Surruque

Last updated
Surruque
Total population
Extinct as tribe
Regions with significant populations
Around the Mosquito Lagoon and along the Atlantic coast north from the Cape up to near Ponce de Leon Inlet, Florida
Languages
Timucua language
Religion
Native
Related ethnic groups
Ais

The Surruque people lived along the middle Atlantic coast of Florida during the 16th and 17th centuries. They may have spoken a dialect of the Timucua language, but were allied with the Ais. The Surruque became clients of the Spanish government in St. Augustine, but were not successfully brought into the Spanish mission system.

Contents

Demography

The Surruque lived around the Mosquito Lagoon (called Surruque Lagoon by the Spanish), near Cape Canaveral, and along the Atlantic coast north from the Cape up to near Ponce de Leon Inlet. The northern limit of Surruque territory was Turtle Mound, which was called "Surruque" in the early 17th century. To the north of Surruque territory was the territory of the Timucua-speaking town of Nocoroco, at the mouth of the Tomoka River. Its territory extended south of the Ponce de Leon Inlet to Caparaca, near present-day New Smyrna Beach. The northern boundary of Surruque territory was around Turtle Mound. The province of Ais was to the south of the Surruque, along the Indian River. The Mayaca and Jororo people lived to the west of the Surruque, in the St. Johns River valley. [1] [2] [3]

The language of the Surruque is unknown. While some authorities state that the Surruque probably spoke a dialect of Timucua, Hann notes that there is some evidence that the Surruque language was related to the Ais language. [4] [5] [6] [7]

History

The French, in their brief occupation of northeastern Florida around Fort Caroline, reported hearing of a place named Sorrochos or Serropé, said to be next to a large lake of the same name, which they placed in the interior of southern Florida. Swanton states that location is much too far to the south and east, and understood the "large lake" to be one of the lagoons near Cape Canaveral. The Spanish drove the French out of Florida in 1565, and established St. Augustine that year. The Spanish largely ignored the peoples of the coast south of St. Augustine, including the Surruque, for some 30 years after the city was established. In 1595 the Spanish took steps to secure control of that coast. The chief of Surruque, along with the chief of Ais, traveled to St. Augustine, and agreed to allow missionaries into their lands, to provide parties of laborers to St. Augustine, and to report any non-Spanish ships or men along the coast. [8] [9] [10]

In 1597, during a revolt in the Guale province, the Ais refused to allow Spanish ships to land. In retaliation, Timucua Indians allied with the Spanish attacked the Surruque, killing 60 and taking 54 men, women, and children back to St. Augustine as slaves. A royal order in 1600 freed all Indian slaves. The freed Surruque were settled on an island near St. Augustine. In 1599, Juan Ramirez de Contreras, who spoke Ais, was sent to teach the Surruque and Ais, but he was killed by the Surruque before he reached Ais territory. Alvaro Mexia, a Spanish soldier from St. Augustine, stayed with the Surruque Indians for 8 days in 1605, waiting for permission to continue on a diplomatic mission to the Ais. Also in 1605, the Surruque and Ais sent men to help the Spanish repel French raiders in Guale. At least one mission may have been established close to Surruque, and Spanish cattle ranches were established along the coast as far south as Surruque. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

Notes

  1. ↑ Hann 1996: 170-171
  2. ↑ Hann 2003: 61, 85, 86
  3. ↑ Milanich 1995: 84
  4. ↑ Swanton, John Reed (1952). The Indian Tribes of North America (Reprint by Genealogical Publishing Company ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian. p. 143. ISBN   978-0-8063-1730-4 . Retrieved 1 July 2012.
  5. ↑ Hann 1996: 3
  6. ↑ Hann 2003: 6
  7. ↑ Swanton 1922: 337
  8. ↑ Bushnell: 64, 65
  9. ↑ Milanich 1996: 95
  10. ↑ Swanton 1922: 322, 329, 336
  11. ↑ Bushnell: 118, 119
  12. ↑ Hann 1996: 143
  13. ↑ Hann 2003: 83
  14. ↑ Milanich 1995: 177, 211
  15. ↑ Sweet and Sheppy: 38

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Juan del Puerto, Florida</span> Spanish mission in Florida

San Juan del Puerto was a Spanish Franciscan mission founded before 1587 on Fort George Island, near the mouth of the St. Johns River in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. It was founded to serve the Saturiwa, a Timucua tribe who lived around the mouth of the St. Johns. It was organized by separating them into nine smaller villages. It has an important place in the study of the Timucua, as the place where Francisco Pareja undertook his work on the Timucua language.

Tocobaga was the name of a chiefdom, its chief, and its principal town during the 16th century. The chiefdom was centered around the northern end of Old Tampa Bay, the arm of Tampa Bay that extends between the present-day city of Tampa and northern Pinellas County. The exact location of the principal town is believed to be the archeological Safety Harbor site, which gives its name to the Safety Harbor culture, of which the Tocobaga are the most well-known group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Potano</span> Native American chiefdom in Florida, US

The Potano tribe lived in north-central Florida at the time of first European contact. Their territory included what is now Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. This territory corresponds to that of the Alachua culture, which lasted from about 700 until 1700. The Potano were among the many tribes of the Timucua people, and spoke a dialect of the Timucua language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mocama</span> Indigenous people of Florida and Georgia, US

The Mocama were a Native American people who lived in the coastal areas of what are now northern Florida and southeastern Georgia. A Timucua group, they spoke the dialect known as Mocama, the best-attested dialect of the Timucua language. Their heartland extended from about the Altamaha River in Georgia to south of the mouth of the St. John's River, covering the Sea Islands and the inland waterways, Intracoastal. and much of present-day Jacksonville. At the time of contact with Europeans, there were two major chiefdoms among the Mocama, the Saturiwa and the Tacatacuru, each of which evidently had authority over multiple villages. The Saturiwa controlled chiefdoms stretching to modern day St. Augustine, but the native peoples of these chiefdoms have been identified by Pareja as speaking Agua Salada, which may have been a distinct dialect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish missions in Florida</span> Catholic religious outposts

Beginning in the second half of the 16th century, the Kingdom of Spain established a number of missions throughout La Florida in order to convert the Native Americans to Christianity, to facilitate control of the area, and to prevent its colonization by other countries, in particular, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish missions in Georgia</span> Catholic religious outposts

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 southeastern Georgia.

Mission San Pedro de Mocama was a Spanish colonial Franciscan mission on Cumberland Island, on the coast of the present-day U.S. state of Georgia, from the late 16th century through the mid-17th century. It was built to serve the Tacatacuru, a Mocama Timucua people.

Acuera was the name of both an indigenous town and a province or region in central Florida during the 16th and 17th centuries. The indigenous people of Acuera spoke a dialect of the Timucua language. In 1539 the town first encountered Europeans when it was raided by soldiers of Hernando de Soto's expedition. French colonists also knew this town during their brief tenure (1564–1565) in northern Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timucua</span> Native American people

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saturiwa</span> Timucua chiefdom in Spanish Florida

The Saturiwa were a Timucua chiefdom centered on the mouth of the St. Johns River in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. They were the largest and best attested chiefdom of the Timucua subgroup known as the Mocama, who spoke the Mocama dialect of Timucuan and lived in the coastal areas of present-day northern Florida and southeastern Georgia. They were a prominent political force in the early days of European settlement in Florida, forging friendly relations with the French Huguenot settlers at Fort Caroline in 1564 and later becoming heavily involved in the Spanish mission system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agua Dulce people</span> Timucua tribe in Spanish Florida

The Agua Dulce or Agua Fresca (Freshwater) were a Timucua people of northeastern Florida. They lived in the St. Johns River watershed north of Lake George, and spoke a dialect of the Timucua language also known as Agua Dulce.

Tacatacuru was a Timucua chiefdom located on Cumberland Island in what is now the U.S. state of Georgia in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was one of two chiefdoms of the Timucua subgroup known as the Mocama, who spoke the Mocama dialect of Timucuan and lived in the coastal areas of southeastern Georgia and northern Florida.

The Yustaga were a Timucua people of what is now northwestern Florida during the 16th and 17th centuries. The westernmost Timucua group, they lived between the Aucilla and Suwannee Rivers in the Florida Panhandle, just east of the Apalachee people. A dominant force in regional tribal politics, they may have been organized as a loose regional chiefdom consisting of up to eight smaller local chiefdoms.

Pohoy was a chiefdom on the shores of Tampa Bay in present-day Florida in the late sixteenth century and all of the seventeenth century. Following slave-taking raids by people from the Lower Towns of the Muscogee Confederacy at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the surviving Pohoy people lived in several locations in peninsular Florida. The Pohoy disappeared from historical accounts after 1739.

Ocale was the name of a town in Florida visited by the Hernando de Soto expedition, and of a putative chiefdom of the Timucua people. The town was probably close to the Withlacoochee River at the time of de Soto's visit, and may have later been moved to the Oklawaha River.

San Buenaventura de Potano was a Spanish mission near Orange Lake in southern Alachua County or northern Marion County, Florida, located on the site where the town of Potano had been located when it was visited by Hernando de Soto in 1539. The Richardson/UF Village Site (8AL100), in southern Alachua County, has been proposed as the location of the town and mission.

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.

Arapaha was a Timucua town on the Alapaha River in the 17th century. The name was also sometimes used to designate a province or sub-province in Spanish Florida.

The La Chua ranch was the largest cattle ranch in Spanish Florida in the 17th century. Cattle ranching became an important part of the economy of Spanish Florida over the course of the 17th century. The La Chua ranch was founded in the middle of the 17th century, and by the end of that century accounted for one-third of the cattle in the colony. Raids by the English of the Province of Carolina and their native allies led to the abandonment of the La Chua ranch early in the 18th century.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.