Wikipedia
The Calusa were a Native American people of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region. Previous indigenous cultures had lived in the area for thousands of years.
At the time of European contact in the 16th and 17th centuries, the historic Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture. They are notable for having developed a complex culture based on estuarine fisheries rather than agriculture. Calusa territory reached from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable, all of present-day Charlotte and Lee counties, and may have included the Florida Keys at times. They had the highest population density of south Florida; estimates of total population at the time of European contact range from 10,000 to several times that, but these are still speculative.
Calusa political influence and control also extended over other tribes in southern Florida, including the Mayaimi around Lake Okeechobee, and the Tequesta and Jaega on the southeast coast of the peninsula. Calusa influence may have also extended to the Ais tribe on the central east coast of Florida.
Usage examples of "calusa".
Finally they got to Billy Bowlegs, who had started out with Chekaika on the Calusa Hatchee.
Calusas had built back in that hammock, and the clamshell canal that come all the way in there from the open water.
Two rifle shots had failed to scare off the kayakers, forcing Sammy Tigertail to abandon the shell-mound campsite upon which he had hoped to commune with the ancient Calusas.
Hanging Place, and they claim Chekaika for a Mikasuki, although he were Calusa to the bone.
In the bay where the great river empties, the sun rose vermillion over the Calusa Keys and hung there fixed like some holy ornament, ember-bright in a lavender rim of haze.
The Spaniards came up the Calusa Hatchee to buy his longhorns at Cattle Dock Point, paying Old Jake in gold doubloons, which he left about in sacks, old wool socks, and cigar boxes.
But the following year, big freezes farther north in Florida drove many citrus growers south to the Calusa River.
In his opinion, them Pavioni people was the last of them big fishing Injuns, said that big Pavioni mound must of been Calusa for two thousand years, same as the big mound at Chokoloskee.
The way I figured it, I said, Old Man Chevelier was hunting Calusa treasure back on Gopher Key.
Well, I say, my people was not Calusa, not exactly, they was what white men called the Spanish Indins.
Spanish archives in Madrid, visited all of the big mounds in the Ten Thousand Islands before he decided that Chatham Bend was a main Calusa mound way back in Spanish times.
Chekaika took some Spanish Indins and Mikasukis and went up the Calusa Hatchee and licked Lieutenant Colonel William Harney and his soldiers that was setting up the trading posts in Indin territory.
Perrine had been recommending a canal to drain Cape Sable, in Calusa territory, they leave out that part.
We headed south, down the Ten Thousand Islands, all the way to the Calusa mound at Pavioni.
Chevelier wanted some company, and to make sure he got it, he told Carey his high hopes about Calusa treasure.