Editing Alachua County, Florida (section)

=== Prehistory and early European settlements ===
The first people known to have entered the area of Alachua County were [[Paleo-Indians]], who left artifacts in the [[Santa Fe River (Florida)|Santa Fe River]] basin before 8000 BC. Artifacts from the [[Archaic period in North America|Archaic period]] (8000 - 2000 BC) have been found at several sites in Alachua County. Permanent settlements appeared in what is now Alachua County around 100 AD, as people of the wide-ranging [[Deptford culture]] developed the local [[Cades Pond culture]]. The Cades Pond culture gave way to the [[Alachua culture]] around 600 AD.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Milanich|first1=Jerald T.|title=Archaeology of Precolumbian Florida|date=1994|publisher=University of Florida|location=Gainesville, Florida|isbn=978-0-8130-1273-5|pages=43, 62–64, 228, 335}}</ref>

The [[Timucua language|Timucua]]-speaking [[Potano]] tribe lived in the Alachua culture area in the 16th century, when the Spanish entered Florida. The Potano were incorporated by the colonists in the [[Spanish missions in Florida|Spanish mission system]], but new infectious diseases, rebellion, and raids by tribes backed by the English led to severe population declines. What is now Alachua County had lost much of its indigenous population by the early 18th century.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Milanich|first1=Jerald T.|title=Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe|date=1998|publisher=University Press of Florida|location=Gainesville, Florida|isbn=978-0-8130-1636-8|pages=90–91, 173–176, 185–187, 232–237}}</ref>

In the 17th century, [[Francisco Menéndez Márquez]], Royal Treasurer for [[Spanish Florida]], established the [[La Chua ranch]] on the northern side of what is now known as [[Payne's Prairie]], on a bluff overlooking the Alachua Sink.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hann|first1=John H.|title=A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions.|date=1996|publisher=University Press of Florida|location=Gainesville, Florida|isbn=978-0-8130-1424-1|pages=193–194}}</ref> ''Chua'' may have been the [[Timucua language]] word for [[sinkhole]]. Lieutenant Diego Peña reported in 1716 that he passed by springs named Aquilachua, Usichua, Usiparachua, and Afanochua while traveling through what is now [[Suwannee County, Florida|Suwannee County]]. In the twentieth-century, [[anthropologist]] J. Clarence Simpson assumed the named springs were in fact [[sinkholes]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Florida Place-Names of Indian Derivation|last=Simpson|first=J. Clarence|publisher=Florida Geological Survey|year=1956|location=Tallahassee, Florida|pages=20–21}}</ref> The Spanish later called the interior of Florida west of the [[St. Johns River]] ''Tierras de la Chua'', which became "Alachua Country" in English.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Monaco|first=Chris|date=Summer 2000|title=Fort Mitchell and the Settlement of the Alachua Country|journal=The Florida Historical Quarterly|volume=79|issue=1|pages=1–25|jstor=30149405}}</ref>

Around 1740, a band of [[Oconee people]] led by [[Ahaya]], who was called "Cowkeeper" by the English, settled on what is now Payne's Prairie.<ref name="place-names">{{cite book|last=Simpson|first=J. Clarence|editor=Mark F. Boyd|title=Florida Place-Names of Indian Derivation|publisher=Florida Geological Survey|year=1956|location=Tallahassee, Florida|pages=20–21}}</ref> Ahaya's band became known as the Alachua Seminole. In 1774, botanist [[William Bartram]] visited Ahaya's town, ''Cuscowilla'', near what Bartram called the Alachua Savanna. [[King Payne]], who succeeded Ahaya as chief of the Alachua Seminole, established a new town known as Payne's Town.

In 1812, during the [[Seminole Wars#Patriot War of East Florida (1812)|Patriot War of East Florida]], an attempt by American adventurers to seize Spanish Florida, a force of more than 100 volunteers from [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] led by Colonel [[Daniel Newnan]] encountered a band of Alachua Seminole led by King Payne near [[Newnans Lake]]. After several days of intermittent fighting, Colonel Newnan's force withdrew. King Payne was wounded in the fight and died two months later. The Alachua Seminole then left Payne's Town and moved farther west and south, but other bands of Seminole moved in. A second American expedition in 1813 of U. S. Army troops and militia from Tennessee, led by Lt. Colonel [[Thomas Adams Smith]], found some Seminoles, killing about 20, and burned every Seminole village they could find in the area.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Andersen|first1=Lars|title=Payne's Prairie: A History of the Great Savanna|date=2001|publisher=Pineapple Press, Inc.|location=Sarasota, Florida|isbn=978-1-56164-225-0|pages=47, 51–52, 59–66}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Florida Fiasco: Rampant Rebels on the Georgia-Florida Border 1810–1815|last=Patrick|first=Rembert W.|publisher=University of Georgia Press|year=1954|location=Athens, Georgia|pages=230–234|lccn=53-13265}}</ref>

In 1814, a group of more than 100 American settlers moved to a point believed to be near the abandoned Payne's Town (near present-day [[Micanopy, Florida|Micanopy]]) and declared the establishment of the [[Seminole Wars#District of Elotchaway|District of Elotchaway of the Republic of East Florida]]. The settlement collapsed a few months later after its leader, Colonel Buckner Harris, was killed by Seminole. The remaining settlers returned to Georgia.<ref name=frontier>{{cite book|last1=LaCoe|first1=Norm|editor1-last=Opdyke|editor1-first=John B.|title=Alachua County: A Sesquicentennial Tibute|date=1974|publisher=The Alachua County Historical Commission|location=Gainesville, Florida|pages=7–15|chapter=The Alachua Frontier}}</ref>