William Bartram was an American naturalist, the son of John Bartram. Bartram was born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, New England, and Florida. He was noted from his mid teens for the quality of his botanic and ornithological drawings. He also had an increasing role in the maintenance of his father's botanic garden, and added several rare species to it.

In 1773, he embarked upon a four-year journey through eight southern colonies. He made many drawings and took notes on the native flora and fauna, and the native American Indians. In 1774, he celebrated Bartram's visit to his principal village at Cuskowilla with a great feast, where he met Ahaya the Cowkeeper, chief of the Alachua band of the Seminole tribe. When Bartram explained to the Cowkeeper that he was interested in studying the local plants and animals, the chief was amused and began calling him "Puc-puggee," or "the flower hunter," and Bartram continued his explorations of the Alachua Savannah, or what is today Payne's Prairie.