Palatka is a city in northeastern Florida and it is the county chair of Putnam County, Florida, United States. The population was 10,558 at the 2010 census. It is the county chair of Putnam County. Palatka is the principal city of the Palatka Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is home to 72,893 residents. The city is also house to St. Johns River State College, St. Johns River Water Management District Headquarters, and Ravine Gardens State Park. The Place is well known for its local festivals, most notably the Florida Azalea Festival and the Blue Crab Festival.

The area was taking into account the domain of the Timucuan peoples, two tribes of which existed in the Palatka region below chiefs Saturiwa and Utina. They fished bass and mullet, or hunted deer, turkeys, bear and opossum. Others farmed beans, corn, melons, squash, and tobacco. However, infectious sickness that came next European contact and exploit devastated the tribes, and they were extinct by the mid-18th century. The last people evacuated afterward the Spanish to Cuba in 1763, when Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain after the Seven Years’ War.

During the late eighteenth century, Creek tribes made their way to Florida. In a process of ethnogenesis, the Seminole tribe was formed. They called the location Pilo-taikita, meaning “crossing over” or “cows’ crossing”. Here the St. Johns River narrows and begins a shallower, winding course upstream to Lake George and Lake Monroe.

In 1767, Denys Rolle (1725–1797), an English gentleman and philanthropist, established Rollestown on the east bank of the St. Johns River at the head of deep-water navigation. His 78,000-acre (320 km) plantation was a commercial experiment, recruiting settlers off the streets of London, including paupers, vagrants, pickpockets and “penitent prostitutes”. Two hundred indentured servants arrived to determined wilderness for agriculture and livestock. Unaccustomed to either difficult work or a subtropical climate, however, they left. Rolle next-door purchased slaves from West Africa, using them to tend chickens, hogs, goats and sheep, or fabricate cotton, indigo, citrus and turpentine for export to Europe.