Guanabacoa Trail
The Temporary Travel Office is proposing an addition to the current Observation Tower (pictured here) within the preserve that offers hikers a panoramic view of Round Marsh. The addition would consist of a 498mi/801km boardwalk that would span from the preserve in Jacksonville, FL to Guanabacoa, Cuba. Signage would explain the significance of the expansion to the site (below) and audio tours would be commissioned by anthropologists, artists, amateur historians and human rights advocates to accompany hikers on the long walk. A preliminary trail map is also available for download (PDF).
Roosevelt Area of Jacksonville's Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve:
The last known Timucuan,
Juan Alonso Cavale, was born in 1709 at Mission Nuestra Señora de
la Lecha in what would become the State of Florida. After devastating attacks
by British supported Yamasee Indians on the Spanish supply route known as
the Camino Real, the Spanish eventually ceded Florida to the British, evacuating
their St. Augustine stronghold. They took the estimated 89 surviving missionized
Indians with them to Guanabacoa, Cuba where Juan Alonso Cavale would die
in 1767.
Guanabacoa, Cuba:
Guanabacoa, now a suburb of Havana, Cuba played an important role in the
historical narrative of slavery in the "New World." Once the
site of forced reservation camps for indigenous peoples, Guanabacoa would
become a haven for escaped slaves from the United States. Here, a small
stretch of the US
1 highway running through Jacksonville, Florida is reconstructed on
the site of a former reservation. The actual stretch of road is now named
for Johnnie
Mae Chappell, an African-American woman who was gunned down as she
walked along the road on March 23, 1964. Several miles away in downtown
Jacksonville, protests against the inequities of racial segregation turned
violent as whites
fought the advances of civil rights.
Back to main Timucuan Preserve residency page
Pictures from the unveiling of the proposal at Seesaw Space in Jacksonville, FL (December 2005)
