'It's our Florida history': Pioneer days come alive at 51st annual Alafia River Rendezvous

HOMELAND – Jim Sawgrass lifted a large conch shell and blew into one end, sending a baritone note across the 300 acres of the Alafia River Rendezvous on Friday morning and signaling to people to gather around for a story. 

“What we call the land Florida, every tribe that lived here had its own name and its own language for the land,” said Sawgrass, resplendent in a cream and garnet tunic over buckskin pants. “In my mother’s family, we are descended from Miscogee people. Miscogee means ‘the people of the lowlands,’ what we call today, Georgia, Alabama, North Florida swamps.” 

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Sawgrass was part of the 51st annual Alafia River Rendezvous, held this week at the Florida Frontier grounds near Homeland. It is a gathering of hundreds of people, who take a step back into the late 1700s and early 1800s and spend a few days living like their ancestors. They camp under the stars and make food, jewelry, tools, clothes, blankets and weapons by hand.

Heather Ramirez, 43, dressed in period costume. She said she wanted to give her 5-year-old daughter, Monica, the same experience she had as a child when her parents brought her to the gathering – when it was still held in the woods along the river.  

Today, it’s a well-organized affair, with white tents dotting dirt roads that crisscross a large pasture. At one end, there is music and story-telling and at the far end, weapons demonstrations of flintlock rifles and axe-throwing. Throughout the gathering, there are food and wares vendors. 

“It’s our Florida history and our country’s history,” Ramirez said. 

Monica was enjoying the morning, wandering from booth to booth. 

“I like the beads and the candy,” she said, sucking on a stick of blue rock candy. 

“We make it at home, but it’s a lot easier to buy it,” said her mom. 

Nearby, Harvey Payne, 68, of Missouri, was selling handblown glass hearts, pewter turtles, and drinking mugs made from steer horns, deer antlers and maple. 

“Been coming to the Alafia for 30 years or so,” Payne said. “You can see how they used to do it in the old days – you can look around and not see any plastic. The toys are made of wood and the beads are glass. (You) know that there’s a different life beyond a dadgum cellphone.” 

But Payne said it’s hard to get kids interested in history. Out of his nine granddaughters, only a few of them want to help him. And he sees fewer participants and attendees each year. 

“Another 10 years, it’ll be hard to get enough people to put on a big event,” he said. 

Back at in the Indian Territory area, Stephen “Swamp Cabbage” Teeter of Leesburg showed onlookers how to make fire. He assembled a bow using a stick and a deerhide string, looped another stick in it, then rubbed the stick against dried palm fibers placed in the crook of a piece of notched wood.  

“See how I got the V – that allows the ashes to fall through and the oxygen to get in,” Teeter said, waiting patiently. “Let it sit, do not blow on it.” 

Within moments, the small bundle began smoking. He held the small bundle in one hand and slowly fanned it with the other. And then he had flames. 

“We have fire!” he shouted. “It takes three things to make fire: oxygen, fuel and heat.” 

He blew out the flames and put the still smoking fibers into a large clam shell, placed another shell on top, then tucked the package under a strap around his waist. 

“They had fire, but they had to carry it,” he explained. 

Teeter, 64, explained after his demonstration that he has been participating in historic re-enactment for eight years after he retired from a pest control business. He has a cousin, he said, who has been doing it for 50 years. 

“Our grandmother was three-quarter Georgia Creek,” he said. “In the Seminole World, our mothers would make us brothers, not cousins.” 

He said he hoped people would attend and learn survival skills, the knowledge of which is dying off. 

“We need to keep telling our young the stories, the history,” Teeter said. 

In fact, the Alafia River Rendezvous was formed in 1972 to do just that – “preserve the skills of our first settlers, pioneers, and mountain men,” Rendezvous officials say. “Our mission promotes an appreciation of that era, its skills, trades and its contribution to our country’s history.” 

Educational programs for students are woven into each day, including teaching about muzzle-loading guns, blacksmithing and sewing.

About half a mile away, Boone Shin was baking bread in a cast-iron Dutch oven placed in an open fire. She explained that she proofed the yeast by putting it in a small bowl and pouring in some lukewarm water. Once she saw that it was good, she mixed egg and oil together, then flour and salt. She put that mixture in a bowl on a trivet in the fire, let it rise, then punched it down. Then she put the dough into a buttered Dutch oven, placed that on the trivet in the fire and put hot coals on the lid to bake it. 

“The heat's gotta go down,” said Shin, who learned her rustic skills from a book. A friend said Shin lives her life the same way when she is at home in New Hampshire, cooking with a wood stove. 

The Alafia River Rendezvous set up Jan 12 and ends at dawn Sunday morning. For more information, go to https://www.alafiariverrendezvous.org. 

If you go

Visitors can attend on Saturday, January 22 from  9 a.m. until 3 p.m. The encampment is located at 1000 Old Fort Meade Road in Homestead. Make a right at the stoplight and follow the signs. Admission is adults 16 and older, $10.  Children and seniors over 60, $5. Children 3 and under are free. No pets allowed except service animals. 

Ledger reporter Kimberly C. Moore can be reached at kmoore@theledger.com or 863-802-7514. Follow her on Twitter at @KMooreTheLedger.