The story
History
Native people
The earliest evidence of Native American settlement in the Miami region is from approximately 12,000 years ago. The first inhabitants settled on the banks of the Miami River, with the main villages on the northern banks.
The inhabitants at the time of first European contact were the Tequesta people, who controlled much of southeastern Florida, including present-day Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and the southern part of Palm Beach County. The Tequesta Indians fished, hunted, and gathered the fruit and roots of plants for food, but did engage in agriculture. They buried the small bones of the deceased with the rest of the body, and put the larger bones in a box for the village people to see. The Tequesta are credited with making the Miami Circle.
European explorers and settlers
Juan Ponce de León was the first European to visit the area in 1513 by sailing into Biscayne Bay. His journal records he reached Chequescha, a variant of Tequesta, which was Miami's first recorded name. It is unknown whether he came ashore or made contact with the natives. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his men made the first recorded landing when they visited the Tequesta settlement in 1566 while looking for Avilés' missing son, shipwrecked a year earlier. Spanish soldiers led by Father Francisco Villarreal built a Jesuit mission at the mouth of the Miami River a year later but it was short-lived. After the Spaniards left, the Tequesta Indians were left to fend themselves from European-introduced diseases like smallpox. By 1711, the Tequesta sent a couple of local chiefs to Havana, Cuba, to ask if they could migrate there. The Spanish sent two ships to help them, but Spanish illnesses struck and most of the Tequesta died.
The first permanent European settlers arrived in the early 19th century. People came from the Bahamas to South Florida and the Keys to hunt for treasure from the ships that ran aground on the treacherous Great Florida Reef. Some accepted Spanish land offers along the Miami River. At about the same time, the Seminole Indians arrived, along with a group of runaway slaves. The area was affected by the Second Seminole War, during which Major William S. Harney led several raids against the Indians. Most non-Indian residents were soldiers stationed at Fort Dallas. It was the most devastating Indian war in American history, causing almost a total loss of population in Miami.
After the Second Seminole War ended in 1842, William English re-established a plantation started by his uncle on the Miami River. He charted the "Village of Miami" on the south bank of the Miami River and sold several plots of land. In 1844, Miami became the county seat, and six years later a census reported there were ninety-six residents in the area. The Third Seminole War was not as destructive as the second, but it slowed the settlement of southeast Florida. At the end of the war, a few of the soldiers stayed.
Establishment
Dade County was created on February 4, 1836, under the Territorial Act of the United States. The county was named after Major Francis L. Dade, a soldier killed in 1835 in the Second Seminole War, at what has since been named the Dade Battlefield.
Originally, the county was set to be named "Pinckney County", after Thomas Pinckney, a statesman and diplomat from South Carolina who drafted the Treaty of San Lorenzo. The county's credited father, Richard Fitzpatrick, preferred this name as he was from South Carolina himself; however, when news reached Tallahassee of the Dade Massacre, the Territorial Legislative Council inserted Dade's name instead into a pending bill to create the new county.
At the time of its creation, Dade County included the land that now contains Palm Beach and Broward counties, together with the Florida Keys from Bahia Honda Key north and the land of present-day Miami-Dade County. The county seat was originally at Indian Key in the Florida Keys; then in 1844, the County seat was moved to Miami. The Florida Keys from Key Largo to Bahia Honda were returned to Monroe County in 1866. In 1888 the county seat was moved to Juno, near present-day Juno Beach, Florida, returning to Miami in 1899. In 1909, Palm Beach County was formed from the northern portion of what was Dade County, and then in 1915, Palm Beach County and Dade County contributed nearly equal portions of land to create what is now Broward County. There have been no significant boundary changes to the county since 1915.
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Hurricane Andrew
The third-costliest natural disaster to occur in the United States was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Miami in the early morning of Monday, August 24, 1992. It struck the southern part of the county from due east, south of Miami and very near Homestead, Kendall, and Cutler Ridge, which was later renamed Cutler Bay. Damages exceeded US$25 billion in the county, and recovery took years in these areas where the destruction was greatest. Hurricane Andrew was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history until Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf region in 2005.
Name change
Miami-Dade County has previously attempted to change its name 5 times between 1958 and 1990, with voters rejecting each proposal. Below are the results of the previous elections to change the county's name:
On November 13, 1997, voters changed the name of the county from "Dade County" to "Miami-Dade County" to acknowledge the international name recognition of Miami. Voters were acting pursuant to home rule powers granted to Dade County, including the ability to change the name of the county without the consent of the Florida Legislature. With the name change, Miami-Dade County became the only county in the United States whose name was hyphenated.
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 2,701,767. The median age was 41.0 years. 19.4% of residents were under the age of 18 and 17.2% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 92.6 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 90.0 males age 18 and over.
The racial makeup of the county was 29.5% White, 14.8% Black or African American, 0.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.6% Asian, <0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 11.8% from some other race, and 41.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 68.7% of the population.
The most reported ancestries were:
Cuban (34.2%)
African American (5.6%)
Colombian (4.8%)
Venezuelan (4.4%)
Nicaraguan (3.8%)
Haitian (3.7%)
Puerto Rican (3.1%)
Dominican (2.5%)
English (2.3%)
Italian (2.3%)
99.1% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.9% lived in rural areas.
There were 967,414 households in the county, of which 32.0% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 42.2% were married-couple households, 18.6% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 31.2% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 23.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 1,074,685 housing units, of which 10.0% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 50.8% were owner-occupied and 49.2% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.5% and the rental vacancy rate was 7.0%.
2010 census
Residents of Miami-Dade County are often described as "Miamians". In 2010, Cubans made up the largest population of immigrants (with more than half of the population) with Colombians coming in second, Haitians in third, followed by Nicaraguans in fourth place, then Dominicans, Venezuelans, Peruvians, Jamaicans, Mexicans, and Argentinians among the highest group of immigrants.
Miami-Dade has small communities of Brazilians, Portuguese, Spaniards, Ukrainians and Poles along with Canadians (including Francophone from the province of Quebec), French, Germans, other Europeans, British expatriates and Israelis.
There were 867,352 households, out of which 30.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.8% were married couples living together, 18.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.5% were non-families. 23.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.4% (2.5% male and 5.9% female) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83 and the average family size was 3.33.
The age distribution is 21.9% under the age of 18, 9.9% from 18 to 24, 28.6% from 25 to 44, 25.6% from 45 to 64, and 14.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38.2 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.0 males.
The median income for a household in the county was $43,605, and the median income for a family was $50,065. Males had a median income of $35,096 versus $29,980 for females. The per capita income for the county was $22,957. About 13.8% of families and 17.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.0% of those under age 18 and 22.1% of those aged 65 or over.
In 2010, 51.1% of the county's population was foreign born, with 48.7% being naturalized American citizens. Of foreign-born residents, 93.0% were born in Latin America, 3.2% were born in Europe, 2.7% born in Asia, 0.5% born in Africa, 0.5% in North America, and 0.1% were born in Oceania.
From Wikipedia’s article on Miami-Dade County, Florida, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5