The History of Florida (23 page)

150

Intervil age migration and flight from Apalachee vil ages such as Tomole

and Aspalaga probably account for some discrepancies in the data from

1675 and from 1689. Evidence for Apalachee in particular indicates that its

people were undercounted in 1675. In that year a visiting bishop of Santiago

de Cuba confirmed 13,152 Indians, a figure that probably did not include

young children. It suggests a population of at least 10,000 in Apalachee, as

does a remark by the bishop that he provided long dresses for 4,081 women

in Apalachee who were wearing nothing but short skirts that covered them

from knees to waist. The standard translation of his letter omitted the detail

that identified the women as “from Apalachee.”1 Evidence from the 1680s

shows that Guale and Mocama populations also were understated in 1675.

Many of the older missions and their peoples probably disappeared dur-

ing the years 1649–56, when a series of epidemics devastated the remaining

The Missions of Spanish Florida · 105

populations of the Guale and Timucua. Another epidemic in 1659 report-

edly killed 10,000, many of them probably in Apalachee in view of a remark

by the governor that the 1655 smal pox epidemic had left very few Indians

in Guale and Timucua. A 1656 revolt among the Potano, Utina, and Yustaga,

directed at the governor and his soldiers but not against the friars, also has-

tened the demise of many missions. An imprudent governor’s disrespect for

privileges of rank enjoyed by Indian leaders provided a pretext for the re-

volt, but those leaders’ dismay over their steady loss of power and influence

as the number of their subjects declined was a more fundamental cause.

The governor’s relocation of the people of a northern tier of the western

Timucuan missions—most of whom had not participated in the revolt—to

revive the depopulated rebel missions of southern Utina and Potano that

were on the Spanish trail led many of the migrants to flee from mission

territory. His policy caused the disappearance of all western Timucuan mis-

sions with asterisks in the list.

The establishment of Charleston brought a new threat to the missions.

Indians armed by the British of Virginia had attacked missions as early

as the 1620s. But the threat intensified in the 1680s from pirates as well as

new and closer Indian groups allied with the British, leading ultimately to

complete destruction of the missions by 1704–5. The mission Indians’ dis-

proof

satisfaction with Spanish rule intensified as the British threat moved Spain

to begin building the stone castil o at St. Augustine in the mid-1670s, in-

creasing the demand for Indian labor and foodstuffs to feed the laborers.

British-inspired attacks eliminated al the Georgia coast’s missions in the

1680s. Many of the Guale and Yamasee living there migrated to Creek coun-

try or to South Carolina. The rest, consisting mainly of Guale, relocated

to three mission vil ages on Amelia Island. The Mocama of Guadalquini

moved from St. Simons Island to the north side of the St. Johns River just

west of Fort George Island, changing the mission’s name to Santa Cruz de

Guadalquini. In 1685, Utina Province’s Santa Catalina de Ahoica was the

first of the remaining hinterland missions to be destroyed. The last perished

in the first half of the 1690s, leaving only the four Yustaga missions and two

Potano missions in western Timucua territory. Creek struck a Chacato mis-

sion on the Apalachicola River in 1695.

South Carolina’s governor, James Moore, destroyed the remaining coastal

missions and St. Augustine itself in 1702 and put its castil o under siege

for a time. That same year, hostile Indians attacked Potano’s Santa Fé mis-

sion and Apalachee’s Ocuia. Just prior to Moore’s attack on St. Augustine, a

Spanish-led 800-man Apalachee force marching toward the Chattahoochee

106 · John H. Hann

to retaliate against the Creek for the attacks on Santa Fé and Ocuia was

routed at a Flint River crossing in an ambush set by a Creek force moving to-

ward Apalachee. Most destructive of all were two attacks the Creek and the

English launched in 1704 that destroyed all but three of Apalachee’s twelve

surviving missions. At the start of the first attack, at least fifty Apalachee

warriors went over to the enemy in revolt. Additional Apalachee joined the

attackers during ensuing battles. Thirteen hundred Apalachee surrendered,

agreeing to leave for South Carolina with a promise that they would not be

enslaved. A considerable number who were captured, probably about 1,000,

were carried off to Carolina as slaves in what seems to have been the largest

slave raid in the South, if not the nation. When the remnant of the Spanish

garrison abandoned Apalachee at the end of July 1704, about 400 Apalachee

from Ivitachuco under the province’s most prestigious chief moved east-

ward with the soldiers, settling in southern Potano for a short time before

continued harassment forced them to move on to the vicinity of St. Au-

gustine. Most surviving inhabitants of the two largest Apalachee missions,

San Luis de Talimali and Cupaica, together with the Chacato, migrated to

Pensacola and Mobile.

Except for the few who remained at Pensacola, the only mission Indians

left in Florida huddled in a few insecure vil ages under the protective guns

proof

of St. Augustine, where disease and continuing raids by Carolinians and

their native cohorts steadily reduced their numbers. By 1711, their number

had fal en to 401 who lived in seven camps that bore the names of for-

mer Guale, Timucua, and Apalachee missions. A native rebel ion against

the Carolinians in 1715, known as the Yamasee War, removed pressure

on Florida’s Indians for a time and increased the number of Indians liv-

ing near St. Augustine. Yamasee, one of the major predator peoples who

destroyed the missions, were prominent among the immigrants. The refu-

gees also included Apalachees, who were one of the many native peoples

in British territory who participated in the uprising that bears the Yamasee

name. By then, the immigrants also included Indians from south Florida

who sought to escape English-inspired Creek slave-raiding expeditions that

swept as far south as the Keys. By 1717, Florida’s governor had reorganized

and relocated the 946 natives in ten settlements. Three contained about 366

Yamasee speakers. Three Timucua settlements held about 248 people, about

100 of whom were Mocama. Two missions contained 189 Guale. About 54

Apalachee lived in the one Apalachee-speaking vil age or scattered through

a number of the other settlements. The tenth settlement held 33 Jororo, a

Mayaca-speaking south central Florida people missionized in the 1690s.

The Missions of Spanish Florida · 107

The rest were natives of other tribes who had not been missionized earlier.

Yamasee and Apalachee numbering well over 200 established two vil ages

near the rebuilt Fort St. Mark in Apalachee.

Expansion continued briefly as additional vil ages were established be-

fore 1723. By 1726, sixteen settlements contained 1,011 Indians despite re-

newal of English-inspired attacks that probably were mainly responsible for

reducing the number of Yamasee to 167. But the number of Apalachee grew

to 87, probably from immigration from the Creek country. The Guale re-

mained stable at 187, while the Timucua fell to 154. Over the next two years,

however, disease and hostilities reduced the population sharply. Decline

continued until the British assumed control in 1763. By then few, if any, of

Florida’s aboriginal peoples remained in their homeland. Al of the fewer

than 100 Indians living in two vil ages in the vicinity of St. Augustine chose

to depart for Cuba with the Spaniards.

Aside from the introduction of the church at the main vil age’s center

and, beside it, the residence of the friar, referred to as a
convento,
and a few

Christian symbols such as the cross and bell tower, the missions in Florida

do not seem to have altered the appearance of Florida’s aboriginal native

vil ages substantial y. In contrast to the round or oval native structures, the

two European structures, church and convent, were rectangular and put

proof

together with spikes and nails. Church wal s were constructed of either ver-

tical planks or wattle and daub, and the latter seem to have been usual for

the convent. But the roofs of both European structures followed the native

thatch pattern.

The missions brought many changes to the lives of Florida’s Indians be-

yond the obvious ones of religious beliefs and practices. Friars sought to

“civilize” the natives in the sense of imposing many European mores on

them as well as indoctrinating them in the Christian faith. Friars or other

Spaniards introduced the Indians to new cultigens, animal husbandry, and

new tools and skil s. The process began at baptism, at least, with imposi-

tion of a Spanish first name and the friars’ insistence that Indian males cut

their long hair to conform to Spanish usage. In the economic sphere, friars

sought to convert Indians from their subsistence economy in which, as a

friar phrased it, “they are idle most of the time, the men and the women

alike,”2 to one geared to produce surpluses for export that would enable

them to acquire clothing and other goods. Labor itself became an export

with introduction of the repartimiento labor system. For most of Florida’s

missionized Indians, except the Apalachees, the governor imposed that ob-

ligation as soon as Indian leaders gave obedience to the king.

108 · John H. Hann

The friars banned Indian dances that they considered obscene or that

had ties to the Indians’ pre-Christian religious practices. Dances that had

continued for entire days and nights became shorter. Ultimately, Spaniards

banned the Indians’ ball game because of its religious associations, violence,

and the intervil age hostilities it generated. Christian burial practices sup-

planted most of those native to the Indians, but archaeologists have found

that they continued to bury grave goods with some of the deceased. The

Indians’ ceremonial wailing for the dead continued for a time at least, pos-

sibly because it was practiced by some Europeans.

In many respects, however, Indian society in the mission provinces re-

mained strongly traditional. Leadership positions remained hereditary un-

der a matrilineal system in which rule passed to a deceased chief’s nephew

(or niece, where female leaders existed) by his eldest sister. Matrilocality,

which required that a man live with his wife’s family in their vil age, re-

mained the rule for the ordinary Indian. The council house remained by

far the vil age’s most impressive structure. It continued to be built in the

traditional way and to serve both as the focus of the community’s life and

as a place for meeting with Spanish authorities other than the friar. Indians

continued to build their houses in their round form, using traditional mate-

rials and none of the new iron tools other than the axe. Only in the building

proof

of churches and convents did they follow European models and techniques.

They continued to use their traditional ceramic vessels to cook, eat, and

store food. One distinctive style, known as León-Jefferson Ware, found from

Potano westward through Apalachee, reached full development during the

mission era. Certain vessel forms, known as Colono-Ware, contain direct

copies of European pottery features. It is believed they were made for Euro-

pean rather than for Indian use.

Acculturation, the adapting to or borrowing of traits from another cul-

ture, was most intense in religious belief and practice. Over time, a substan-

tial segment of Apalachee and Timucua society appears to have embraced

Catholicism sincerely. For Timucua, the best indication is that the friars

remained at their posts unharmed during the 1656 revolt. There is strong

evidence on the faith of the Apalachee from the French who received the ex-

iles at Mobile. The French noted their demand for the sacraments and stated

that, in matters religious, the Apalachee were scarcely distinguishable from

Europeans who had been Christians for centuries. Only in the gray area

of recourse to the shaman as healer are traditional practices with religious

overtones known to have survived until the end of the seventeenth century.

For all but some from the older generations in Apalachee, and for everyone