The Okefenokee swamp was formed over the past 6,500 years.  Both the St. Marys River and the Suwannee River originate in the swamp.  The name Okefenokee means “Land of the Trembling Earth” in Choctaw.  

Indigenous peoples have occupied the Okefenokee for thousands of years.  Sand mounds suggest that the largest population of indigenous people lived there between AD 500 and 1200.

Spanish records dating back to 1602 mention the Oconi living in the area.  In fact, they refer to the swamp as Laguna de Oconi (Lake Oconi).  The remains of at least two other Timucuan villages and Spanish missions have been found in the area.

The Creek used the area as a hunting ground during the 18th and 19th century.  

Road and forts were built around the perimeter of the swamp during the Second Seminole War in Florida between 1836 and 1838.  The troops burned down a Seminole village which ultimately drove the Seminole people away from the swamp, entirely.  

As early as 1805, a few white settlers began to inhabit the area.  These pioneers raised hogs, herded cattle, hunted and fished, and cultivated sugar cane and corn.  

Due to the relative isolation of the area, generational “Swampers”, as they are called, used Elizabethan phrases and syntax similar to what would have been used during Colonial times.

When the area was industrialized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of the Swampers assisted in surveying the area and went to work for lumber companies.