the Tequesta tribe of Native Americans. Contact by Spanish explorers beginning in the 16th century proved disastrous for native tribes, including the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases to which the native populations possessed no resistance, such as smallpox. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Bernard Romans reported sighting many abandoned Tequesta villages when he visited the area in the 1770s. Subsequently, Florida returned to Spanish control under the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the American Revolutionary War. In the early 18th century, Creek Indians had moved down from Alabama and joined the Oconee, themselves recent immigrants from Georgia; together, they formed the core of the Seminole tribe. Settlements by the English, and later Americans, gradually pushed the Seminoles southward. In 1788, roughly the same time that the Seminoles began to arrive in what was eventually to become Broward County, two families arrived and set up homes along the New River—the Lewis family and the Robbins family, who had arrived in Florida from the Bahamas. 1820-1892 Under the terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty, ratified in 1821 between Spain and the United States, Florida was ceded to the United States in exchange for U.S. forfeiture of a $5 million debt owed by Spain. Florida became a U.S. Territory in 1821. By 1830, the de facto leader among the approximately 70 people living at the "New River Settlement" (present day Fort Lauderdale) was William Cooley. Cooley was appointed by Governor William Pope Duval as Justice of the Peace for the region. In 1835, white settlers killed a Seminole chief named Alibama and burned his hut in a dispute. As Justice of Peace, Cooley jailed the settlers, but they were released after a hearing at the Monroe County Court in Key West; the justification was insufficient evidence. The Seminoles blamed Cooley, saying he withheld evidence. The growing uneasiness between the Seminoles and the whites led to the Seminole migration to the Lake Okeechobee area. On 28 December 1835, a Seminole ambush known as the Dade