The Timucua (tee-MOO-qua) were a Native American tribe living in the area of northeastern and central Florida. The language of the Timucua is an extinct native language of Florida whose origins are uncertain. The language shows some similarities to the Arawakan languages,and linguist Julian Granberry has suggested the Timucua people may have migrated to Florida from an original Amazonian homeland.

After being decimated by European disease and warfare between the Spanish and British, the surviving Timucua Indians were sent to Cuba, where their language rapidly disappeared. The last known Timucua Indian died in 1767, making the Timucuans (along with the Beothuk) one of only a few truly extinct Native American tribes. The Timucuan held all of north Florida from about Cape Canaveral and Tampa Bay on the south to beyond the St. Mary's River on the north and westward to about the Aucilla River, where they bordered upon the celebrated Apalachee, of another (Muskhogean) stock.

The tribes forming the Timucua group were centered along the St. John's River, the principal upper part of the river and about the present St. Augustine. One Timucua chief, known to the French as Outina, had his settlement near the present Welaka, and ruled some forty villages, with a total population of around six thousand. On the lower course Chief Saturiwa's people were nearly as numerous,and west of them, toward the Suwanee River, were the Potano, with about four thousand people.

The Timucua were sedentary and semi-agricultural, and were also dependent on game, fish, wild fruits, and bread prepared from the starchy koonti root. Their houses were circular, of upright poles, thatched with palmetto leaves, and with granaries elevated on stakes to keep them out of reach of wild animals. Their villages were strongly stockaded and each important settlement had a large central town-house of logs, for tribal ceremonies and the reception of guests. They had large dug-out canoes. Their pottery, was of the finest type found east of the Mississippi.

The principal weapon of the warriors was the bow, and a sort of spade-shaped club of hard wood embedded with shark's teeth. Numerous mounds and and ancient roadways have been excavated in the area inhabited by the Timucua. Women wore a short fringed skirt, perhaps of some bark fiber, with their hair flowing loosely. Men went naked, except for the breechcloth, but had their entire body tattooed with elaborated designs. They wore their hair in a knot on top of the head, and wore inflated fish-bladders through holes in their ears. They were a tall and well-made people, described as of great strength, agility and remarkable swimmers.