(' Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

frontier of the Spanish mission system, including a large part of PRELUDE TO ABANDONMENT: THE present-day Georgia, has had comparatively little investigation and INTERIOR PROVINCES OF EARLY synthesis (with some notable exceptions, including a volume edited 17TH-CENTURY GEORGIA by Hudson and Tesser, in press). This is particularly true for the period following the early exploratory expeditions, when even the Spaniards possessed only limited knowledge about the interior. Nevertheless, for many aboriginal societies in Georgia, thls John E. Worth era was precisely the most important one for understanding the Fernbank Museum of Natural History transformations that in most cases led to abandonment and relocation. During the late 16th and early 17th centuries, these Indian provinces remained largely beyond the realm of consistent historical documentation, but were nonetheless subject to INTRODUCTION: INTERIOR GEORGIA AFTER DE SOTO considerable stresses as immediate neighbors of Spanish Florida. One by one, almost all of the indigenous societies of southern and The first penetration of interior Georgia by Spanish explorers eastern interior Georgia fell apan, their members either being drawn under the leadership of Hernando de Soto has in recent years been into the mission system or relocating among other groups on the the subject of scholarly research and popular attention. resulting in frontier. What had been a substantially ab01iginal social geography large part from the efforts of Charles Hudson and his students and in these areas in 1600 gave way to a broad abandoned zone by the colleagues in re-evaluating the route that the expedition took. As a third quarter of the 17th century, ushering in a new landscape for result of this ethnohistoric and archaeological research, including the emerging Creek and Cherokee tribes. efforts to provide alternatives to Hudson's route, a much clearer Excluding Georgia's coastal zone, which was the scene of pkture has emerged of the late prehistoric chiefdoms of Georgia considerable activity during the first years of Pedro Menendez's and the Southeast at the moment of first Emopean contact in the colony of La Florida, Georgia's inteiior coastal plain and piedmont 16th centw-y. Fm1hermore, the recent Columbian Quincentenary regions remained effectively untouched for more than half a century marked the culmination of many years of stepped-up research into following the initial visit of Hernando de Soto. During this time the early colonial era, and in the case of the southeastern United (1540-1600), there is good evidence for large scale migration in the States, this has manifested itself in an explosion of new information core area of the prehistoric Coosa chiefdom, leaving the ridge and regarding the Spanish colonial system, including the late 16th and valley region of northwest Georgia vacant by the turn of the century 17th-century Franciscan mission provinces of Florida and Georgia. (Smith 1987, 1989, 1992). A similar process may have taken place As a result of thls recent surge of research, investigators now have in no11heast Georgia, where 16th-century settlements along the a much better grasp of the transformations that followed and headwaters of the Savannah River seem to have been abandoned by resulted from European contact and colonization in the Southeast. the start of the 17th century (see Williams and Shapiro 1990; Much of this research has concentrated eithe r on the Anderson and Joseph 1988; Smith 1992). At the same time, the transformations experienced by aboliginal provinces of the deep central and southwest Georgia provinces of Toa and probably northern and western interior visited by the expeditions of Soto Capachequi, along the Flint River, seem to have been abandoned as (1539-43), Luna (1559-61), or Pardo (] 566-68), or on the well (W 011h l 988, 1989), and this fate may have been shared by missionized provinces of nonhern Florida and coastal Georgia the Ocmulgee River province of fchisi (Hally and Rudolph 1986; during the late 16th and early 17th centuries (e.g. Smith 1987; Smith 1992). The remnants of these chiefdoms probably relocated Blakely 1988; Hann 1988; Hudson et al. 1984; Hudson 1989: to one or more of several aggregation points that emerged during Thomas 1987, 1990; McEwan 1991; Weisman 1992; Larsen the late 16th century (see Smith 1989), including the Coosa River 1990). Partly as a consequence of this, much of the immediate of northeast Alabama, the lower Chattahoochee River, the middle

25 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

Table 1: Chronology of Interior Georgia, 1597-1661.

1597 Fray Pedro de Chozas expedition reaches Ta,na and Ocute; Talufa and Usatipa provinces also .mentioned.

1600 Governor Mendez de Canzo assembles testimony regarding the deep inteiior, including the Chozas expedition.

1602 Juan de Lara expedition reaches Tama and Ocute; testimony taken during review of the colony of Florida. Friars recount visits to interior provinces, including Oconi.

1604 Cacique of Tama meets Governor Ybana during his visitation of Guale.

1616 Fray Ore journeys north from Florida's Timucua province to mission Santa Ysabel de Utinahica, descending by the Altamaha River to the Guale province.

1624 Governor Salinas sends two small expeditions into the northern interior in search of rumored white horsemen.

1625 Adtian de Canizares expedition to Tama in search of white horsemen.

1627- Two successive expeditions under Ensign Pedro de Torres 1628 pass through Tmna on their way to Cofitachequi in South Carolina, both searching for the rumored white horsemen.

1630 Governor Rojas y Bo1ja assembles testimony about provjnces of La Flotida; Tama, Santa Ysabel, and Arapaja mentioned. Francisco Alonso de Jesus mentions Arapaja in a request for pack animals for distant missions.

1636 Mission Santa Ysabel de Utinahica contlibutes two Indians to the yearly Spanish labor draft from the Guale province.

1639 Apalachicola province first mentioned in reference to unconverted groups bordering the Apalachee mission Figure I . Social geography of early I 7th-century Georgia. Dotted province. lines indicate expanding zone of direct Spanish contact

26 27 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

Table 1 (cont.). of this late I 6th-century process. By the beginning of the 17th century, a large part of no1thern Georgia (including much of the 1645 Governor Rufz includes Apalachicola in his visitation of Fall Line zone) seems to have been largely abandoned (see Figure the western mission provinces. 1). Although there are notable exceptions (as will be discussed below), the comparative lack of early l 7th-cemury occupation in 1646 Governor Rufz sends infantry to forcibly relocate fugitive the northern Georgia interior has prompted Marvin Smith to ask, Tirnucuan Indians at the Lake of Oconi (unsuccessful). "Where are Georgia's seventeenth-century inhabitants?", desc1ibing such sites as "rare" (Smith 1992:29,84 ). Based on both 1655 Mission list includes San.ta Mar£a de Los Angeles de archaeological and documentary information, this does indeed Arapaja and Santiago de Oconi (said to be on an island). appear to be an accurate reflection of depopulation in many .regions Mission San ta Ysabel not included on list. Governor dUiing the first half-century after de Soto. Rebolledo sends Captain Juan Fernandez de Florencia to A number of ab01iginal societies survived this era, however, burn Santiago de Oconi after capturing cacique; inhabitants and persisted well into the next phase of Spanish colonization, flee. namely missionization. During this period, Spanish observers were able to provide limited but valuable documentary information 1657- In the aftermath of the 1656 Timucuan Rebellion, Governor regarding these societies and their inhabitants, giving modern 1660 Rebolledo orders northern Timucuan missions relocated archaeologists the opportunity to add new depth and dimension to southward. Arapaja towns move to mission Santa Fe along their analysfa. Table l presents a brief chronology of Spanish the Camino Real. activity in interior Georgia dming this period. Occasional visits of friars and solcliers to the northern interior began again during the 1659- Interior provinces ravaged by Chichimeco slave-raiders last decade of the 16th century from new missions on the Georgia 1663 from Virginia; many inhabitants flee to the fringes of the coast, and mission provinces were established in north Florida Spanish mission system, including Tama among the beginning just after the tum of the century (see below), but it was Yamasee. Chichimeco raiders return to Tama and Catufa not until the 1620s that a clearer picture of the more distant following the 1661 assault on Guale. provinces emerged. By the second qua1ter of the 17th century, Spanish colonists and missionaries had begun to achieve a far better understanding of the social geography of the interior. ln 1630, for Oconee River, and perhaps notthwest Florida, in the region of the example, a1 the request of Fray Frandsco Alonso de Jesus, the Apalacbee province (although archaeological evidence for tl1e latter Governor of Florida Don Luis de Rojas y Bo1ja assembled several is limited and presenUy inconclusive [see Worth 1992: 173, 185]). expe1ienced soldiers for their testimony regarding the Indians of Despite present data limitations, ir nevertheless appears quite clear present-day Florida and Georgia (Rojas y Bo1ja 1630). Among that substantial transfoanations did take place in inre1ior Georgia these men was a fifty-six year old soldier who provided a detailed even ptior to the beginning of the 17th century. All hough a vatiety geographic description of the interior provinces west of the of forces may have been involved in these earliest abandonments Georgia/South Carolina coastal provinces: and relocations, depopulation as a result of epidemic diseases ... and with these two provinces [of Quale and Santa Elena] introduced by Europeans seems LO have played a significant roJe (Smith 1987). borders that of Tama, to the west, and it is some fifty leagues Importantly, however, the fact that these earliest djstant from them, a little more or less, and this [provi11ce] of abandonments and tnrnsformations occtmed prior to later Spanish Tama, which has its location in the middle of the land, borders with that of Santa Ysavel, to the southwest, some thi11y leagues and English contact during the 17th century makes archaeology distant from Tama, and this [province) of Santa Ysavel borders virtually the only available source of evidence regarding the details

28 29 Worth interior Provinces of the 17th Century

with that of Harapaha, a land of Chlistians, to the west another thiity leagues, and all Tiat land, and from lhe lprovince] of bypas_sed by bo~h _the arm)'_ of Hernando de Soto and the early Arapaha one goes to the province of Apalachee, which is of colorual and I111ss1onary etfo11s along Georgia's barrier island pagans, fifteen leagues to the west...The province of Harapaha chai~, was not initially penetrated until the 1590s, and as such 1s some seventy leagues distant from this presidia [of St. remarned largely unknown to Spanish chroniclers until the early Augustine] to the nortbwest...(Femandez de San Agustin 1630). ) 7th c~ntury_. One of the first Spaniards to venture beyond the munedrnte fnnges of the mainland wilderness in this area was Fray A comparison of the description above with the map in Figure Francisco Pareja, who in 1602 reported an earlier visit to the "land 1 ~learly demonstrates the somewhat skewed directional perspective which is called Ocony, three days by road from the town of San of the early 17th-century Spaniards in La Florida, but the Juan, and two from the town of San Pedro" (Pareja 1602). Pareja, Fernandez testimony (along with that of other soldkrs who testified who was at that time stationed at mission San Juan del Puerto at the at the time) nevertheless provides impmtant detaj)s reoardino the mo~lb of the present day SL Johns River, indicated lhat Oconi's relative locations of major abmiginal provinces, both co~ve1ted and cac1que had requested baptism "for him and his town, and the rest unconyelted'. i~d~ding _those within the interior of present-day of the neighboring towns," suggesting at least a cluster of Georgia. Th1s rntormat10n, supplemented with data from other settlements withfo his jurisdiction. Pareja's desc1iption, along with an asso11ment of other evidence dating to the mid-17th century (see early ~ 7th-centmy documents, permits a glimpse into what were essenually the last decades of a largely indigenous aboriginal social Worlh 1992: 156, 183; and below), fixes the location of the Oconi geography for much of interior Georgia. town_ wjthin or along the eastern fringes of the present-day As will be seen below, by the late 1600s, the great majority of Oke1enokee Swamp (indeed, this geographical feature was !hese. surviving _Prehistoric societies had vanished)eaving most of subsequently known as the Laguna de Oconi, or the lake of Oconi). mten?r Geor~ia a vast abandoned zo~e between the Spanish Despite Pareja's early contact, there is no evidence to suggest colon~al frontier to the south and that oi lhe English to the north. that Oconi was missionized during the first quarter of the 17th OnJy ill the decades that followed would a new social order emerge, century. Nevertheless, the next documentary reference to tllis area brnlt out of the ruins of the prehistoric chiefdoms that once dotted provides intriguing details regarding its population, revealing that qeorgia's landscape. The early 17th century thus provides both a due to its remote and inaccessible location, Oconi had become a first and last opportunity to combine ethnohistoric and refugee settlement, inhabited by fugitives from the repartim.iento archaeological data about Indian societies that would soon give way labor draft in the interior province of Timucua (WOLth 1992: 155- to a changed world. The following overview represents only an 8). In 1646, Governor Benito Ruiz de Salazar Vallecilla sent a early step, however, for as will become apparent below, most of detachment or infantry northward to Oconi on a mission to forcibly the work remains to be done regarding this important period. relocate its inhabitants to the primary east-west mission road in Emphasis below is placed on the more recent and less well-known northern Florida: ethnohistoric and ar~haeological information relative to these early 17th-~ent~ry p1:ovrnces. Consequently, this article, used in The Indians who are aggregated at the place which is called the comb111at10n with other recent and upcoming publications lake of Oconi are fugitive Indians from the towns of the mentioned in the text, is intended principally as a review of both provinces of Timucua and other places, in order not to work, what is know_n and what can be suggested at present, and thus may through having, as they have in the said place, roots, fish, and serve as a guide for future investigations into this era in Georgia's other frnits; and so that they do not live as barbarians, they have history. been given a missionary lo live with them, and the missionary is very disc~nsolat~, hy the said place being more than twenty leagues distant from the nearest doctrina ... (Ruiz de Salazar OCONl V allecilla 1646). The interior region of the lower Atlantic Coastal Plain. 30 31 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

of the rest of the caciques. Theu he commanded Captain Juan Although the order to relocate these Indians does not seem LO have Fernandez to make the Indians come, and for this he should been caiTied out, its text is informative. The twenty-le.ague distance, burn the houses. This witness found himself present when this though possibly exaggerated, may imply that the inhabitants of happened, and afterwards the said Captain Juan Fern~dez we~t Oconi had retreated deeper into lhe swamp since Pareja's visit with some soldiers, and when he returned, he said to this (perhaps on an island). Furthermore, it is clear that by the late witness that upon bringing all the people and having a meeting in 1640s, a Franciscan mission had been esLabJished at Oconi. the said villal!e of Ocone, as the principal l village], in order to Nearly a decade later, the name for this mission was revealed convey them to this city and the village of Nombre de Dios, the to be Santiago de Oconi, and was included on the 1655 mission list greater pa11 of them fled to the forests, and most of them never for La Florida (Dfez de la Calle 1659). Although the reported again had recow-se to the village, except for some who had gone distance from St. Augustjne seems lO have been distorted since the to the village of San Pedro. This witness has done some tasks list was compiled as a visitation route (see discussion in Wonh with those who are i.n the forest, and cou1d not reduce them so 1992: 70, 77-8), lhe 1655 List places Oconi on an island on the that they might come under the bell (Alcayde de Cordoba 1660). overland route between the coastal Quale and interior Timucua provinces, consistent with its situation in the Okefenokee. Beyond describing the burning of Santiago de Oconi and the Retrospective evidence relating to a military expedition during this flight of its inhabitants, the above testin1o_ny indicate_s that, at least same period supports this conclusion, and fwthennore provides by lhe middle of the 17th century, 9con1 was cons1dere~ to be a detafls of Oconi's destruction at the hands of the controversial pa.It of the province of Mocarna, which extended at that time f~om Florida Governor Don Diego de Rebolledo. During the posthumous St. Simons Island on the north to the mouth of the St. Johns River judicial review, or residencia, one of the parlicipaling soldiers on the south (see Wo1th n.d. b). Its principal town, San Pedro de presented testimony about lhe 1655 attempt LO relocate the Mocarna was situated on the southern end of Cumberland Island, inhabitants of Oconi to the depopulated mission Nombre de Dios and as s~ch was the nearest neighbor to the remote mission of just no1th of St. Augustine: Santiago de Oconi. . The brief and incomplete documentary record regardrng ~be ... in the province of Mocarna, withdrawn from the village of province oI Oconi, spanning at its widest only 53 years fr?m first San Pedro, which is the head of the said province, between two contact to final destruction and dispersal, nevertheless provides the lakes [---J little towns [---] that the lru·gest was Santiago, in only infom1ation currently available regarding the aboriginal society which village a missionary served. The said villages are very situated in the Okefenokee Swamp area. Despite repeated smveys, remote from this city, and likewise withdrawn from the rest of th.is region has yet to produce unequivocal evidence ?f c_arly l 7rh­ the provinces. and because of Lhe village of Nornbre de Dios century occupation (Chiis Trowell, personal comr:11umcat100 199~). which is under the artillery of the fort having been depopulated, This is not particularly surplising, however, since the matenal the said Don Diego de Rebolledo tried lo reduce the said little culture of several important Timucuan-speakin~ ~roups has towns to this [village] of Nombre de Dios, which would be remained largely unexplored even in recent years. Th1s mcludes the more among the Catholics, and at hand for the service of the two societies on either side of Oconi: Lhe Timucua province of north King, for which he called the caciques. The cacique of Santjago Florida. which has only recently been more fully described as the de Ocone having come to this city as head of the rest, he smd to Suwannee Valley ru·chaeological cullure (see_ Weisman 1992; ":'Orth the Governor that they would come very willingly to settle n.d.a; and below), and Lhe middle reaches of the Mocmna province, where he commanded them, and furthermore that he lthe which has only been subjected to limited archaeological Governor] would be well-served to give them time to gather invesligations (Milanich 1971a, 1972). Perha~s in the Li_ght ~f e~en what they had sown, from which the said Governor hecame this limited histoiical evidence the Ocon.i provmce, and its pnncipal infuriated and commanded him to be taken as a plisoner to the town Santiago de Oconi, can fina!Jy be located and investigated in fo11, saying that he had to stay until they came [---] vassals, and the ground.

32 33 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

long and thick pine by which the Indians who accompanied me UTIN AI-IlCA crossed running, as someone who had lost the fear of those dangerous crossings, which 1, confessing myself first, crossed Deeper into the inte1ior Allantic Coastal Plain, yet another in the name of Our Lord, and through the sacred obedience of aboriginal society lay unknown to the Spanish colonists until the my Prelates who commended this visitation and commission to tum of the 17th century. On their return journey from the Oconee me. Having visited the convent and missionary of Santa Isabel. Valley provinces of Tama and Ocute (see below), the 1597 Chozas and having preached to the Indians and examined them in tbe expedition (including three Spaniards and thirty Guale Indians) doctrine, we descended in canoes by a river larger than the encountered a "more populous" region, and elsewhere I have Tagus [in Spain] to the towns of the language of Guale .. . (Ore suggested that this cotTesponds lo the area of the late prehistoric 1936: 122-3). Square Ground Lamar culture at and above the forks of the Altamaha River (Wo1th in press; and see Snow 1990). Al.though Based on the known locations of both Timucua and Guale this province was only mentioned in passing with relation to the provinces, Fray Ore's route must have ta.ken him through the 1597 expedition, by 1616 it becomes clear that Franciscan northern populated reaches of the Timucua province (see Arapaja missionaries had established a mission in this area, named Santa below) and around the western side of the Okefenokee Swamp (and Ysabel de Utinahica. At that time, Fray Luis Ger6nimo de Ore the Oconi province) and north to the forks of the present-day passed no1thward from the recently established missions of the Altamaha River, which he subsequently descended to arrive at Timucua province in north Florida on a visitation of La Florida that Sapelo Island, where the next visitation was held in mission San would eventually lead him to the Guale province on the Georgia Jose de Sapala (Ore 1936: 123). Interestingly, Ore's hint above that coast (Ore l 936). His route, however, crossed a despoblado, or the inhabitants of Utinahica spoke the Timucuan language presents uninhabited zone, said to be 50 leagues across, at the end of which an intriguing dilemma for archaeologists considering the apparent was the mission of Santa Isabel de Utinahica: material culture of the region (see below). Mission Santa Ysabel de Utinahica persisted for at least two Here [at Santa Cruz de Tarihica] I detem1ined to take a sh011cut decades following Fray Ore's visit. In 1630, Santa Ysabel was of very great labor, entering across a desert and uninhabited dcsc1ibed as an Indian province situated 30 leagues from Tama and zone of fif1y leagues in order to go to the convent of Santa Isabel 30 from Arapaja across level terrain (Fernandez de San Agustfn de Utinahica, where the woods were closed up with a great 1630). The last known documentary reference to this mission dates density of trees and thickets. I passed through some towns of to 1636. when Santa Ysabel conttibuted two Indian laborers to rhe pagan Indians and was received by tbem with great contentment yearly · repartimiento labor draft from the Gualc province and demonstration of the desire that they had of becoming (Horruytiner 1636), suggesting that Ulinahica was considered by Christians .....Proceeding along our road, we arrived at another Spanish authorities to be more connected to the no1thern coastal three or four linle towns of pagans, and although we lacked food mission provinces of Guale and Mocama than to the western on account of it being Advent, the Lord provided a good gift of inte1ior missions of Timucua. By the time of the 1655 mission list mushrooms that we gathered along the road in order to sustain of Juan Dfez de la Calle ( 1659), however, Santa Ysabel had ourselves with them in the hut or shelter that we made for vanished from the re.cord of active missions, although it lenL its sleeping in order to defend ourselves from great colds and name to the present-day Allamaha River for years lo come (e.g. downpours that rained down upon us, soaking and drenching Diaz de Badajoz 1630; Aranguiz y Cotes 1661). Interestingly, us, including my tunk and papers. Our Lord provided much however, a cacica (or female chief) of Ut inaj ica, named Clara, was consolation and spirit until coming forth to Santa Isabel, recorded in the official 1685 visitation of the relocated Mocama crossing the turbulent rivers tbat, on account of being deep, mission of GuadaJquini (Leturiondo 1685), suggesting that the could not be forded, nor did they have more of a bridge than a inhabitants of Santa Ysabel had relocated between 1636 and 1655

34 35 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century to the northernmost town of Mocama, San Buenaventura de combination of a Timucuan-speaking prehistoric Lamar culture. Guadalquini, at that time situated on the so~thcrn tip of ?l: Simons Fu1thermore, the probability that Utinahica eventually joined with Island. Utinahica's inhabitants., together with Guadalqu1m and the the no1thernmost Mocama mission of Guadalquini, as yet rest of the Mocama province, thus eventually retreated south to SL unexplored archaeologically, poses an interesting research question Augustine, leaving with the Spaniards during the lat~ 18th cen~ury. regarding the mate1ial culture of Guadalquini on the southern tip of What I conclude to be the probable archaeolog1cal rernams of St. Simons Island (see Wo1th n.d. b). The appearance of Lamar­ the indige nous province of Utinahica, and possibly mission Santa re.lated ceramics at other sites on that island (see Thomas 1987; Ysabel, have already been identified as the Square Ground Lamar 1993) might indeed imply a phenomenon similar to that of the culture of the Ocmulgee Big Bend region (although Lawson [ 1987] Square Ground Lamar society in the inte1ior: specifically, yet and Snow [1990] conclude that this was Tama; see below). another Timucuan-speaking Lamar society along tbe Aboriginal ceramics dating well into the late prehistoric period have linguistic/material culture boundary noted above. been documented, revealing the presence of an indigenous Lamar society extending from before the 15th century until the early 17th ARAPAJA century. Interestingly, just as would be expected bas~d on the documentary evidence for Utinahica, aboriginal occupat10n seems Although Hernando de Soto's army marched across the to effectively disappear after the first half of the 17th century. northern and western interior regions of modern Florida in 1540, Fmthcrmore, several late 16th and early 17th-century European followed by the occasional journeys of isolated French explorers trade items of probable Spanish origin have been e1~ counter~d at from Fort Caroline in the mid- l 560s and a single visit by Fray sites in this area, confirming at least some contact wILh Spanrnrds Baltasar L6pez in 1597, the penetration of the Gulf Coastal Plain by from the coast. These objects include a fragment of metal and a blue Franciscan missionaries only began in earnest with the glass bead from the Lind Landing site, a sher~. of Sp~sh ~najoUca missionization of the Potano and Timucua provinces of north from the Coffee Bluff site, and two copper trnger-nngs from the Florida after 1606 and 1608 (see W011h 1992). It was not until the Bloodroot site (Snow 1990). Any one of these sites might be 1620s, however, that missionaries crossed what is now the considered potential candidates for mission Sama Ysabel, although Georgia state line to establish missions in the interior of deep fwther work is clearly needed. southern Georgia. Beginning with the 1623 conversion of the As mentioned above, the archaeological identification of the cacique of Cotocochuni (later to be known as the Yustaga prov~ce Timucuan-speaking province of Utin~hica as Square Ground ~am~r of north Florida), the upper reaches of the Suwannee River constitutes an intiiguing anomaly, 111asmuch as other preh1stonc drainage were rnissionized in only a few years. The 1101thernmost Lamar societies in central and southern Georgia, including that of mission in this region, almost certainly situated just above the Guale on the coast, have been identified as speaking the Georgia state line east of Valdosta, was that of Santa Marfa de los Muskhogean language. Indeed, available ar~haeol.og~cal evi~ence Angeles de Arapaja, which seems to have been part of t~e most indicates that the rest of the Timucuan-speak:mg m1ss1on provinces remote cluster of aboriginal villages associated with the T1mucua of Spanish Florida, including Timucua (Johnson 1991; Weisman mission province of no11hcrn inte1ior Florida. 1992; Worth 1992, n.d.a), Potano (Milanich 1971 b\ and ce~LT~l The first documentary reference to the mission at this site dates Mocama (Milanich 1971 a, 1972) along the n01thern tnnges ol this to 1630, when Arapaja was noted to be one of several recently language area, were not part of the broader Lamar cu~ture area founded missions in need of pack horses due 10 their remoteness during the late prehlstolic period (see Williams and Shapiro 1?9~). (Jesus 1630). At the same time, several soldiers described Arapaja Since the Square Ground Lamar region is curren~y the bes.t fll ~or as a "land of Christians" situated some 30 leagues west of documentary descriptions regarding the loca~10n of Utiil~hJCa Utinahica across level temlin, and 15 leagues east of Apalachee (indeed the only known early 17th-centu1y pr?vmce on Lhe Rio. de (Fernandez de San Agustfn; L6pez 1630). Its distance from St. Santa Ysabel. or the present-day Altamaha River), archaeologists Augustine was reported to be 70 leagues in a northwesterly are confronted with the task of explaining the apparently unusual

36 37 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century soon rose in rebellion, resulting in seven murders, the cacique of direction (Fernandez de San AgusLfn 1630). Arap,tja next appeared Arapaja was one of a handful of aboriginal leaders who ultimately in Spanish records some 25 years later, when a brief surge in decided to remain loyal to the Spa.rush military, assisting later that documentation duiing the late 1650s provided a final view of fall in the tense negotiations that led to the capture, trial, and Arapaja before its relocation. The name of Lhe Arapaja mission was execuLion of virtually the entire upper echelon of aboriginal revealed in the 1655 mission list to be Santa Malia de las Angeles leadershjp in Timucua (Worth 1992). Indeed, alJ of the de Arapaja (Dfez de la Calle 1659). By that time, Arnpaja w~s one northernmost missions in Timucua sided with the Spaniards, of a number of other missions in what was at that Lime considered eventually surviving the rebellion of the more southerly missions the Timucua mission province, comprising the three aboriginal along the 01iginal western mission road. In the aftermath, Arapaja's societies of Potano, Timucua, and Yustaga (see Worth 1992). cacique was one of several elevated to more important leadership Although Arapaja seems to have been a small_ but_ la.r~ely positions within the Timucua mission province, accepting independent cluster of villages on the no1thernmost frontier ot the Governor Rebolledo's plan for the geographical restructuring of Timucua mission province, it was undoubtedly part of the broader Timucua. abotiginal society of Timucua, and thus probably h?d socio_poli~cal By the spring of 1657, when Rebolledo conducted a formal connections with the rest of the Yustaga subreg10n. This m1ght visitation of Timucua (see Hann 1986), the cacique of Arapaja, have included its nearest neighbor, Santa Cruz de Cachipile, Alonso Pastrana (either the same Pastrana noted above or his heir), postulated to have been located on the Withlacoochee River near the was listed as the titular leader of both Arapaja and Santa Fe, an Georgia-Flotida border (Wo1th 1992: 51-2, 349). important Timucuan mission to the south whose cacique had been The events of 1656 that led up to the Timucuan Rebellion imprisoned following the rebellion (Wotth 1992: 280). Subordinate resulted in a comparative wealth of documentation regarding to Arapaja were three satellite villages, including the only remaining Arapaja and its status within the Timucua province. Although th~ active Potano mission of San Francisco, and two other missions details and subtleties of the rebellion are well beyond the scope ot named San Pablo and San Juan, which may have originally been this article, several documentary references co Arap~ja are pe1tinent. satellites of Arapaja and which were at that Ume scheduled to In late April, while on a fatefu I journey lo personally deliyer relocate with Arapaja. Governor Rebolledo's inflammatory order to draft 500 Indian Although at the time of the 1657 visitation, Arapaja's cacique waniors from Timucua and Apalachee for extended military service was said to be among those willing to relocate southward, in St. Augustine, Captain Agustfn Perez de Villa Real ventured providing his original te1Titory was retained for his use, there is norlhward to Arapaja. Four years later, Perez testified: evidence that this was a forced move (Worth 1992). In 1658, Captain Martin Alcayde de Cordoba was directed to "dismantle" the From [Niayca) this witness passed to Lhe village of northern Timucua missions, including the "Indians of the villages Arapaja.... and in the said village of Arapaja, this witness made of Arapaja and its jwisdiction, which are three or four litUe villages the order that he canied known to its cacique, called Pastrana, of few people'' (Alcayde de Cordoba 1660; and see W 01th 1992: and he responded that he and his vassals would come to serve 299-300). Later evidence indicates that this plan of forced His Majesty like the rest of the caciques. Seeing that Pastrana resettlement was indeed implemented by 1660 (Worth 1992: 303). was an old man, who is now dead, and that it was not suitable Lo Although Arapaja's cacique Alonso Pastrana does not appear in put him on the road, and on account of the ministry, he [Pcr~zJ later records, the fact that the once subordinate mission of Santa Fe said he should name a person in his place who might come with rose to the preeminent leadership position in the entire Timucua his people, and although at firsL he refused, he said he w~uld mission province by the 1670s suggests that the Arapaja chiefly name a person, as he did, and he named one of the principal lineage made a successful transition within the context of the late Indians of his village (Perez de Villa Real l 660). 17th-century colonial system of Spanish Florida. Neve1theless, the remnants of Arapaja, along with the rest of Timucua, accompanied Inttiguingly, although most of the Timucua mission province the Spaniards in their depaiture from Lhe No1th American continent 39 38 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century in 1763. stark contrast to Lhe rest of the prehistoric provinces of northern Mission Santa Marfa de los Angeles de Arapaja has not yet Georgia, the societies of Tama and Ocute expetienced a substantial been identified on the ground, and our understanding of lhe I 7ch­ increase in population following the Soto expedjtion, resulting in a century archaeology of this area of the Georgia/Florida border is comparatively massive expansion of settlement along the piedmont presently limited. Fortunately, recent survey and analysis in no11h stretches of the Oconee River (Kowalewski and Hatch 1991; Smith Florida (Johnson 1991), combined with simultaneous excavations 1992:31 ). Although archaeological data are presenUy limiled, and in the hean of the early 17th-century Tirnucua mission province conclusjons as to the reasons for this demographic expansion must (Weisman 1992; W 01th n.d.a), have pennitted Lhe definition of the be considered tentative, the nature and scope of population growth late prehistoric archaeological material culture of Lhis inte1ior in the Oconee Valley seem consistent with the conclusion that Tama region. The Suwannee Valley culture (roughly corresponding to and Ocute may have served as one of the zones of aggregation that Johnson and Nelson's [1990] Indian Pond complex), extending developed during the widespread depopulation of the late 16th­ across much of the Suwannee River basin, represents a non­ century Southeast (Smith 1989). . Mississippian culture that persisted throughout the late prehisto1ic Although details of this process are not within the purview of era. It roughly co1Tesponds at least to lhe Timucua region within the this paper, present data reveal Lhat the Oconee Valley population broader Timucua mission province (Worth n.d.a; 1992: 11 -8). The increase was accompanied by significant expansion of settlement Suwannee Valley culture, or a close variant, is known to extend at into the interrive1ine uplands, far from the rich floodplafo habitats least as far as Hamilton County in the area of the lower Alapaha so favored by prehisto1ic Mississippian societies (Kowalewski and River drainage (Keith Terry. personal communication 1992), and Hatch 1991 ). Additional populations seem Lo have dispersed into thus it presently seems likely that the Arapaja society just north of small farmsteads or hamlets over a broad area, where the expansion the Georgia border was a pan of this broad culture area. Future of population seems to have peaked toward Lhe last qua1ter of the archaeological work along the Alapaha River (the name of which I 6th century. Estimates of max.imum population range into the tens represents a direct link with Arapaja) may result in the identification of thousands (Kowalewski and Hatch 1991: 10-12). Whatever the of this northernmost mission within Timucua, pennitting the cause, available evidence indicates that the provinces of Tama and exploration of what might be anticipated to be yet another late Ocute flourished demographically following the expedition of prehistotic site cluster within the Suwannee VaUey culture area (see Hernando de Soto, reaching a summil toward the turn of the Johnson 1991; Worth n.d.a). The terminal occupation dale of century. IL is no surprise, therefore, that the first small Spanish Arapaja can be fixed with some certainty at ca. 1658, making the expedition from St. Augustine into the deep noithern interior was mission's archaeological remains of potential value in the directly to Tama and Ocute. refinement of chronologies. Between 1597 and 1628, perhaps five small Spanish military expeditions actually visited the province of Ta.ma, possibly still TAMNOCUTE centered at the Shinholser site at the Fall Line. I have discussed the details of these expeditions elsewhere (Worth in press), but it is The famed provinces of Tanrn ( or Altamaha) and Ocute, firsL instructive to review some of the more pertinent ethnohistoric visited by the expedition of Hernando de Soto in the spring of 1540 information that resulted from the accounts of these journeys. The (Hudson, Smith, and DePratter 1984), were not re-visited by first two expeditions, led by Fray Pedro de Chozas in 1597 and Spanish explorers for well over half a century. During this Lime, Juan de Lara in 1602, were sent in comparatively rapid succession, what is known by modem archaeologists as the Oc(mee province (a and both within the term of Governor Gonzalo Mendez de Canzo name derived from the I 8th-century name of the dver as (Salas 1600; Escobedo n.d.; Lara 1602; Mendez de Canzo 1602). distinguished from the province of Oconi in southeastern Georgia) Each of l.hese early expeditions seem to have visiLed both Tan1a and experienced apparently dramatic transformations, many of which Ocute, which still seem 10 have been politically linked, though are cnn-ently being revealed by archaeological investigation. In under the overall leadership of the cacique of Tama (Lara 1602). In

40 41 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century a poem based on Chozas' exploits'. Fray ~scob~do (n.d.) listed. a another chief suggests that the decision was influenced by other total of four "kingdoms," or provinces, including two others 1n aboriginal leaders. Despite Chozas' early failure. Tama was visited addition to Tama'"' and Ocute (apparenUy named "Quaque" by on several subsequent occasions, and was for many years Chozas): considered a prime candidate for missionization and even colonization. In another kingdom, that had as its nan~e Quaq~e, which is farther on from Tama, and in Talufa, o! very high renown, Documentary evidence for the locations of Tama and Ocute at the beginning of the 17th cenLury appears to indicate that the B?ll Chozas the Franciscan calls to all, and in Usatipa he preached phase occupation of the Oconee ~iver Valley can ~e equate~ w!th like a man who inflames the soul to serve the Lord, in such a these two provinces, providing evidence for occupauona1 contmmty manner that the great Chozas to whom I refer converted three between 1540 and 1597 (Smith 1987, 1992; Worth in press; but kingdoms, except the first (Escobedo n.d.). see also Lawson 1987). Although 1 have discussed this evidence in detail elsewhere (Worth in press), it is instructive to note that while Of the two additional provinces noted by Escobedo, at le_ast one both Gaspar de Salas and Governor Mendez later estimated the (TaJufa) seems to have been a tributary of Ocute ~unng ~he distance from St. Augustine to Tama as only 50 leagues (Salas Hernando de Soto expedition, referred to then as Patola. Usaupa 1600· Mendez de Canzo 1602), the fact that their journey from may also have been a subordinate Oconee Va1~er cacique in 1597. Gual~ took some eight days (Salas 1600) provides confirmation of Interestingly, both of these early exped1t10ns ~ere f~rced_ to Juan de Lara's later estimate of 60-70 leagues inland from Guale tum back, heeding warnings of hostility deeper m the mtenor (Lara 1602). Archaeological evidence for these early expeditions to (allhough as will be seen below Gaspar de ~alas was made awa~e Tama and Ocute is sparse but nonetheless telling. Chozas is known of populations just over four days away from O~~re). Ocute s to have brought many items with him into the in!erior, includi!1g cacique warned the members of the Cbozas exped1t1on not Lo go knives, fish-books, scissors, sickles, axes, and chisels, along with forward, for the Spaniards would surely be killed as bad been done "very fine beads of glass" (Escobedo n.d.). Some of t~ese may in Soto's time (Salas 1600). Escobedo (n.d.) also noted that after well have been recovered by modern archaeolog1sts, for converting the previously mentioned provinces, Cbozas "could not contemporaneous aboriginal sites in both Tama and Ocute have preach in another land, because ~ts kings, [~n account] of others produced a handful of late 1 ~th/early 17th-century glass beads, offended made crude war against them. It therefore seems alonQ with occasional peach plts, glass, iron fragments, and even probable' that other aboriginal groups farther into the northern shercfa of Spanish majolica (Williams 1990; Kowalewski and Hatch intedor were hostile toward Spaniards by the end of the 16th 1991 · Smith 1992). Of course, some of these items may have made century, and that Tama and Ocute (along with thei_r tri~utaties) were their' way into Lhe interior ~s a re~ult of indirect trade ':Vit_h the perhaps the most distant provinces that. marnL~ined at _least comparatively amicable relations with Sparush Flonda early m the Atlantic coastal mission provmces o1 Guale and Mocama, s1m1lar Lo the largely undocumented 17th-century flow of Spanish goods into 17th century. the northern interior provinces of the Gulf watershed from the Nevertheless, there are indications that in 1597 Tama's cacique Apalachee and Timucua mission provinces (Waselkov 1989; and was unable to take a firm stand in favor of Chozas and the sec below). Nevertheless, at least a portion of the Spanish items Spaniards. possibly due to political pressure exerted by ot~er recovered from the Oconee Valley were probably a direct result of factions under his control (see Worth in press). Although agreemg the expeditions of Chozas, Lara, and others noted below. . to conve11 to Christianity on Chozas' initial visit, the cacique Tama was visited again at least once, and probably three tlllles, renounced bis decision upon the Spaniards' return journey, and during the mid-I 620s, when Governor Rojas y Borja followed his nearly succeeded in having Lhe friar scalped bef?re the paity'~ has~y predecessor Juan de Salinas in dispatching several fruitle~s return to the coast (Escobedo n.d.). The specific reasons for this searches of the interior for rnmored white horsemen (see Worth m chan1rn of heait ai·e less than cleai·, but the fact that the scalp was to press). In 1625, Ensign Adrian de Canizares y Osorio traversed the be awai·ded to the winner of a contest between Tama's cacique and

42 43 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

indeed Lhe next documenlary reference to the province dates more "more than one hundred leagues" between SL Augustine and Tama, th~n. 30 yeai·~ later, and relates lo Lhe final years of Tama in its "with much risk to his life by all that province of Indians being ongmal loca.uon .. Follow~ng the ~stablishment of trading relations pagans and very bellicose warliors, and enduring many hardships ?et ween the 1mm1grant R1ckahecnan Indians and Virginia colonists by walking on foot out and back with weapons shouldered'' ~n the la~e 1650s (_Swanton 1922; Crane 1956), a new era dawned (Canizares y Osot:io L635). The failure of Cafuzarcs to discover Lhe rn the h1story of mterior Georgia. As I have detailed elsewhere source of these rumors prompted even more ambitious expeditions, (Worth n.~. b), _the yeai· 1659 witnessed the anival of these and two years Later Lhe first of two major expeditions under Ensign ~ortherl?-_r~~er~ in the deep in~erior Southeast, wielding firearms Pedro de Torres may have passed through Tama as a stepping stone from Vugrnia m search of Indian slaves. By 1661, these Indians on its way to the n01thern province of Cofitachequi, of Soto and came ~o be known by Spanish authorities as Lhe Chichimecos Pardo fame (Worth in press). Like the last Spaniards who crossed (ref~ITmg to. a n?madic grnup on the northern frontier of New the vast and uninhabiled Savannah River Valley between Tama and S~arn), at which time a fleet of war canoes descended the Altamaha Cofitachequi, Torres's patty nearly starved before being discovered ru.ve~ to mount a dir~ct assault on the missions of Guale. Although by the Indians of Cotltachequi, who refused them entry due to m1ss10n S~to Domingo de Talaje at the mouth of the river was "wars that they were having with other nations" (Arglielles et al. dcstroye? m .the attack, the Chichimeco slave-raiders were repulsed 1678). The second Totres expedition of 1628, finally succeeding in by Spamsh mfantry, and retreated back into the interior "to the reaching Cofitachequi, may also have used Tama as a conduit, prov10c~s _of Tama and Catufa" (Aranguiz y Cotes 1661). although the province was not mentioned in Governor Rojas's . _This is ~e last kn?wn reference to the province of Tama in its account (Rojas y Borja 1628). 0~1grnal locatmn deep m the 9eorgia interior. The name of Catufa, As in the 1597 and 1602 expedjtions, the accounts dating to proba?~Y the Patofa of Soto s era and the Talufa of the Chozas the 1620s suggest that Tama was not a province at peace with its expedit.Ion, apparently vanishe~ after this time. Within two years, at neighbors. The sense of hostility expressed in Cafiizares's account l_eas.c some of the remna~us of the Oconee Valley provinces had is complemented by lhe fact that regular communication and travel reg1ouped along the fnnges of the Spanish mission system, does not seem to have been maintained bet ween Cofitacbequi and becommg pan of a w~up ~own by that time as Yamasees (Wo1th Tama, since when Spaniards finally crossed this buffer zone they n.d. b). At first remammg m I.he unconve1ted Escamacu province of were at first refused access. Unlike the earlier accounts, however, coastal ~outh Carolina, Lhe Yamasees eventually fled further the secondary province of Ocute does not appear in the later depredauons and settled within ~he mission provinces, where by documents, suggesting that its power may have waned dming the 1675 the name of Tama was listed among the towns in both first quaiter of the 17th century. Archaeological evidence seems to Mocam~ and Apalachee (see Worth n.d. band Hann 1988). When back this up with an apparent drop in population following the tum the cac1que Altamaha accompanied other Yamasees in a mass of the L7th centmy in the region identified as Ocute (Kowalewski remov~ from Mocama and Guale after pirate raids in 1683, settling and Hatch 1991 ). The lack of comparable evidence from the Fall­ on an 1s~and o~ the lower South Cm·olina coast, Tama then became Line zone around and below the contemporaneous Bell phase ~n Englis~-alhed Yamasee town, sponsoring its own slave-raids occupation (more than three hectares in area) at the Shinholser site ~nto Spanish territory after 1685 (Worth n.d. b). Pushed fmther (Tama) makes it presently impossible to gauge population mland by Spanish reprisals in 1686, Tama became one of the u·ajectories in this more southerly province (see Kowalewski and better-known Y amasee towns in South Carolina, the site of which Hatch 1991; Williams 1990). has recent~y been subjected t~ archaeological investigation (Green In 1630, following the last of the Spanish military 1991 ). Ultunately, however, hke other Yamasee towns involved in reconnaissance expeditions to Tama, St. Augustine's veteran the r~volt ?f 17 l ~, the remnants of Tama once again joined the soldiers desclibed Tama as being 50 leagues from the coast "in the S~anish-allie~ Indians around St. Augustine, retreating to the south middle of the land" (Fernandez de San Aguslfn 1630). No clear with the Spanish in 1763. evidence exists for any subsequent Spanish entradas to Tama, and

44 45 Worth Interior Provinces of the l 7U1 Century

AP ALA CHICO LA open for the Apalachicola province unt.il much later in the 17th century (and long afler the period of principal interest here), when The deep interior province of Apalachicola, situated along the the lower Chattahoochee Valley emerged as Lhe aggregation site of Lower Chattahoochee River in western Georgia, first appears in the future Lower Creek tribe. Nevertheless, archaeological data Sparush colonial documentation onJy following the 1633 reveal an effectively continuous occupational sequence extending establishment of the Apalachee mission province of northwest deep into prehistory (see Knight and Mistovich 1984; Williams and Florida, at the western end of Lhe east-west mission road from St. Shapiro 1990). The late prehistoric Stewart phase is followed by Augustine. The prehistoric Indian chiefdoms known by the early histodc period Abercrombie phase (A.D. 1550-1625), and archaeologists to have been situated along the Chattahoochee Valley subsequently by the Blackmon phase (A.D. 1625-1715), both of were, curiously, totally circumvented by Soto's army in I 540, which fall within the period of interest here, and both of which leaving Spaniards apparently unaware of this region·s populaLion have produced archaeological evidence of Spanish trade. What is for more than a century afterward. In 1639, Governor Damian de perhaps most important is the fact that archaeological and Vega. Castro, y Pardo made reference to having mediated a conflict documentary information confirms a largely unbroken sequence of between the Apalachee province and three others, including abotiginal occupation along che Lower Chattahoochee River from Apalachicola (Vega, Castro, y Pardo 1639). Sho11ly thereafter. as the late prehistolic period until Lhe last decade of the 17th century the missionization of Apalachee accelerated, the province of (when many of these towns fled Spanish influence to settle btiefly Apalachicola seems to have been the focus of an increasingly amongst Carolina traders on the middle Ocmulgee River in central important illicit trade network extending deep into the northern Georgia). interior. In 1645, new ly installed Governor Ruiz conducted Lhe first The reasons for the persistence of Apalachicola seem Lo be fom1al visitation of the western mission provinces, includinu related once again to this area's status as an aggregation point Apalachee and Timucua (Hann 1988; Worth 1992). During that during the devastation of the early historic petiod (Smilh 1989; and trip, the Governor also made his way north into the Apalachicola above). Perhaps partly as a consequence of its relative isolation province, establishing trading contacts that were to persist for from Spanjsh missionaries and colonists until well into Lhe 17th decades (Hann 1988: 16, 140, 183). century, and its perceived value for both Spanish and later English Although quite poorly documcmed dming its early yea.rs, the trading activities, Apalachicola ultimately became a haven for northern trade with Apalachicola seems to have flourished during refugee groups fleeing from the north and east, potentially the late 1640s and 1650s, for by the time of the 1657 visitation of experiencing effects of immigration similar to that already Apalachee and Timucua, the burgeoning trade was already a source demonstrated for the Oconee Valley province. Ultimately, however, of strife between soldiers and missionaries in the mission provinces Apalachicola (unlike Tama and Ocute) survived the arrival of the (see Hann L986) . Interestingly, the extent and scope of such u-adc Chichimecos, remaining by the last quarter of the 17th century as a is perhaps best known from recently synthesized archaeologicaJ last bastion of aboriginal occupation in the Georgia interior. data (Waselk.ov 1989). The distribution of mid- to late-17th century Principally for this reason, a substantial amount of ethnohistoric European trade goods, including sheet brass ornaments such as detail regarding Apalachicola is available for the late 17th and disk gorgets, collars, arm bands, and animal effigies. along with particularly the 18th century, permitting a more thorough Spanish iron hoes, argues for Lhe existence of a "sustained. small­ examination of this society than will ever be possible for those scale trade to the inte1ior Southeast," extending far beyond the provinces abandoned before the 1660s. Apalachicola province of the lower Chattahoochee River, and into eastern Alabama and Tennessee. This trade would ultimately UNDOCUMENTED PROVINCES become an imponant feature of European/Indian interaction with the ab01iginal inhabitants of the Apalachicola province. Figure 2 summarizes graphically the times for which there is The window of ethnohistoric documentation does not fully

46 47 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

documentary evidence from the 17th century for the five interior Georgia provinces just discussed. Archaeologists have fow1d evidence for aboriginal occupaLion in early 17th-century Georgia that is as yet unidentified in the Spanish documents. This does not mean that the names of these towns or societies do not appear in Spanish colonial records, but simply that an association has yet to . be clearly established between Lhe inhabitants of certain geographic locations in Georgia and named aboriginal groups in the documents. Such identifications may well be possible in the fut me, paiticuhu"ly given a more complete archaeological and docwnentary . • data base. Nevertheless, at the present time there are several • archaeological sites in Georgia which, although they show • relalively unambiguous evidence for occupation during the early • 17th century, remain unidentifitd by modern scholars . One of these areas is the Dog River Valley, along the middle to upper reaches of the Chattahoochee River drainage in the piedmont. . Here, four isolated aboriginal suuctures of the late Lamar cultme have recently been excavated, revealing evidence oJ comparatively sho11-term occupation apparenLly beginning after the 1540 Soto expedition (Poplin 1990). Radiocarbon dates between A.D. 1552 . and 1645, and a single glass bead dating to the late 16th or early 17th century, indicate that this area was probably inhabited to at least a limited extent during the pe1iod of interest here. There is some hint from the 1597 Chozas expedition of populations even V'i deeper into the interior than Ocute (see above; and WOLth in press). r­ c= . -(.J ir. u The soldier accompanying Fray Chozas later recounted that the - I inhabitants of Ocute described a mountain "very high, shining .c when the sun set like a fire" which was four days travel from r- (,I C': - I Ocute, and that on the other side of this mountain lived a "shorl­ -0 C': -(.J haired" people, and there were signs or cut pines (Salas 1600). c,: = .c-~ ..._0 :.., This might possibly have been a reference to Stone Mountain, "' c,: c --c,: c. c,: - placing the location of these other people in the general vicinity of e C': E :: ,,...r..; - I,. e,: c.. the Chattahoochee River drainage, and thus perhaps even ._, < i- < associated with the Dog River occupation noted above. - The geographical proximity of the Dog River drainage to the Vandiver Mound, a largely unexplored Lamar site farther upstream (Hally and Rudolph 1986), might suggest the existence of a small late prehistoric chiefdom in the middle piedmont Chattahoochee Valley. However, the short-term nature of this occupation during the devastating years following first Spanish contact, combined with the fact that three of the Dog River structures were burned

48 49 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

record. prior to abandonment (apparently a sudden, caLastrophic cvcnl in one case), might be jnterpreted as indirect results of the POSTSCRIPT: INTERIOR GEORGIA AFTER 1659 disintegration of chjefdoms Ln other areas of north Georgia (Poplin 1990). The families living along the Dog River might have been the Very soon after the arrival of Chichimeco slave-raiders from kind of refugees that seem to have been relocaling across much of Virginia some time during the fall of 1659, much of interior the Southeastern interior during the century after Hernando de Georgia was effectively transformed inLo a "no-man's land". With Soto. Had the burned structure at 90039 been in use as late as the the rapid dispersal of the remnants of Tama toward the fdnges of 1650s, its sudden destruction might even have been the a result of the Spanish mission provinces, inteiior Georgia became a vast the Chichimeco slave raids known lo have ravaged the Georgia buffer between the musket-bearing Chichirnecos on the Savannah interior in that period (Wo11h n.d. b). River and the established mission provinces along the southeastern Farther north in the Chattahoochee River drainage, the Georgia coastline (including the remnants of Guale, Mocama, and Nacoochee site has also produced limited evidence of early to mid their Yamasee immigrants) and the interior of northern Florida 17th-century occupation, in the form of two human burials with (Timucua and Apalachee). Only Lhe western province of glass beads and sheet brass ornaments (Waselkov 1989; Smith Apalachicola seems to have survived in situ, almost certainly due 1992). Whether or not these interments reflect Lhe existence of a lo a combination of its status as a refugee aggregation point and its larger society at that time, or are simply the result of brief and relative remoteness from the immediate depredations of the isolated inhabitation, is unknown. Nevertheless, these two areas in Chichimecos. Nevertheless, soon after the foundation of Charles the Chattahoochee Valley provide evidence for at least some early Town in 1670, the Chichimecos, or Westos (as they were known 17th-century abotiginal occupation of unknown identity. by the Carolinans) became an even greater Lhreat, with a ready As noted by Smith ( 1992: 32), apa1t from these areas noted supply of guns, powder, and shot and an equally ready market for above, aboriginal ceramic data suggest that other areas of 17th Indian slaves. Although the Westos were ultimately to fall victim to century occupation may yet he identified in Georgia, including their own aggressiveness, and were destroyed by the Carolinans along the middle Ocmulgee and nliddle Chattahoochee Rivers. themselves in 168 l, Indian slave-raiding only increased toward the Furthermore, the fact that parts of the eastern Tennessee River end of the century (see Crane 1956; Covington 1967). Bet ween drainage to the n01th was occupied at this time (see Waselkov 1661 and 1684, the few remaining coastal Guale and Mocarna 1989) might imply the possibility of some overlapping early 17th­ missions retreated southward in the face of repeated Indian-raids cent11ry occupation in the no1thern reaches of Georgia's Blue Ridge from the interior and pirate-attacks from the coast, leaving even region. Nevertheless, until further analysis is available, the Georgia's coastal zone abandoned after 1685 (see Wo1th n.d. b). existence and scale of such occupation remains unclear. It is When the English-Spanish tenitorial struggle shifted to the deep worthwhile to recall, however, that some of the elhnohistoric western and northern interior during the closing years of the 17th evidence presented above fixes the locations of comparatively well­ century, the long-lived Apalachicola province emerged as a m_ajor docurnented early 17th-century aboriginal provinces in areas where player in European politics, playing a pivotal role i!l the ti~al sufficient archaeological evidence to confitm or deny these destmction of Lhe western mission provinces of Spamsh Flonda suggested locations is largely or totally Lacking (i.e. Oconi and after 1704 (Crane 1956; Hann 1988). Arapaja). Consequently, the list of provinces described above and It was in thls context that what came to be known as the Lower mapped in Figure l should by no means limit search for other Creek and Cherokee societies crystallized toward the turn of the contemporaneous sites in Georgia. Indeed, if there is one lesson to 18th century, paving the way for a new era in the history in the be learned from the dynamics of Lhe early historic period it is that Indian occupation of Georgia. Most of the last vestiges of the aboiiginal occupation was remarkably flexible and mobile, adapting prehistoric chiefdoms had been swept away under the stre_sses of to changing circumstances with bewildering rapidity, ~nd European colonization, and the new tribes and confedera~1es that undoubtedly resulting in a less than straightforward archaeolog1cal emerged and flourished during the next century would m many

50 51 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century cases become the success-stories of the colonial era, surviving even XV/fl. ed. by M. Se1Tano y Sanz, pp. 131 -3 . Madrid, 1912. to the present day. Out of the multi-ethnic mix of refugees in the ol

Archival Sources Jesus, Francisco Alonso de 1630 [letter lo the King, March 2] AGI SD 235. Alcayde de Cordoba, Martfn 1660 [Testimony, May 2J. In the notebook of secret testimony to Lara, Juan de the residencia of Governor Don Diego de Rebolledo, Archivo 1602 [Testimony, September] AGI SD 2533. General de lndias [AGI], Comadwia 964. Leturiondo, Domingo de Aranguiz y Cotes, Don Alonso de 1685 [Record of the visitation of Guale and Mocama, December) 1661 [Letter to the King, November 15] AGI Contadu1ia 965. AGI SD 2584. Translation in W011h (n.d. b).

1662 [Letter to the King, September 8] AGI Santo Dorning 225. L6pez, Diego 1630 [Testimony, April 3]. In Rojas y Borja (1630). Arguelles, Antonio de, Francisco Gonzc'ilez de Villa Garcia, Francisco Garcfa de la Vera, Nicolas Estevez de Carmcnatis, Mendez de Canzo. Gonzalo Salvador de Cigan-oa, Francisco de la Rocha, and Juan Sc'inchez de 1602 [Letter to the King, September 22] AGl SD 224. Urisa 1678 [Testimony regarding the service of Juan Bautista Terraza, Ore, Luis Ger6nimo de October 20] AGI SD 234. 1936 Relacion. Hisr6rica de la Florida, escrita en el siglo XVII, ed. by A L6pez. Madrid. Canizares y Osorio, Adric'in de 1635 [Petition to the King] AGI SD 233. Pareja, Francisco 1602 [Declaration, September 14] AGT SD 235. Dfaz de Badajoz 1630 [Testimony, Apti]] In Rojas y Bo1ja (1630). Perez de Villa Real, Agustin 1660 [Declaration, Aptil 301 In the notebook of secret testimony Dfez de la Calle, Juan to the residencia of Governor Don Diego de Rebolledo, AGI 1659 Noticias sacras y reales de los dos imperios de las Yndias Contadurfa 964. Occidentales desta Nueva Espana. Selection transcribed in Documentos hist6ricos de la Florida y la luisiana, siglos XVI al

52 53 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

Rojas y Borja, Don Luis de 1628 [Letter to the King, September 22J AGI SD 224. of South Carolina, Columbia.

1630 [Investigation regarding the petition of Fray Francisco Hally, David J ., and James L. Rudolph . . 1986 Mississippi Period Archaeology of the Georgia PLedmont. Alonso de Jesus, Aplil] Transcribed for the rcsidencia of Governor B enito Ruiz de Salazar Vallecilla, October 17, 1657. AGl Laboratory of Archaeology Series, Report No. 24. Department of Escribanfa de Camara l 55b. Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens.

Ruiz de Salazar Vallecilla, Benito Hann, John H. 1986 Translation of Governor Rebolledo' s 1657 Visitation of 1646 [Order to Ensign Antonio de Arguelles, January 27] AGI SD 23. Three Florida Provinces and Related Documents. Florida Archaeology 2: 85-145. Salas, Gaspar de 1988 Apalachee: The lcznd between the Rivers. University of 1600 [Testimony, February 4) AGI SD 224. Florida Press, Gainesville. Vega, Castro, y Pardo, Damian de Hudson, Charles 1639 [Letter to the King, Ap1il 8) AGJ SD 225. 1989 The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolinas Other Sources and Tennessee, 1566-1568. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington. Anderson, David G., and J. Joseph Hudson, Charles, Marvin T. Smith, and Chester B. DePrat.ter I 988 Prehist01y and Histo,y along the Upper Savannah River: 1984 The Hernando de Soto Expedjtion: from Apalachee to Technical Synthesis of Cultural Resource Investigations, Rich~Lrd Chiaha. Southeastern Archaeology 3( 1): 65-77. B. Russell Multiple Resource Area. Interagency Archaeolog1cal Services, National Park Service, AUanta. Hudson Charles, and Carmen Chaves Tesscr Blakely, Robe1t (editor) in pre;s The Forgotten Centuries: ~urop_eans and bzdi~ms in the American South, 1513-1704. Un1vers1ty of Georgia Press, 1988 The King Site: Continuity and Contact in Sixteenth­ Athens. Centwy Georgia. University of Georgia Press, Athens. Johnson, Kenneth W. . Covington, James J 991 The Utina and Potano Peoples of Northern Florida: 1967 Some Observations Concerning the Floiida-Carolina Indian Slave Trade. Florida Anthropologist 20: 10-18. Changing Settlement Systems in the Spanish Colonial Period. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Crane, Verner W. University of Florida, Gainesville. 1956 The Southern Frontier, 1670-1732. Unjversily of Johnson, Kenneth W., and Bmce C. Nelson Michigan Press. Ann Arbor. 1990 The Utina: Sedations and Chronology. Florida Green, William Anthropologist 43(1 ): 48-62. 1991 The Search for Altamaha: The Archaeology and Knight, Vernon James, Jr., and Tim S. Mistovi~h Ethnohisto,y of an Early l 8tlz-Centu,y Yamasee Indian_ Tow_n. 1984 Walter F. George Lake: Archaeological Survey of Fee Unpublished MA Thesis, Depa11ment of Anthropology, Umvcrs1ty

54 55 Worth Interior Provinces of the 17th Century

Ow~1.ed Lands, Alabama_ and Georgia. Repo11 oflnvestigaLions 42. Smith, Marvin T. Office of Archaeological Research, University of Alabama, 1987 Archaeology of Aboriginal Culture Change in. the Interior Tuscaloosa. Soi~thea_st: Depopulation during the Early Historic Period. Umvers1ty of Flonda Press, Gainesville. Kowalewski, Stephen A., and James W. Hatch 1991 The Sixteenth-Century Expansion of Settlement in the 1~89 Ab~riginal Population Movements in the Early Historic Upper Oconee Watershed, Geornia. Southeastern Archaeology Penod lntenor Southeast. In Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the 10(1 ): 1-17. ~ ' Colonial Southeast, edited by P.H. Wood, G.A. Waselkov, and M.T. Hatley, pp. 21-34. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Larsen, Clark Spencer (editor) 1990 The Archaeology of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale 2: 1992 Historic Period Indian Archaeology of Northern Georgia. Biocultural Inteqnetations of a Population in Transition. Laboralory of Archaeology Series, Report No. 30. Department of Anthropological Papers 68. American Museum of Natural History, Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens. New York. · Snow, Frankie Lawson, Samuel J. , Ill ~9~0. P_ine Ba.rrens Lamar. ln Lamar Archaeology: 1987 La Tama de la Tiena Adentro (The Tama of the Interior). M1:S~Lss1ppwn Chief1oms in the Deep South, edited by M. Early Georgia 15:1-18. Williams and G. Shapiro, pp. 82-93. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. McEwan, Bonnie (editor) 1991 Special Issue: The Missions of Spanish Florida. Florida Swanton, John R. Anthropologist 44(2-4). 1922 Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors. Bur~au of AT?erican Ethnology Bulletin 73. Government Printing Milanich, Jerald T. Office, Washmgton. Reprint, Johnson Reprinl Corporation, 1970. 197 la Surface Information from the Presumed Site of the San Pedro de Mocamo Mission. Papers of the Conference on Historic Thomas, David Hurst Sites Archaeology 5: 114-21. 1987 The Archaeology of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale J: Search and Discovery. Anthropological Papers 63(2). American 197~b _The Alachua Tradition of North-Central Florida. Museum of Natw·al History, New York. Contnbut10ns, Anthropology and History, No. 17. Florida Stale Museum, Gainesville. 1990 Columbian Consequences: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East. Smithsonian 1972 Tacatacuru and Lhe San Pedro de Mocamo Mission. Institution Press, Washington. Florida Historical Qua.rterly 50(3): 283-91. 1993 Historic Period Indian Arclweology of the Georgia Coastal Poplin, Eric C. Zone. Labo1:atory of Archaeology Series, Report No. 31. 1990 Prehistoric Settlement in the Dog River Valley: Deparnnent of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens. Arclweological Data Recove,y at 9D034, 9D039, and 9D045, Douglas . County, Georgia. Draft report prepared for the Waselkov, Gregory Douglasv1lle-Douglas Counly Water and Sewer Authority. 1989 Seventeenth-Century Trade in the Colonial Southeast. Brockington and Associates, Allanta. Southeastern Arclweology 8(2): 117-33.

56 57 Worth

Weisman, Brent R. 1992 Excavations on the Franciscan. Fro111ier: Archaeology of the Fig Springs Mission. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.

Williams, Mark 1990 Archaeological Excavations at Slzinholser (9Bll), 1985 + 1987. LAMAR Instilure, Watkinsville, GA. Williams, Mark, and Gary Shapiro 1990 Larnar Archaeology: Mississippian. Chiefdoms in the Deep South. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Worth, John E. 1988a Mississippian Occupation. on the Middle Flint River. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens. 1989 Mississippian Mound Centers along Chickasawhatchee Swamp. IAMAR Briefs 13.

1992 The Tim.ucuan Missions of Spanish Florida and the Rebellion. of 1656. Unpublished Ph.D. dissenation, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville.

in press Late Spanish Military Expeditions in the Interior Southeast, 1597-1628. In The Forgotten Centuries: Eu rope ans and Indians in the American South, 1513-1704, ed. by Charles Hudson and Crumen Chaves Tesser. University of Georgia Press, Athens.

n.d. a Prehistory in the Timucua Mission Province: Archaeological Investigations at lchetucknee Springs State Park, 1990. Manuscript in possession of the author.

n.d. b The Struggle for the Georgia Coast: An Eighteenth­ Century Spanish Retrospective on Guale and Mocama. Manuscript in possession of the author.

58