Editing Cedar Key, Florida (section)

===Early===
While evidence suggests human occupation as far back as 500 BC, the first maps of the area date to 1542, when a [[cartographer]] from [[Spain]] labeled it "Las Islas Sabines" (which means "The Cedar Islands" in [[Spanish language|Spanish]]).<ref>{{Cite web|title=About Cedar Key – City of Cedar Key|url=https://cityofcedarkey.org/about-us/|access-date=2022-02-01|website=cityofcedarkey.org}}</ref> An [[Archaeology|archaeological]] dig at Shell Mound, {{convert|9|mi|0}} north of Cedar Key, found [[Artifact (archaeology)|artifacts]] dating back to 500 BC in the top {{convert|10|ft}} of the {{convert|28|ft|m|adj=mid|-tall}} [[midden|mound]]. The only ancient burial found in Cedar Key was a 2,000-year-old skeleton found in 1999.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=2-4}} Arrow heads and spear points dating from the Paleo period (12,000 years old) were collected by Cedar Key historian St. Clair Whitman, and are displayed at the [[Cedar Key Museum State Park]].

Followers of [[William Augustus Bowles]], self-declared "Director General of the [[State of Muskogee]]", built a [[watchtower]] in the vicinity of Cedar Key in 1801. The tower was destroyed by a Spanish force in 1802.{{sfn|McCarthy|1990|pp=102-3}} In the period leading up to the [[First Seminole War]], the [[British subject]]s [[Arbuthnot and Ambrister incident|Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister]] used the Cedar Keys to deliver supplies to the [[Seminole]]s.{{sfn|Fishburne|1993|p=7}} The Cedar Keys may have been a refuge for [[escaped slave]]s in the early 1820s, and an entry point for the illegal [[History of slavery|slave trade]] later that decade.{{sfn|Fishburne|1993|pp=8-9}}