to start it.”

The name they gave him was Red Feather, which Bud thought was a “rather light” name for a man until he researched it and found it was the name of Chief Crazy Horse’s brother-in-law, and that getting this name was considered a great honor.

Everyone is invited to attend the Circles and take part in the events at the ranch.

To find out more about the ranch, visit www.thenativewayshop.com or call 813-634-5352.  All kinds of vendors of handmade and unusual items and art may sign up for the April Native American Arts Festival by calling The Native Way.

*Part two of this story will include events from the 1800s and 1900s from studies based at the Ranch, and from the research conducted by Dr. Kristine Thomas, a full-blooded Native American and professor at Hillsborough Community College’s SouthShore Campus.