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The history of draining and development of the Everglades dates back to the 19th century. During the Second Seminole War beginning in 1836, the United States military's mission was to seek out Seminole people in the Everglades and capture or kill them. Those missions gave the military the opportunity to map land that seemed to frustrate and confound them at every turn. A national push for expansion and progress toward the latter part of the 19th century stimulated interest in draining the Everglades for agricultural use. According to historians, "From the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, the United States went through a period in which wetland removal was not questioned. Indeed, it was considered the proper thing to do."〔Meindl, Christopher, et al. (December, 2002). "On the Importance of Claims-Making: The Role of James O. Wright in Promoting the Drainage of Florida's Everglades in the Early Twentieth Century", ''Annals of the Association of American Geographers'', 92 (4), p. 682–701.〕 A pattern of political and financial motivation, and a lack of understanding of the geography and ecology of the Everglades have plagued the history of drainage projects. The Everglades are a part of a massive watershed that originates near Orlando and drains into Lake Okeechobee, a vast and shallow lake. As the lake exceeds its capacity in the wet season, the water forms a flat and very wide river, about long and wide. As the land from Lake Okeechobee slopes gradually to Florida Bay, water flows at a rate of half a mile (0.8 km) a day. Before human activity in the Everglades, the system comprised the lower third of the Florida peninsula. The first attempt to drain the region was made by real estate developer Hamilton Disston in 1881. Disston's sponsored canals were unsuccessful, but the land he purchased for them stimulated economic and population growth that attracted railway developer Henry Flagler. Flagler built a railroad along the east coast of Florida and eventually to Key West; towns grew and farmland was cultivated along the rail line. During his 1904 campaign to be elected governor, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward promised to drain the Everglades, and his later projects were more effective than Disston's. Broward's promises sparked a land boom facilitated by blatant errors in an engineer's report, pressure from real estate developers, and the burgeoning tourist industry throughout south Florida. The increased population brought hunters who went unchecked and had a devastating impact on the numbers of wading birds (hunted for their plumes), alligators, and other Everglades animals. Severe hurricanes in 1926 and 1928 caused catastrophic damage and flooding from Lake Okeechobee that prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to build a dike around the lake. Further floods in 1947 prompted an unprecedented construction of canals throughout southern Florida. Following another population boom after World War II, and the creation of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project, the Everglades was divided into sections separated by canals and water control devices that delivered water to agricultural and newly developed urban areas. However, in the late 1960s, following a proposal to construct a massive airport next to Everglades National Park, national attention turned from developing the land to restoring the Everglades. ==Exploration== American involvement in the Everglades began during the Second Seminole War (1836–42), a costly and very unpopular conflict. The United States spent between $30 million and $40 million and lost between 1,500 and 3,000 lives. The U.S. military drove the Seminoles into the Everglades and were charged with the task of finding them, defeating them, and moving them to Oklahoma Indian territory. Almost 4,000 Seminoles were killed in the war or were removed.〔Douglas, p. 245.〕〔Dovell, J. E. (July 1947). "The Everglades Before Reclamation", ''The Florida Historical Quarterly'', 26 (1), p. 1–44.〕 The U.S. military was completely unprepared for the conditions they found in the Everglades. They tore their clothes on sawgrass, ruined their boots on the uneven limestone floor, and were plagued by mosquitoes. Soldiers' legs, feet, and arms were cut open on the sawgrass and gangrene infection set in, taking many lives and limbs. Many died of mosquito-borne illness. After slogging through mud, one private died in his tracks of exhaustion in 1842.〔 General Thomas Jesup admitted the military was overwhelmed by the terrain when he wrote to the Secretary of War in 1838, trying to dissuade him from prolonging the war.〔 Opinion about the value of Florida to the Union was mixed: some thought it a useless land of swamps and horrible animals, while others thought it a gift from God for national prosperity.〔Grunwald, p. 31–32.〕 In 1838 comments in ''The Army and Navy Chronicle'' supported future development of southern Florida: () climate () most delightful; but, from want of actual observation, () could not speak so confidently of the soil, although, from the appearance of the surrounding vegetation, a portion of it, at least, must be rich. Whenever the aborigines shall be forced from their fastnesses, as eventually they must be, the enterprising spirit of our countrymen will very soon discover the sections best adapted to cultivation, and the now barren or unproductive everglades will be made to blossom like a garden. It is the general impression that these everglades are uninhabitable during the summer months, by reason of their being overflowed by the abundant rains of the season; but if it should prove that these inundations are caused or increased by obstructions to the natural courses of the rivers, as outlets to the numerous lakes, American industry will remove these obstructions.〔White, Frank (October, 1959). "The Journals of Lieutenant John Pickell, 1836–1837", ''The Florida Historical Quarterly'', 38 (2), p. 143–172.〕 The military penetration of southern Florida offered the opportunity to map a poorly understood part of the country. As late as 1823, official reports doubted the existence of a large inland lake, until the military met the Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee in 1837.〔Lodge, p. 110〕 To avenge repeated surprise attacks on himself and ammunition stores, Colonel William Harney led an expedition into the Everglades in 1840, to hunt for a chief named Chekika. With Harney were 90 soldiers in 16 canoes. One soldier's account of the trip in the ''St. Augustine News'' was the first printed description of the Everglades available to the general public. The anonymous writer described the hunt for Chekika and the terrain they were crossing: "No country that I have ever heard of bears any resemblance to it; it seems like a vast sea filled with grass and green trees, and expressly intended as a retreat for the rascally Indian, from which the white man would never seek to drive them".〔Tebeau, p. 66–67.〕 The final blame for the military stalemate was determined to lie not in military preparation, supplies, leadership, or superior tactics by the Seminoles, but in Florida's impenetrable terrain. An army surgeon wrote: "It is in fact a most hideous region to live in, a perfect paradise for Indians, alligators, serpents, frogs, and every other kind of loathsome reptile."〔Grunwald, p. 42.〕 The land seemed to inspire extreme reactions of wonder or hatred. In 1870, an author described the mangrove forests as a "waste of nature's grandest exhibition to have these carnivals of splendid vegetation occurring in isolated places where it is but seldom they are seen."〔Tebeau, p. 71.〕 A band of hunters, naturalists, and collectors ventured through in 1885, taking along with them the 17-year-old grandson of an early resident of Miami. The landscape unnerved the young man shortly after he entered the Shark River: "The place looked wild and lonely. About three o'clock it seemed to get on Henry's nerves and we saw him crying, he would not tell us why, he was just plain scared."〔Tebeau, p. 75–76.〕 In 1897, an explorer named Hugh Willoughby spent eight days canoeing with a party from the mouth of the Harney River to the Miami River. He wrote about his observations and sent them back to the ''New Orleans Times-Democrat''. Willoughby described the water as healthy and wholesome, with numerous springs, and 10,000 alligators "more or less" in Lake Okeechobee. The party encountered thousands of birds near the Shark River, "killing hundreds, but they continued to return".〔McCally, p. 65–69.〕 Willoughby pointed out that much of the rest of the country had been mapped and explored except for this part of Florida, writing, "(w)e have a tract of land one hundred and thirty miles long and seventy miles wide that is as much unknown to the white man as the heart of Africa."〔Stephan, L. Lamar (December, 1942). "Geographic Role of the Everglades in the Early History of Florida", ''The Scientific Monthly'', 55, (6) p. 515–526.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Draining and development of the Everglades」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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