By the mid-Sixteenth Century, Spain had come into her own as the most powerful nation on earth and had thoroughly staked out her claim in the New World. For the quest of gold and the glory of God, mighty Spain held sway over vast parts of South America, Mexico and the Caribbean. As for her rivals, England was just finding the confidence with her new virgin queen, Elizabeth, to challenge Spanish domination; France was wracked with civil war between the Catholics and Protestants. But in the next few decades, the land of the Mocama and Guale would play a significant role in shaping the colonial aspirations of each of these European powers as they fought for a toehold in North America.
The Spanish came first. Ponce de Leon claimed the southern region for Spain in 1513, and Hernando de Soto probed western Georgia in 1540. But it was the French who prompted Spain to settle the area on a permanent basis and, as is so often the case in the affairs of men, religious fervor was the motive for the early colonial effort.
Protestants of France, known as the "Huguenots," were rebelling against the Catholics. The French queen was determined to end the bloodshed and strife and reasoned that a colony in the New World could serve as a haven for the persecuted Huguenots as well as a base for raiding the treasure fleets of Spain.
She selected Jean Ribault to head an exploratory expedition that landed at the mouth of the St. Johns River near present-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1562. He called it the "River May," and as he sailed northward as far as Parris Island, South Carolina, St. Simons Island became the "Ile de Loire." Rene Laudonniere led a second expedition of three ships and three hundred colonists in 1564. They, too, landed at the St. Johns River, and immediately began work on Fort Caroline. Two ships were sent back for more supplies and additional colonists.
All of this did not go unnoticed by Philip II of Spain. He picked the ablest of his naval commanders, Pedro Menéndez de Aviles and gave him full power to destroy the French heretics who had dared to encroach on Spanish territory. With a small fleet, Menéndez landed forty miles south of Fort Caroline in August 1565. From this new base that he named St. Augustine, Menéndez attacked and destroyed the fledgling French colony. He then captured and executed Ribault and most of the survivors of the French relief expedition that had shipwrecked just south of St. Augustine. With them died France's last hope for a colony on the Atlantic coast.
Although the French threat was neutralized, Menéndez realized that further steps must be taken to prevent future incursions. He traveled northward from St. Augustine in 1566 to meet with the most powerful chief in the area, the mico of Guale (St. Catherines Island). The mico was called "Guale" as well, and soon the Spanish adapted the name to the mico, his people and the land itself.
During the meeting with the Guales, Menéndez had the good fortune to have a drought-ending rainstorm erupt just after he erected a cross on St. Catherines Island. This awesome display of power by the Spanish leader made the Guales much more receptive to the Jesuit missionaries that followed. This land of the Guales was soon to become a district in the Spanish province of La Florida.
Spain's roots were inexorably entwined with the Catholic faith, and her colonizing and conquering armies were accompanied by men of the cloth. The Jesuits, respected throughout Europe for their piety as well as their scholastic achievement, were selected to convert the Indians of Guale. After an unsuccessful attempt to establish a mission in the province of La Florida, Father Sedańo and Father Báez were assigned to the district of Guale. Father Báez rapidly learned the Guale language and reportedly wrote a grammar, the first book written in the New World. Nevertheless, the Indians embraced the new faith reluctantly. Father Sedańo, after spending fourteen months in Guale along with three other priests of less tenure, could claim only seven Indian baptisms: four children and three dying adults.
It was frustrating for Indians and missionaries alike. The Jesuits were dedicated and capable men, totally committed to their task, but even the most zealous were discouraged in those early days. Father Rogel shares the frustrations as he writes about the neighboring district of Orista just to the north:
The Indians were so reluctant to receive the Catholic religion that no admonitions would curb their barbarity - a barbarity based on liberty unrestrained by the yoke of reason and made worse because they had not been taught to live in villages. They were scattered about the country nine of the twelve months of the year, so that to influence them at all one missionary was needed for each Indian.
The dedicated Jesuits tried desperately to deal with the nomadic wandering of their Indian charges. Father Rogel followed one group for twenty leagues (roughly sixty miles), offering presents, gifts and adornments to entice them to return to their newly built village and cornfields, but to no avail.
Although these earnest men continued their efforts, by 1570 their failure was acknowledged by the colonial government. Several of the Guale missionary contingents were sent to Virginia where they were massacred by Indians. The remaining Guale missionaries were ordered to Mexico City the following year. Although their efforts had come to an ignominious end, their sacrifices paved the way for the Franciscans who followed.
A few Franciscan priests arrived in 1573. Most of them were killed and the survivors recalled. The next ten years saw sporadic and bloody confrontations between Spanish soldiers and Indians in Mocama and Guale. But the Spanish government had more to contend with than the conversion of the Indians. In 1586, Sir Francis Drake destroyed St. Augustine. The English seadog's raid was a timely reminder to the Spanish that their grip upon Florida was fragile at best, and more Franciscans were soon on the way to the fledgling province. The first permanent Franciscan mission - establishing the Mocama missionary province - was in place by 1587 under Father Baltasár Lopéz.
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| Spanish Missions circa 1655 |
In 1593, a dozen friars arrived in Cuba, six of whom were sent to Guale. One missionary each was assigned to the mainland villages of Tolomato, Tupiqui, Santo Domingo de Talaje/Asajo, and Talapo, while two were sent to Guale (St. Catherines Island).The priests worked diligently to learn the Timucuan and Guale languages, and in return demanded that the Indians learn by rote the Catholic ceremonies in Latin. The Ave Maria, the Credo and the Pater Nostra were memorized by constant repetition. But the frequent Spanish religious and national holidays were only frustrating and confusing to the Indians, as they were encouraged to work one day and prevented from working the next. The practice of polygamy was also abolished, prompting the complaint that "they take away our women, leaving us only the one perpetual [sic], forbidding us to exchange her." These and other aggravations prompted the violence that loomed just ahead for the Franciscans.
As the priests made more and more intrusions into the way of life of the Indians, resentment built up in some who chafed under the new ways. Juanillo, the son of a mico, became incensed when the Franciscans interfered with his succession after his father's death. The priests picked the older and milder-mannered Don Francisco over the petulant and quarrelsome Juanillo. The infuriated Juanillo responded by galvanizing opposition to the missionaries and leading the recalcitrant Indians in revolt. Juanillo and a small group of his father's followers killed Father Corpa at Tolomato on September 13, 1597. Father Rodrigues of Tupiqui was killed three days later, after being permitted to sing his last mass. The following day, the two priests of the Guale mission on St. Catherines Island, Father Miguel de Auńon and Father Antonio de Badajoz, were clubbed to death after ignoring warnings, by friendly Indians, of the insurrection.
At Asajo, Father Francisco de Velascola was absent, away on a visit to St. Augustine. The Indians, much afraid of his physical strength and huge stature, agreed that he must be killed. So this gentle monk was ambushed on the riverbank when he returned, and his body savagely mutilated. Father Francisco Dávila of the Talapo mission was wounded and captured. He escaped, but was recaptured and sent to the interior as a slave.
Flushed with the success of their insurrection, some four hundred Indians in forty canoes attacked San Pedro, the Mocama mission on Cumberland Island. A loyal chief, Don Juan, rallied the mission Indians and killed many of the attackers.
Meanwhile, a messenger was sent to Governor Canzo in St. Augustine who sent a relief force of 150 infantry that exacted a terrible revenge for the murders of the Franciscans. His small force ranged the length and breadth of Guale, razing the villages and storehouses, burning the corn in the fields and destroying all canoes that had been found. Canzo was unable to catch the rebels. He retreated to St. Augustine along with Chief Don Juan and his people and the surviving friars, leaving Guale a smoking ruin.
Almost a year after this bloody upheaval, a Spanish scouting party near St. Elena heard rumors that Father Dávila was still alive. Under threats of harsh reprisals, the Indians released Dávila. The friar had been starved, beaten, threatened with burning, used for archery practice and as a scarecrow in the fields. The Spanish captured seven young boys, four of whom were the sons of micos, and took them to St. Augustine. The oldest of the boys, a seventeen-year old named Lucas, was found guilty of being present at Father Rodrigues' murder, but the others were released because of their age. Lucas was tortured and hung - the only legal justice exacted by the courts of mighty Spain for the Juanillo revolt.
But the rebels were still at large, and Governor Canzo was determined to exterminate them. The Indian tribes north of Guale were urged to make war on the rebels, and Canzo issued orders that all Guale Indians captured would be enslaved. This decree, however, was judged to harsh by his superiors and was revoked.
The Spanish scorched-earth policy was ultimately successful. Severe drought compounded the Spanish destruction and by 1600 some of the important micos, their people facing imminent starvation, were ready to come to terms. The town of Tolomato refused to yield, however, and Asajo became the main village of Spanish influence. With his new power, the mico of Asajo led a successful expedition against Tolomato, after which more villages returned to the Spanish flock.
Juanillo still held out, aided oddly enough by his former rival Don Francisco. The two rebel chiefs and their remaining followers retreated to the interior stockaded village of Yfusinique. The mico of Asajo, Don Domingo, led an attack upon the town. After a fierce fight, the scalps of Juanillo and Don Francisco were sent back to St. Augustine. Don Domingo was made head mico of all Guale after his victory.
Thus the Juanillo rebellion was crushed, and the Spanish were once again masters of the land. But the ferocity of the revolt and the three years it took to extinguish the Indian spirit caused many in the colonial government to question the wisdom of maintaining a missionary presence in Mocama and Guale. The winning of heathen souls was proving to be a costly endeavor. To justify the expense, the crown ordered an investigation by the governor of Cuba, which quieted the missionaries' detractors, and future Spanish presence was insured.
Governor Canzo, determined to make the province an anchor of the Spanish empire, threw himself into improving the coastal missions. In 1603, he made an inspection tour of the Guale district, rebuilding the missions and cementing Indian loyalty. He was transferred soon after the tour, but his replacement, Governor Pedro de Iberra, was just as eager to develop both Mocama and Guale. Iberra toured the districts in 1604, and promised the Indians that more friars would be forthcoming. With the consolidation of Indian fealty, the way was paved for the first visit of a bishop on Mocama and Guale soil. Bishop Altimoreno arrived in St. Augustine in mid-March, 1606. He traveled for two months throughout the two districts and confirmed over one thousand souls.
The attentions of two governors and a bishop assured more friars for Mocama and Guale. From 1606 to 1655 the Spanish missionary effort reached its zenith as the Franciscan missions reflected a steady growth. San Buenaventura de Guadalquini was established on St. Simons, San Jose de Zapala on Sapelo Island, and Santiago de Ocone near the Okefenokee Swamp. Now Spain had a total of ten Mocama and Guale missions. Apparently conversions had increased dramatically, too. By 1617 Governor Iberra could report that although half the Christian Indians had died of pestilence, some eight thousand were still alive.
Despite the growth of the numbers of missionaries and converts, the conditions in which the Franciscans carried out their duties remained harsh. The main source of funds to support the mission effort was intestate properties of the colonies and deceased traders' estates unclaimed in Seville, the Spanish seaport link to the New World. Often ill clothed and hungry, friars rarely reached old age. Few ever saw their native Spain again; most succumbed to the hardships of their calling.
Primary emphasis was placed on spiritual conversion rather than colonizing for material gain; accordingly, there was no trade, no guns permitted, and very few skills taught. Horses had been introduced to La Florida, and some had been given to caciques and micos. But cattle were not made available for fear that crops would be eaten by them and the temptation for thievery would be too great. The most discernible changes resulting from Spanish contact were reflected only in pot manufacturing and the replacing of conch shell hoes with those made of iron. Spain's failure to supply attractive and practical trade goods (such as flints, mirrors, silver or brass ornaments) gave the English the advantage in the final conflict for Mocama and Guale that loomed ahead.
Apart from the Indians' decimation from disease - their numbers were reduced by 95% within a century of European contact - the death knell was sounded for the Spanish missions in 1661 when the "Chichimeco" Indians destroyed the mainland Guale town of Asajo. These fierce slave raiders, armed by the English in Virginia to ensure a steady supply of Indian slaves, migrated southward in the 1650s, preying on weaker tribes.
The disruptions of the Spanish missions did not abate. In the next few tumultuous years the Guales reestablished Asajo on the northern end of St. Simons Island (Cannons Point site). The "Yamassees" of coastal South Carolina, also fleeing the Chichimecos, established the refugee towns of San Simón (Fort Frederica site) and Octonico, 2-1/2 miles below, on the inland side of the island.
Charles II of England granted to eight Lords Proprietors all the land between Virginia and La Florida (31° -36° N) in 1663. This threat was sharpened in 1670 when Charles Town was settled. By 1675, only four Guale mission towns remained. The two Mocama missions left were widely separated and the intervening coast settled by unconverted Yamassees. The probability of attack from the English and the Indians loyal to them was now a constant fear to the Spanish. That fear was realized at its worst when the Chichimecos returned in 1680 to attack the towns of Santa Catalina and San Simón. The confusion and helplessness of the missionary and refugee Indians mounted as English pirates terrorized the Mocama and Guale coast in 1683. The following year, San Buenaventura de Guadalquini was ransacked and burned by pirates, and St. Simons Island was abandoned forever by the Timucuans who, for untold centuries, had called it their own.
In 1686, the English settled Port Royal, South Carolina - the old Spanish outpost of St. Elena. The Spanish responded by destroying the settlement, burning the English governor's mansion, and threatening Charles Town itself. It was a final, futile gesture. Most of the remaining Mocama and Guale Indians had already abandoned the missions and retreated southward to the St. Augustine area, to be eventually absorbed by the Yamassees. After almost a century and a quarter under the cross and sword of Spain, the Mocama and Guale Indians were no more - their land soon to be known as Georgia.
The English
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