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The Spanish missions in the Carolinas were part of a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholics in order to spread the Christian doctrine among the local Native Americans. A few missions to native people living in the vicinity of the Spanish presidio at Santa Elena (on Parris Island) in South Carolina were established from 1566 to 1570, including:
The Yamasees were a multiethnic confederation of Native Americans who lived in the coastal region of present-day northern coastal Georgia near the Savannah River and later in northeastern Florida. The Yamasees engaged in revolts and wars with other native groups and Europeans living in North America, specifically from Florida to North Carolina.
The Alapaha River is a 202-mile-long (325 km) river in southern Georgia and northern Florida in the United States. It is a tributary of the Suwannee River, which flows to the Gulf of Mexico.
Apalachee Bay is a bay in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico occupying an indentation of the Florida coast to the west of where the Florida peninsula joins the United States mainland. It is bordered by Taylor, Jefferson, Wakulla, and Franklin counties.
Apalachee Province was the area in the Panhandle of the present-day U.S. state of Florida inhabited by the Native American peoples known as the Apalachee at the time of European contact. The southernmost extent of the Mississippian culture, the Apalachee lived in what is now Leon County, Wakulla County and Jefferson County. The name was in use during the early period of European exploration. During Spanish colonization, the Apalachee Province became one of the four major provinces in the Spanish mission system, the others being the Timucua Province,, the Mocama Province and the Guale Province.
San Juan de Aspalaga was a mission in the Apalachee Province of Spanish Florida established by Franciscans. It first appears in Spanish records in 1655, when it was located at a distance of 86 leagues from St. Augustine, which would place it in the western part of Apalachee Province. By 1675, Aspalaga had moved eastward to the archaeological site known as the Pine Tuft Site, near the present-day town of Wacissa, Florida, about 78 leagues from St. Augustine. By 1695, or at least by 1697, Aspagala had moved back to the western part of Apalachee Province. Aspagala had a population of about 800 in 1675, which had fallen to 250 by 1689. Aspalaga was overrun on June 24, 1704, by Muscogees allied with the Province of Carolina, part of the Apalachee massacre.
Beginning in the second half of the 16th century, the Kingdom of Spain established a number of missions throughout Spanish Florida in order to convert the Native Americans to Roman Catholicism, to facilitate control of the area, and to obstruct regional colonization by other Protestants, particularly, those from England and France. Spanish Florida originally included much of what is now the Southeastern United States, although Spain never exercised long-term effective control over more than the northern part of what is now the State of Florida from present-day St. Augustine to the area around Tallahassee, southeastern Georgia, and some coastal settlements, such as Pensacola, Florida. A few short-lived missions were established in other locations, including Mission Santa Elena in present-day South Carolina, around the Florida peninsula, and in the interior of Georgia and Alabama.
The Chisca were a tribe of Native Americans living in present-day eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia in the 16th century. Their descendants, the Yuchi lived in present-day Alabama, Georgia, and Florida in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, and were removed to Indian Territory in the 1830s.
The Spanish missions in Georgia comprised a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholics in order to spread the Christian doctrine among the Guale and various Timucua peoples in what is now southeastern Georgia.
Santa Elena, a Spanish settlement on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina, was the capital of Spanish Florida from 1566 to 1587. It was established under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the first governor of Spanish Florida. There had been a number of earlier attempts to establish colonies in the area by both the Spanish and the French, who had been inspired by the earlier accounts by Chicora and Hernando de Soto of rich territories in the interior. Menéndez's Santa Elena settlement was intended as the new capital of the Spanish colony of La Florida, shifting the focus of Spanish colonial efforts north from St. Augustine, which had been established in 1565 to oust the French from their colony of Fort Caroline. Santa Elena was ultimately built at the site of the abandoned French outpost of Charlesfort, founded in 1562 by Jean Ribault.
Mayaca was the name used by the Spanish to refer to a Native American tribe in central Florida, to the principal village of that tribe and to the chief of that village in the 1560s. The Mayacas occupied an area in the upper St. Johns River valley just to the south of Lake George. According to Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, the Mayaca language was related to that of the Ais, a tribe living along the Atlantic coast of Florida to the southeast of the Mayacas. The Mayacas were hunter-fisher-gatherers, and were not known to practice agriculture to any significant extent, unlike their neighbors to the north, the Utina, or Agua Dulce (Freshwater) Timucua. The Mayaca shared a ceramics tradition with the Freshwater Timucua, rather than the Ais.
Apalachicola Province was a group or association of towns located along the lower part of the Chattahoochee River in present-day Alabama and Georgia. The Spanish so called it because they perceived it as a political entity under the leadership of the town of Apalacicola. It is believed that before the 17th century, the residents of all the Apalachicola towns spoke the Hitchiti language, although other towns whose people spoke the Muscogee language relocated among the Apalachicolas along the Chattahoochee River in the middle- to later- 17th century. All of the Apalachicola towns moved to central Georgia at the end of the 17th century, where the English called them "Ochese Creek Indians". They moved back to the Chattahoochee River after 1715, with the English then calling them "Lower Creeks", while the Spanish called them "Ochese".
The Chacatos were a Native American people who lived in the upper Apalachicola River and Chipola River basins in what is now Florida in the 17th century. The Spanish established two missions in Chacato villages in 1674. As a result of attempts by the missionaries to impose full observance of Christian rites and morals on the newly converted Chacatos, many of them rebelled, trying to murder one of the missionaries. Many of the rebels fled to Tawasa, while others joined the Chiscas, who had become openly hostile to the Spanish. Other Chacatos moved to missions in or closer to Apalachee Province, abandoning their villages west of the Apalachicola River.
The Timucua were a Native American people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The various groups of Timucua spoke several dialects of the Timucua language. At the time of European contact, Timucuan speakers occupied about 19,200 square miles (50,000 km2) in the present-day states of Florida and Georgia, with an estimated population of 200,000. Milanich notes that the population density calculated from those figures, 10.4 per square mile (4.0/km2) is close to the population densities calculated by other authors for the Bahamas and for Hispaniola at the time of first European contact. The territory occupied by Timucua speakers stretched from the Altamaha River and Cumberland Island in present-day Georgia as far south as Lake George in central Florida, and from the Atlantic Ocean west to the Aucilla River in the Florida Panhandle, though it reached the Gulf of Mexico at no more than a couple of points.
The Indigenous peoples of Florida lived in what is now known as Florida for more than 12,000 years before the time of first contact with Europeans. However, the indigenous Floridians living east of the Apalachicola River had largely died out by the early 18th century. Some Apalachees migrated to Louisiana, where their descendants now live; some were taken to Cuba and Mexico by the Spanish in the 18th century, and a few may have been absorbed into the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes.
San Buenaventura de Guadalquini or San Buenaventura de Boadalquivi was a Spanish mission located on St. Simon's Island, Georgia, United States from between 1597 and 1609 until 1684, when pirates burned the mission and its town. The mission moved to the north side of the St. Johns River near its mouth, in present day Duval County, Florida under the name of Santa Cruz de Guadalquini or Santa Cruz y San Buenaventura de Guadalquini for a few years before merging with the mission San Juan del Puerto.
Ocute, later known as Altamaha or La Tama and sometimes known conventionally as the Oconee province, was a Native American paramount chiefdom in the Piedmont region of the U.S. state of Georgia in the 16th and 17th centuries. Centered in the Oconee River valley, the main chiefdom of Ocute held sway over the nearby chiefdoms of Altamaha, Cofaqui, and possibly others.
Sabacola was a Native American tribal town in what is now the Southeastern United States of America during the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Usually regarded as belonging to Apalachicola Province, Sabacola had poorly understood connections to the Apalachee people. Although usually described as speaking the Hitchiti language, at least one source stated that the Sabacola spoke another, unidentified language. The town moved to several locations along the Chattahoochee River, sometimes with more than one town including Sabacola in its name at the same time. The town of Sabacola moved to the Ocmulgee River area of central Georgia for about 25 years, before returning to the Chattahoochee River. Sabacola was the only Apalachicola town to have a mission established by the Spanish. The Apalachicola towns, including Sabacola, evolved into the Lower Towns of the Muscogee Confederacy.
Apalachicola was a tribal town in the Apalachicola Province in the 17th century, located on the lower part of the Chattahoochee River in what is now Alabama and Georgia. The residents of the town spoke the Hitchiti language. The town of Apalachicola moved to the Savannah River in the early 1690s, when the other towns in Apalachicola Province moved to central Georgia, primarily to sites along the Ocmulgee River. In 1715, Apalachicola moved back to the Chattahoochee River along with the towns that had been on the Ocmulgee River, with the English then calling them "Lower Creeks", while the Spanish called them "Ochese". The town of Apalachicola continued as part of the Lower Towns through the 18th century.
The Amacanos were a native American people who lived in the vicinity of Apalachee Province in Spanish Florida during the 17th century. They are believed to have been related to, and spoken the same language as, the Chacato, Chine, Pacara and Pensacola peoples. The Amacano were served, together with other peoples, by a series of Spanish missions during the last quarter of the 17th century.
The Chine people were a group of Native American people living in Apalachee Province in Spanish Florida from the early 1670s until the end of the 17th century. They are believed to have spoken the same language as the Chatot, Amacano, Pacara, and Pensacola people, and have been described as a band of the Chatot people. They were served by a series of Spanish missions in the last quarter of the 17th century.