They used oyster shells to build mounds, and over the centuries the mounds rose high above water to make islands. Soil piled up on these islands, turning them into rich farmlands where the Calusas lived in harmony with animals and nature. After the Civil War, white men discovered this place. By the 1890s, many hunters came here to kill birds for their feathers and alligators for their hides. In those days, egret plumes were used to decorate ladies’ hats; the white, fluffy feathers were actually worth more than their weight in gold. So many egrets were killed that they almost died out. And tens of thousands of alligators got slaughtered. But the hunters skinned only the alligators’ undersides—that was the most valuable part of the hide—and left the rest to rot in the hot Florida sun. “The earth is bleeding,” the Indians said, and it really was. “If this killing doesn’t stop,” a medicine man warned, “the land will be cursed. More blood will spill—the blood of men who don’t respect all Earth’s creatures.”
