This first volume of John Worth’s substantial two-volume work studies the assimilation and eventual destruction of the indigenous Timucuan societies of interior Spanish Florida near St. Augustine, shedding new light on the nature and function of La Florida’s entire mission system. Beginning in this volume with analysis of the late prehistoric chiefdoms, Worth traces the effects of European exploration and colonization in the late 1500s and describes the expansion of the mission frontier before 1630. As a framework for understanding the Timucuan rebellion of 1654 and its pacification, he explores the internal political and economic structure of the colonial system. In volume 2, he shows that after the geographic and political restructuring of the Timucua mission province, the interior of Florida became a populated chain of way-stations along the royal road between St. Augustine and the Apalachee province. Finally, he describes rampant demographic collapse in the missions, followed by English-sponsored raids, setting a stage for their final years in Florida during the mid-1700s. The culmination of nearly a decade of original research, these books incorporate many previously unknown or little-used Spanish documentary sources. As an analysis of both the Timucuan chiefdoms and their integration into the colonial system, they offer important discussion of the colonial experience for indigenous groups across the nation and the rest of the Americas. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

This first volume of John Worth's substantial two-volume work studies the assimilation and eventual destruction of the indigenous Timucuan societies of interior Spanish Florida near St. Augustine, shedding new light on the nature and function of La Florida's entire mission system. Beginning in this volume with analysis of the late prehistoric chiefdoms, Worth traces the effects of European exploration and colonization in the late 1500s and describes the expansion of the mission frontier before 1630. As a framework for understanding the Timucuan rebellion of 1654 and its pacification, he explores the internal political and economic structure of the colonial system. In volume 2, he shows that after the geographic and political restructuring of the Timucua mission province, the interior of Florida became a populated chain of way-stations along the royal road between St. Augustine and the Apalachee province. Finally, he describes rampant demographic collapse in the missions, followed by English-sponsored raids, setting a stage for their final years in Florida during the mid-1700s. The culmination of nearly a decade of original research, these books incorporate many previously unknown or little-used Spanish documentary sources. As an analysis of both the Timucuan chiefdoms and their integration into the colonial system, they offer important discussion of the colonial experience for indigenous groups across the nation and the rest of the Americas. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series

The second half of a two-volume work incorporating archaeological and historical investigation, and studying the assimilation and eventual destruction of the indigenous Timucuan societies of interior Spanish Florida near St Augustine.

"Gives voice to a period in U.S. history that remains virtually unknown, even to specialists in the field."--J. Michael Francis, coauthor of Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida "With these transcriptions and translations, Worth provides an important service to ethnohistorians, archaeologists, and others who share an interest in the Spanish colonial explorations of the greater Southeast."--Mariah F. Wade, author of Missions, Missionaries, and Native Americans "A model for how to handle important primary sources. The historical introduction is a treasure in its own right."--Amy Turner Bushnell, author of Situado and Sabana: Spain's Support System for the Presidio and Mission provinces of Florida Florida's lower gulf coast was a key region in the early European exploration of North America, with an extraordinary number of first-time interactions between Spaniards and Florida's indigenous cultures. Discovering Florida compiles all the major writings of Spanish explorers in the area between 1513 and 1566. Including transcriptions of the original Spanish documents as well as English translations, this volume presents--in their own words--the experiences and reactions of Spaniards who came to Florida with Juan Ponce de León, Pánfilo de Narváez, Hernando de Soto, and Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. These accounts, which have never before appeared together in print, provide an astonishing glimpse into a world of indigenous cultures that did not survive colonization. With introductions to the primary sources, extensive notes, and a historical overview of Spanish exploration in the region, this book offers an unprecedented firsthand view of La Florida in the earliest stages of European conquest.

With essays by Stephen Davis, Penelope Drooker, Patricia K. Galloway, Steven Hahn, Charles Hudson, Marvin Jeter, Paul Kelton, Timothy Pertulla, Christopher Rodning, Helen Rountree, Marvin T. Smith, and John Worth The first two-hundred years of Western civilization in the Americas was a time when fundamental and sometimes catastrophic changes occurred in Native American communities in the South. In The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540–1760, historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists provide perspectives on how this era shaped American Indian society for later generations and how it even affects these communities today. This collection of essays presents the most current scholarship on the social history of the South, identifying and examining the historical forces, trends, and events that were attendant to the formation of the Indians of the colonial South. The essayists discuss how Southeastern Indian culture and society evolved. They focus on such aspects as the introduction of European diseases to the New World, long-distance migration and relocation, the influences of the Spanish mission system, the effects of the English plantation system, the northern fur trade of the English, and the French, Dutch, and English trade of Indian slaves and deerskins in the South. This book covers the full geographic and social scope of the Southeast, including the indigenous peoples of Florida, Virginia, Maryland, the Appalachian Mountains, the Carolina Piedmont, the Ohio Valley, and the Central and Lower Mississippi Valleys.

Timucua indians inhabited northern Florida and southern Georgia for 13 millenia before coming into contact with Europeans in 1513 with the arrival of Ponce deLeon. 250 years later, they were extinct. This book attempts to answer questions regarding who they were and how they lived.

Offers a new framework for understanding the transformation of the Native American South during the first centuries of the colonial era.

"A major compendium of the latest effort of a truly blue-ribbon group of scholars. . . . The volume is certain to be a classic among scholars of archaeology, history, and geography, not only in Florida and the Southeast, but among the large numbers involved in Spanish colonial research elsewhere."--Robert L. Hoover, California Polytechnic State University "Continues brilliantly the pattern of excellence established by . . . pioneer mission scholars, [with] much to appeal to the specialist as well as the layman. . . . a good deal of simple, direct, and very interesting writing."--Fred Lamar Pearson, Jr., Valdosta State College This multidisciplinary volume brings together the latest findings of most of the scholars working in southeastern mission studies today, including much information never before published or narrowly circulated. Aimed at a broad audience, it reports the direct results of field research on mission sites. The authors are grappling with the effects of missionization through archaeology, history, bioarchaeology, zooarchaeology, and ethnobotany in order to understand both native and Spanish colonial inhabitants. Contents The Archaeology of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale: Our First Fifteen Years, by David Hurst Thomas Architecture of the Missions Santa Maria and Santa Catalina de Amelia, by Rebecca Saunders The Archaeology of the Convento de San Francisco, by Kathleen Hoffman St. Augustine and the Mission Frontier, by Kathleen Deagan The Mayaca and Jororo and Missions to Them, by John H. Hann Mission Santa Fe de Toloca, by Kenneth Johnson Archaeology of Fig Springs Mission, Ichetucknee Springs State Park, by Brent R. Weisman Spanish-Indian Interaction on the Florida Missions: The Archaeology of Baptizing Spring, by L. Jill Loucks Excavations in the Fig Springs Mission Burial Area, by Lisa M. Hoshower and Jerald T. Milanich Archaeological Investigations at Mission Patale, 1984-1991, by Rochelle A. Marrinan Hispanic Life on the Seventeenth-Century Florida Frontier, by Bonnie G. McEwan On the Frontier of Contact: Mission Bioarchaeology in La Florida, by Clark Spencer Larsen Plant Production and Procurement in Apalachee Province, by C. Margaret Scarry Evidence for Animal Use at the Missions of Spanish Florida, by Elizabeth J. Reitz Beads and Pendants from San Luis de Talimali: Inferences from Varying Contexts, by Jeffrey M. Mitchem A Distributional and Technological Study of Apalachee Colono-Ware from San Luis de Talimali, by Richard Vernon and Ann S. Cordell Bonnie G. McEwan is the director of archaeology at San Luis Archaeological and Historic Site in Tallahassee.