Today, on the Keys between Key West and the mainland, some 40,000 residents and thousands of visitors fish, swim, sail, and dive in the crystal clear waters off a tropical reef; relax in the sun and cooling trade wind breezes; and sleep in the air-conditioned comfort of their homes and hotel rooms.

On these same islands, as short a time as 80 years ago, fewer than 300 inhabitants tried to eke out a living without benefit of electricity, running water, radios, or telephones. Tormented by clouds of voracious mosquitoes and no-see-ums, broiled by the tropical sun, they lived in thatched-roof homes regularly flattened by hurricane winds. Weeks would go by before some passing sailboat brought them news of the outside world or their relatives.

The stories of these hardy pioneers and their predecessors, as far back as the Native Americans who lived on the Keys at least 1,000 years ago, are told, many for the first time, in this book. As vividly portrayed as if they were characters in a novel, these true-life inhabitants of the Florida Keys will capture your admiration as you share in the dreams and realities of their daily lives.

The Straits of Florida is a 110-mile sea passage between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean bordered on the northern side by the Florida Keys and the Florida Reef. In its waters, along the reef, and on desolate keys, thousands of men and women have died in shipwrecks, attacks by natives, sea battles, and pirate boardings. Few of their stories have survived, but those that have tell gripping tales of their struggles against the perils of the sea and the onslaughts of men. This book presents a selection of such stories during the age of sail from the time Spanish navigators discovered the Straits to the end of the Second Seminole War in 1842.

Excerpted from ships' logs, captains' diaries, court-martial transcripts, and newspaper accounts, the stories in this volume—a companion to The Florida Keys, Volume 1: A History of the Pioneers—will make you glad you live in a modern world. Read harrowing tales of the cruelty and torture inflicted on mariners at the hands of bloodthirsty pirates; of pistol and cannon battles between merchant ships and wayward privateers; and of the hardships endured by some of Florida's earliest settlers.

Sprinkled with hand-drawn illustrations, photographs, and maps depicting the lay of the land during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this book presents a scholarly, historically accurate account of life on the Keys and in the perilous Straits of Florida during the age of sail. An index and extensive bibliography are included.

In this third book in a series on the history of the Florida Keys, John Viele tells the true story of the Florida Keys wreckers, the daring seamen who sailed out in fair weather or foul to save lives and property from ships cast up on the unforgiving Florida Reef. From the archives of the federal court at Key West, or “wrecking court,” and from contemporary letters, diaries, and newspaper articles, the author has captured the drama of the lives and times of the Florida Keys wreckers with accuracy and clarity.

Richly illustrated with drawings from nineteenth-century magazines and newspapers, artists’ concepts of wrecking scenes, and reproductions of old paintings and photographs, this book will fascinate sailors and landlubbers alike.

• The evil crew of a wrecked Spanish slave ship hijacked their would-be rescuers and forced them to carry their wretched human cargo to Cuba.

• Wreckers salvaged some strange cargoes—an Egyptian mummy, the fossilized bones of a prehistoric sea monster, a railroad locomotive, and cavalry horses.

• The crew of a small wrecking vessel barely escaped with their lives when they were attacked by a war party of Seminole Indians in dugout canoes.

• Wrecking divers, working without benefit of any apparatus, plunged into the black, polluted waters of flooded cargo holds to wrestle out barrels, boxes, and 500-pound bales of cotton.