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Yamasee Migrations into the Mocama and Timucua
Mission Provinces of Florida, –
An Archaeological Perspective
A
round , less than a decade after their emerging coalescence
along the northern periphery of Spanish La Florida, several
refugee communities retreated into the Guale and Mocama
mission provinces under mounting attacks by Chichimeco Indian slave
raiders. Spanish officials allowed these immigrant Yamasee to settle at
abandoned mission doctrina and visita locations on Atlantic coastal
barrier islands. In present- day Florida, they initially reoccupied settle-
ments formerly inhabited by Mocama on Amelia Island and, by ,
also had repopulated Timucua missions along the middle St. Johns
River, north (Anacape) and south (Mayaca) of Lake George. No Yama-
see settlements appeared in the St. Augustine vicinity during this ini-
tial wave of refugees into Spanish Florida. ough not missionized
at this time, the Yamasee were expected to provide tribute and labor-
ers to local chiefs and the Spanish colony, respectively. By most
of these towns were again emptied as the Yamasee evacuated Florida
and fled north to English Carolina.
Archaeological evidence of this first phase of Yamasee occupation
in Florida (ca. – ) is limited, as few sites of this era have been
excavated or even systematically sampled. Moreover, early Yamasee
sites on Amelia Island that have been tested also were occupied ear-
lier by mission period Mocama and later by Guale immigrants— all
three of whom manufactured San Marcos/Altamaha pottery— making
it difficult to identify distinct Yamasee occupational components. is
chapter reviews the first Florida phase of Yamasee history and dis-
cusses what is currently known about the distribution of early Yama-
Bossy.indd 55 6/14/18 2:50 PM
see sites in peninsular Florida, with the hope of creating a springboard
for future research.
Yamasee Origins and First Occupation of Florida
e Yamasee are a Native American group not often identified with
Florida. In part, I suspect this is because Yamasee occupations there
were brief, episodic, localized, and restricted to the late seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Moreover, their identity has been often blanketed
beneath a mission Indian cover or falsely equated or combined with
that of the Guale Indians. But this veil is being lifted by recent schol-
arship, revealing a lengthier and more widespread Yamasee presence in
Florida. Entanglements in European rivalries and internecine slave
raids that ranged across the lower Southeast framed Yamasee history.
. e colonial Southeast. Map by David W. Wilson, Center for Instruction
and Research Technology, University of North Florida.
Bossy.indd 56 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
A willingness to move long distances and shift European allegiances
enabled them to adapt to their turbulent surroundings. As a result, a
tradition of resistance was forged among a growing amalgam of inte-
rior and coastal Native refugees whose collective identity as Yamasee
was eventually borne out of the devastating circumstances wrought
by European colonization.
One hundred and fifty years before the term “Yamasis” appeared in
Spanish letters dating to , antecedent groups were apparently living
in villages and farmsteads associated with the Mississippian chiefdoms
of Altamaha, Ocute, and Ichisi along the Oconee and Ocmulgee river
drainages of the interior Georgia piedmont. By the early seventeenth
century, mound building had ceased and the interior river valleys were
undergoing demographic collapse. What remained of a once densely
populated region were scattered remnants of disease- damaged chief-
doms that by the mid- seventeenth century became easy targets for
roving Chichimeco slave raiders outfitted by Virginia traders.
Rather than succumb to these increasing attacks, piedmont groups
fled their ancestral homeland between and . Around this
time Spanish documents report “Yamasis” living in at least five settle-
ments “six, eight, four, three, two, and more days distant by road from
these provinces [of Escamaçu and Guale along the Atlantic coast].”
Current evidence suggests a location inland from the mouth of the
Savannah River between the Guale mission province and Chichimeco
villages along the middle Savannah River. ese refugee communi-
ties, which apparently possessed ancestral town names but bore lit-
tle resemblance to their chiefdom progenitors, came to form the core
of an ever- expanding mélange of Native groups eventually known to
Europeans as Yamasee.
e South Carolina– Georgia border, however, proved only a tem-
porary haven for the fledgling Yamasee towns. By a new round
of attacks by Chichimeco slavers forced them south into the coastal
mission provinces of Guale and Mocama, where they concentrated
their communities on St. Simons Island, Georgia, and Amelia Island,
Florida, respectively.
Town leaders gained settlement lands and refu-
gee status through a formal request to the colonial Spanish governor
and the verbal consent of the appropriate provincial chief.
Yama-
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see arrival filled several empty mission town sites, bolstered the rap-
idly dwindling coastal mission Indian population, and provided a
new pool of laborers and warriors for the Guale and Mocama prov-
inces. ough these people were not subject to direct missionization,
friars appeared confident the refugees and migrants would someday
heed the calling of the lord through interactions with nearby Chris-
tian Indians. But their optimism would be dashed, as the number of
Christianity- resisting Yamasee continued to grow throughout their
nearly two- decade- long tenure in Spanish Florida.
To ensure Spanish protection from the Carolina colony and their
Indian allies, Yamasee men contributed to the yearly mission labor draft
(repartimiento), often being the leading supplier of workers from the
northern mission provinces during their first decade in Spanish Flor-
ida. However, documented complaints about absentee and runaway
Yamasee laborers in St. Augustine suggest that the immigrants’ sup-
port may not always have lived up to Spanish expectations. More-
over, the second half of the seventeenth century witnessed a loosened
Spanish strategy toward Native labor, whereby officials attempted to
recruit or entice Indian cooperation through payment of some form.
Other than rendering obedience to the Spanish Crown, the labor draft
was the only official requirement of the Yamasee because “as pagans
they were not to work in the mission fields.”
Yamasee tribute to mission chiefs was deemed voluntary, although
noncompliance or at least an unwillingness to contribute led to cases
of friction between Christian leaders and more traditional communi-
ties situated in their territory. In one instance the cacica of San Juan
del Puerto in demanded payment from Yamasee on Amelia Island
in the form of “bear fat, deerskins, acorns, and palmetto berries,” but
the governor intervened and exempted the island’s Yamasee “who were
to be protected and treated with charity.”
e indigenous Mocama occupied four mission settlements along
the Atlantic coast in the decades prior to Yamasee incursions into
La Florida. From north to south, these were San Buenaventura de
Guadalquini at the south end of St. Simons Island and San Pedro de
Mocama on Cumberland Island in Georgia, and Santa María de Sena
on Amelia Island and San Juan del Puerto on Fort George Island in
Bossy.indd 58 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
Florida. Around each friar- occupied mission community (doctrina)
was a small outlying cluster of Native villages or visitas that fell under
the spiritual guidance of the neighboring mission friar.
In time, con-
tinuing population loss within the mission provinces due to epidemics
and emigration led the Spanish to coordinate the relocation of vis-
ita communities to nearby doctrinas, a process known as congregación.
e formal combining of mission settlements (reducción) among the
Mocama began around , with the transfer of the entire San Pedro
population to Santa María, and they all moved to San Juan in .
erefore, at the dawn of Yamasee arrival in the Mocama province,
only the region’s northernmost (San Buenaventura) and southernmost
(San Juan) missions were still in existence.
e relocation of four Yamasee towns to Amelia Island (Santa María)
in helped partly fill a gap in the Mocama mission chain. Placed
at the northern end of the island was an unnamed Yamasee town fol-
lowed by Ocotoque one league to the south, La Tama another two
leagues to the south, and Santa María one- half league farther south.
Two more Yamasee settlements relocated to the Mocama province in
. One community took over the former mission of San Pedro de
Mocama and the other settled to the north, both on Cumberland Island.
In the four towns on Amelia Island had a total population of ,
with each town possessing between and residents.
In “the
caciques and leading men and heirs” of the island’s Yamasee communi-
ties convened for an official visitation by Antonio de Argüelles in the
council house at Santa María. Appointed by the governor of Span-
ish Florida, Argüelles visited the missions of the Guale and Mocama
provinces to gather demographic information and intelligence on the
current state of affairs within these Spanish- allied settlements.
By the time of the next census in , only one Amelia Island town
was home to Yamasee, and that was Santa María with a population
of . Although Santa María’s population apparently increased by
about percent from to , the overall number of Yamasee
on the island during this same time dropped by nearly percent.
It appears that residents of some of the three abandoned villages on
Amelia Island relocated to Santa María, while others may have emi-
grated to new Yamasee settlements that existed on Cumberland Island
Bossy.indd 59 6/14/18 2:50 PM
between ca. and . Others may even have headed south to
the reestablished missions of San Antonio de Anacape and San Sal-
vador de Mayaca along the middle St. Johns River, as discussed later
in this chapter.
e Amelia Island towns were not the only Yamasee communities
in Florida during the first wave of Yamasee immigration. Some groups
fled farther south and inland from the Atlantic seaboard, establishing
a settlement in Timucua at San Antonio de Anacape and another in
Mayaca at San Salvador de Mayaca along the middle St. Johns River.
When the Yamasee arrived in , both missions were vacant and
likely had been for years. e two were on a mission list but nei-
ther appeared on two registries. A document listed the
two as “new conversions” and identified their residents as Yamasee,
intimating “that most or all of the mission’s earlier populations had
disappeared.”
Unlike in the Amelia Island towns, missionaries arrived in Anacape
and Mayaca to resurrect mission life among these refugee communi-
ties. Although the Florida governor appears to have been under the
impression that the Yamasee there had requested a friar, such a claim
is refuted by later inquiries. Mission documents indicate that by
residents included both baptized Christian and unconverted Indians.
Anacape had a population of , while Mayaca had residents.
Both, however, had recently experienced defections, with some mem-
bers moving to Yamasee settlements on the coastal islands. e pre-
vious year Fray Juan Miguel de Villarroel of Anacape had requested
Governor Juan Márquez Cabrera to retrieve the fugitives and return
them to his mission, to which the governor responded that it would
be “a mistake to try to force infieles to live anywhere they did not want
to.” Moreover, the governor expressed the belief that being content
in their place of residence might foster conversion, although his real
motive for keeping them on the coast may have been the need for mil-
itary protection against English attack from the north.
But success at conversion appears to have been more apparent than
real, as rumor had it that the Yamasee at Anacape were “not disposed
to join the assembly of the faithful.”
Moreover, the fatigued and per-
haps disillusioned friar (Bartolomé de Quiñones) deserted his Mayaca
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Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
mission in and, in the process, removed many of the church pos-
sessions to the Timucuan mission of Salamototo farther north along
the St. Johns River. His rationale for leaving apparently was pred-
icated on the Yamasees’ disinterest in farming combined with their
seasonal subsistence cycle that took them deep into the woods, where
they lived as roaming foragers, only using mission towns as temporary
base camps. Apparently, owing to the erratic supply of provisions
from St. Augustine, Fray Quiñones was often forced to rely heavily on
the Native fare of plants and roots, causing him to become sick. is
itinerant lifestyle, which allowed Natives to avoid the labor draft, was
a frequent criticism of the Indians of southern Florida, bemoaned by
both Spanish government and religious officials.
By many Yamasee were on the move again, as their settlements
throughout La Florida were abandoned amid turmoil brought on by
French pirate raids and English- sponsored slave- catching expeditions.
In addition to these external circumstances, internal factors apparently
were at play. As Yamasee numbers increased, their participation in the
labor draft appeared to wane even as threats of severe punishment were
issued for noncompliance.
In a Christian Yamasee named San-
tiago, who resided at the Guale mission of Santa María on Amelia
Island and claimed to be the last of his people living in the Mocama
province, wrote of the abuses inflicted on him at the hands of Span-
ish soldiers and implied that such treatment may have been why many
Yamasee had earlier “all gone to the English.” ese factors seemed
to have fostered a growing dissatisfaction among the Yamasee with
Spanish governance of La Florida.
e Yamasees’ destination this time was the Port Royal region of
South Carolina, where they hoped a change in colonial allegiance
would inspire protection and an upper hand in trade relations with
the fledgling Carolina colony. e defection was massive and wide-
spread, affecting Yamasee in the provinces of Guale, Mocama, and
Apalachee, as towns evacuated Spanish Florida in waves between
and . e Mayaca and Anacape missions survived until the first
decade of the eighteenth century, although it is unclear if Yamasees
were part of these missions following the exodus of Florida by their
coastal- dwelling counterparts. Did those living along the St. Johns
Bossy.indd 61 6/14/18 2:50 PM
River choose to leave with their brethren or did they stay in the lake-
and marsh- dominated environs of the middle St. Johns? John Hann
suggests that “some, if not all of the ” non- Mayaca recorded on the
census for Salvador de Mayaca were Yamasee, but concedes that
this is not known for certain.
For three decades the Yamasee confederation in South Carolina grew,
as Upper and Lower Yamasee towns became staunch English allies.
By , however, relations between the two had turned sour, and the
Yamasee undertook a second retreat deep into La Florida, where they
would establish themselves in or near mission communities around
St. Augustine and in Spanish West Florida. Ironically, these are the
same Natives who over the past two decades had “played prominent
roles in the destruction of the Florida missions.”
Assessing the First Yamasee Phase in Florida
What can we glean from the Spanish documents about the Yamasee
during their first phase of occupation in Florida? First, the Yamasee
were not a unified social or ethnic group at that time. Instead they
were a decentralized series of towns derived from separate precon-
tact chiefdoms. Some of these communities appear to have carried
their ancestral names with them, including Altamaha (La Tama) and
Ocotoque (possibly Ocute). Moreover, documents indicate that Cha-
chises (Ichisi) were living adjacent to San Phelipe on northern Cum-
berland Island in . Early on, only a small number of immigrant
towns in the mission provinces bore a Yamasee cultural affiliation in
Spanish documents, while others frequently carried the generic label
of “pagan” or “infidels.” In time, Yamasee became the term of con-
venience by which Spanish and English officials referred to them as
a collective whole.
When a small handful of ethnically varied refugee communities
first received admittance into Spanish Florida in the late s, their
population numbered only in the hundreds. Based on the Pedro de
Arcos population figures of , these groups accounted for about
seven hundred Natives inhabiting the provinces of Guale, Mocama,
and Apalachee. is same census outlines an immigrant population
that outnumbered baptized Indians in the Atlantic coastal provinces.
Bossy.indd 62 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
e total number of less than one thousand pales in comparison to
counts given by Scottish settlers and Indian traders residing in Stuarts
Town (Carolina), who in reported “a thousand or more Yamasee
are coming down daily.” e context of this comment clearly illu-
minates the multiethnic composition of the term Yamasee by this
time, also including Lower Creeks, Guale defectors, and other fugi-
tive mission Indians. us, during their first Florida phase of occu-
pation, the Yamasee were neither geographically consolidated nor
ethnically exclusive.
While the colonial setting of the Southeast wreaked havoc on indig-
enous populations, it also created a context for the genesis of new ethnic
groups through the syncretism of formerly distinct entities. A blending
of ethnically different people against a backdrop fraught with sweep-
ing social, political, and epidemiological uncertainties eventually gave
birth to a Yamasee identity. is process of ethnogenesis resulted in
an eventual conscious recognition, by insiders and outsiders, of a new
cultural (ethnic) group identity different from its ancestral roots. In
other words, the cultures did not just blend but actively forged a new
identity and developed new practices. In the Southeast, while migrant
and remnant groups did in time cultivate a self- identified Yamasee
tribal identity, this recognized transformation had yet to crystalize
prior to their departure from Spanish Florida for English Carolina
in the early s.
Spanish documents are rather mute with respect to early Yamasee
sociopolitical organization. Political affiliation and loyalty of the La
Florida refugees appeared tethered first to their town, which served
as a primary source of identity. Early towns may have been somewhat
homogeneous in internal composition, but combined they were het-
erogeneous and consisted of “a remarkable variety of diverse aborigi-
nal towns.” Political and economic decisions arose at the town level
in council houses where titular chiefs apparently held positions subor-
dinate to councils or other collective forms of leadership and wielded
little authority over lands or vassals.
is is evident in one of the
few documentary references to Yamasee politics in which the cacique
at Santa María, during a visitation to Amelia Island, stated that
“his vassals did not obey him and that for this reason he was resigning
Bossy.indd 63 6/14/18 2:50 PM
from the chieftainsip.”
ough open to interpretation, this statement
intimates that Spanish officials imposed the term cacique on Yamasee
town leaders for diplomatic purposes, meaning that individuals actu-
ally held minimal political authority in their communities. Similarly,
so- called chiefs at Anacape and Mayaca seem to have had little con-
trol over their fellow villagers.
Towns, portable and each loosely allied with the Spanish colonial
system, operated independently, and responses to all circumstances were
not necessarily uniform. Although there is no evidence for any sort of
overarching political apparatus or leadership structure, some form of
intercommunity connections likely existed between them. ese may
have included new institutions and ideologies that eventually brought
together varied Native interests, agendas, and worldviews. Conceiv-
ably, a shared sense of resistance to relations of dominance imposed by
the new world order of the colonial Southeast precipitated the forma-
tion of integrative, collective, and consensual governance among the
Yamasee. e process of town adoption was additive as new groups
were absorbed into the ongoing process of becoming something con-
sciously oppositional to Europeans and affiliated mission Indians. Both
the Spanish and English may have contributed to the emergence of
a Yamasee identity by treating all Indian towns outside the mission
system in similar ways and with the same expectations.
Because the Yamasee were not a coherent social or ethnic group
in Florida during their first phase of occupation, historian Bradley
Schrager has described these “people- in- formation” as a “resistance
movement” embedded squarely within the Spanish mission prov-
inces of Guale, Mocama, Timucua, and Apalachee.
While perhaps
not a movement per se, the Yamasee did manifest a persisting tra-
dition of resistance that sought survival and autonomy on their own
terms. From the moment they first arrived along the Atlantic Coast
of Spanish Florida, these immigrants were blatantly disinterested in
Christianity. Not only did they refuse baptism, but towns avoided
building churches and raising wooden crosses for all to see. ese
constructed features were the most public form of signaling affilia-
tion with the Spanish colonial world, and their absence in Yamasee
towns made a strong and unequivocal statement of resistance. is
Bossy.indd 64 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
nonconformity appears to have attracted Indians within and along
the fringes of La Florida who were dissatisfied with mission life but
seemingly allowed entry to help reinforce Spanish defenses against
the English. Upon acceptance into the Spanish fold, refugees com-
plied to the least extent possible. Most of their resistance appears
to have been nonviolent and likely manifested through routine (and
perhaps unconscious) daily actions aimed at asserting distinction and
autonomy. But violence was not outside their arsenal of civil resis-
tance, as demonstrated by the Yamasees’ fierce raiding of Spanish
missions shortly after relocating to Carolina and taking up with the
British in the mid- s.
In looking back on their history, one finds that the Yamasee have
the markings of a persistent tradition of resistance “made and repro-
duced through egalitarian social relations, mobility, and an ongoing
process of separation.” In his overview of the Yamasee, archaeolo-
gist John E. Worth notes that they maintained “a distinctive identity
as a group regardless of geographic location and neighboring groups,”
migrated “huge distances to suit immediate political expediency,” and
seemingly had a “new and more egalitarian and fluid social formation”
compared to ancestral times.
ese general features are among the
parallels found “in the structures and actions of resistant traditions”
as each works “to create identities that are deliberately oppositional
to the conditions of oppression they experienced.”
Asserting differ-
ence in these cases is an ongoing process through social interactions,
not geographic isolation. Even on the occasions when the Yamasee
decided to vote with their feet, their intent involved relationships
with new allies, not spatial seclusion. us the Yamasee created and
reproduced their social identity through ongoing encounters with
neighboring Natives and Europeans as they moved across the colo-
nial Southeast landscape. A shared interest in and commitment to
resisting Christianity and Spanish rule provided empowerment and
partly underwrote their broadly egalitarian or at least nominal hier
-
archical political structure during their first phase of occupation in
Florida. With this historical overview in place, let us now explore
what current archaeology has to say about early Yamasee occupa-
tions in peninsular Florida.
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Yamasee Archaeology in Peninsular Florida
(excluding St. Augustine)
At present, only one archaeological project in Florida outside the city of
St. Augustine has targeted a Yamasee settlement as a focus of research
and excavation, and this site’s Yamasee component is currently under
revaluation (discussed later). is does not mean that archaeological
sites containing evidence of Yamasee occupation have not been doc-
umented or even sampled by archaeologists. But this lack of attention
does mean that we know virtually nothing archaeologically about the
layout of early Yamasee villages or details of subsistence and daily life
during the late seventeenth century. I believe the same is true for the
Georgia coast. Despite this dearth of archaeological data, I propose
that viable candidates exist for the location of most early Yamasee vil-
lages in Florida based on previous surface collections or field testing
designed to elucidate other occupational components.
e signature archaeological correlate of Yamasee sites is a grit-
tempered ware known as San Marcos in Florida and Altamaha in
Georgia.
San Marcos assemblages include vessels that are undec-
orated, incised, check stamped, curvilinear stamped, and most com-
monly stamped with a line blocked design that in fragments resembles
simple stamping. A minor but consistent part of the assemblage is
red- filmed wares, most of which are plates or other European vessel
forms referred to by archaeologists as colonowares. Unfortunately,
seventeenth- century Guale and Mocama potters along the Atlantic
coast made and used the same San Marcos pottery types as the Yama-
see.
Confounding this situation is the fact that some Yamasee towns
in Florida were occupied earlier by Mocama and/or later by relocated
Guale, all of whom manufactured San Marcos wares. And therein lies
the rub— how do we distinguish late seventeenth- century Yamasee,
Guale, and Mocama occupations at sequentially occupied sites when
they all produced the same pottery?
e reason for its widespread acceptance during the s is unclear,
although Worth attributes the homogenization of Native- made pot-
tery along the Atlantic coast (i.e., San Marcos/Altamaha style zone)
to communities of practice in which potters routinely interacted with
Bossy.indd 66 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
one another, thereby learning and performing the same preparation,
manufacturing, and firing techniques. In other words, frequent move-
ments and interactions among female potters through the coastal mis-
sion system created pottery learning networks that crosscut villages
so that “groups with different political, ethnic, linguistic, and religious
identities [e.g., Yamasee, Guale, Mocama] could produce essentially
the same inventory of ceramic types and series [e.g., San Marcos/Alta-
maha].” Worth distinguishes between communities of practice and
communities of identity; the latter is a social network of common group
affiliation based on ethnicity, language, politics, religion, kinship, etc.
But beneath this gloss of homogeneity likely lie subtle ceramic
attribute distinctions (microstyle) that point to the existence of
communities of potters at a smaller spatial scale of more frequent
household interaction. As highlighted by Poplin and Marcoux in
chapter , archaeologists working on Yamasee sites in South Caro-
lina suggest that late Yamasee San Marcos/Altamaha assemblages
are marked by a dominance of plain and relatively high percentages
of check stamped pottery.
Poplin and Marcoux also propose that
overstamping is more common in South Carolina assemblages than
those from Mocama and Guale mission sites. Others have proposed
that Mocama and Guale San Marcos/Altamaha assemblages show
an increase in the ratio of stamped to plain pottery through time. It
is unclear if both of these observations hold for early Yamasee sites,
and testing these proposals is difficult at this time due to the mixed
nature of the existing San Marcos/Altamaha ceramic assemblages.
Provided tight temporal controls are in place, detailed technological
ceramic attribute analysis could help identify slight variations that
might indicate smaller interacting communities of practice. With
these ceramic issues in mind, I now examine the known archaeo-
logical record of northern peninsular Florida to highlight the pos-
sible location of early Yamasee sites.
Mocama Province, Amelia Island
In the early s an unsystematic surface survey of selected areas of
Amelia Island by Ripley Bullen and John Griffin resulted in the record-
ing of forty- six archaeological sites. Of these, nine produced varying
Bossy.indd 67 6/14/18 2:50 PM
. Yamasee sites, Amelia Island, Florida. Map by Keith Ashley.
Bossy.indd 68 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
quantities of San Marcos pottery. All are along the western side of
the island, with four located in or around Old Town at its northern
tip, one along Jackson Creek, two in the Suarez Bluff– Amelia City
vicinity, and two at the island’s southern end near Harrison Creek.
For the most part then, San Marcos wares were confined to four dis-
tinct locations on the island, which Bullen and Griffin equated with
the four Yamasee settlements mentioned in a census document
by Pedro de Arcos.
From north to south the connections made were
Old Town () to the unnamed Yamasee village, Peterson Creek
() to Ocotoque, Amelia City– Suarez Bluff ( and ) to
La Tama, and Harrison Homestead () to Santa María. Of these,
only the most northern and southern sites have received any archae-
ological attention since Bullen and Griffin’s survey.
To the north, Old Town has been the scene of limited archaeo-
logical testing and monitoring projects.
Both Mocama- made San
Pedro and San Marcos pottery have been recovered, although no
unequivocal mission period features or distinct precincts have been
reported. San Marcos wares are most concentrated at or near the
Plaza Lot in Old Town along the bluff overlooking the Amelia River
to the east. At this location, more than one thousand San Marcos
sherds were recovered in the s, most of which were taken from
units associated with the excavation of the early nineteenth- century
Spanish Fort San Carlos.
Smaller amounts of San Marcos pot-
tery have been collected from the adjacent lower beach area and
from a few locations within a kilometer of the Plaza Lot. Relying
on ceramics found in the Old Town vicinity, it is conceivable that
in addition to the unnamed Yamasee settlement mentioned in the
Arcos document, the earlier indigenous Mocama visita of Santo
Domingo de Napoyca and the relocated Guale mission commu-
nity of Santa Clara de Tupiqui (– ) were also located in the
Old Town area.
To date, the largest collection of San Marcos pottery from Amelia
Island comes from the Harrison Homestead site (). is mul-
ticomponent site is the irrefutable location of Mission Santa Cata-
lina de Guale (– ), owing to the identification of the mission’s
core area and the recovery of the mission seal. e site was tested by
Bossy.indd 69 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Deagan and Hemmings in the early s and excavated by the Uni-
versity of Florida in the late s.
Broad- scale excavations exposed
the mission compound of Santa Catalina, which included a church,
cemetery, and convento. Forty meters to the south, excavations partly
exposed shell footers associated with a second mission church, heavily
damaged by tidal erosion. At this location excavations revealed more
than one hundred burials beneath an intact section of a clay church
floor. Originally interpreted as the Yamasee church of Santa María,
it now appears that this church was instead associated with the ear-
lier Mocama visita or doctrina of Santa María de Sena. At present
no documentary evidence exists suggesting that the Spanish- labeled
“pagan” Yamasee on Amelia Island had churches or missionaries.
At the time of excavation the Mocama Santa María was thought
to have been positioned on either northern Amelia Island or perhaps
the mainland near the St. Marys River. John Worth was the first to
place Santa María de Sena along Harrison Creek and propose that
once the Yamasee community relocated there around , their com-
munity assumed the earlier place name of Santa María.
In the wake
of this reinterpretation, only two intrusive, flexed burials placed under
the church floor at Santa María are now deemed Yamasee.
ese two
individuals were both robust males aged approximately and .
Two additional intrusive burials are extended and oriented in the same
direction as those below the northern church, suggesting these two
interments are affiliated with the later Santa Catalina de Guale mis-
sion. e approximately one hundred remaining burials beneath the
Santa María church floor then are likely Mocama.
What was once thought to be a rather straightforward interpre-
tation at the Harrison Homestead site has become somewhat prob-
lematic. Triple occupation of the site by sequential Mocama, Yamasee,
and Guale populations is complicated by the fact that all three groups
made and used San Marcos/Altamaha pottery during the late seven-
teenth century. Instead of containing evidence of Guale and Yama-
see mission compounds, the site exhibits loci that relate to Guale and
earlier Mocama missions activities with a Yamasee occupation thrown
in between. Clearly, the site’s complex archaeological record needs to
be reexamined in light of this new evidence.
Bossy.indd 70 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
Timucua Province and Mayaca
Moving south to the middle St. Johns River, what about the two
Yamasee communities established among the Timucua and Mayaca?
Anacape, the more northern of the two, appears to have been located
at the Mt. Royal () archaeological site. Excavations there by the
State of Florida in the mid- s and early s were performed within
proposed residential roads and selected house lots prior to subdivision
development. e artifact assemblage generated by these projects is
composed of a large collection of Native and historic- era artifacts,
the latter of which date to the Spanish mission and later British peri-
ods. Postcontact indigenous St. Johns pottery, Spanish majolica and
olive jar fragments, glass trade beads, and religious- related artifacts
appear to be associated with the first phase of mission occupation by
indigenous Timucua (ca. – ), confirming John Goggin’s earlier
suspicion that Mt. Royal is the site of the Timucuan Mission of San
Antonio de Anacape.
State excavations also produced a handful of San Marcos sherds
and their place of recovery suggests that the later Anacape community
inhabited by Yamasees extends outside the area examined by the state
survey on private lots in the southeastern part of the site.
It is worth
noting that John Goggin surface collected more than sixty San Mar-
cos sherds from the Mt. Royal site between and , although
exactly where within the site these were found is unknown.
To date,
no state- reported archaeological sites near Mt. Royal have yielded San
Marcos wares, but other than sand burial mounds, the area immedi-
ately north of Lake George has been the scene of minimal archaeo-
logical attention in the past century or so.
e great unknown for the location of Yamasee sites in peninsular
Florida is the Mayaca region south of Lake George. Currently no
San Marcos pottery has been reported for sites along this part of the
St. Johns drainage. Several sand mounds have yielded historic arti-
facts in Native contexts, including ursby and Raulerson mounds,
but most of these finds are modified pieces of precious metal that
likely date to the late sixteenth century.
Located in the middle of
the river channel, Hontoon Island has yielded postcontact- dated
Bossy.indd 71 6/14/18 2:50 PM
maize fragments, although Barbara Purdy insists that “Hontoon
Island was not occupied during the mission period.”
Moreover,
recent survey and testing by the University of Florida also failed
to find any evidence of colonial period Native occupations on the
island.
But the riverbanks opposite the island cannot be ruled out
at this time as possible locations for mission- related communities.
Going back to the documentary record and the complaints of the
friar stationed at San Salvador, if the early Yamasee were following
a seasonal foraging routine, then their sites likely consist of small
encampments with light artifact scatters, perhaps tied to a larger
base camp or mission community.
. Yamasee regions along St. Johns River. Map by Keith Ashley.
Bossy.indd 72 6/14/18 2:50 PM
. San Marcos series pottery from the Riverbend site
count percent percent
(excluding unidentified)
Plain 23 22.8 26.4
Complicated stamped 10 9.9 11.5
Simple/cross simple stamped 39 38.6 44.8
Red filmed 15 14.9 17.2
Unidentified stamped 6 5.9
Unidentified 8 7.9
101 100 99.9
Atlantic Coast South of St. Augustine
Before concluding, I would like to draw attention to what appears to be
an anomaly in the distribution of San Marcos pottery that implicates
the Riverbend site () in Volusia County (see table ). Situated
along the west bank of the Tomoka River, this colonial period site lies
less than four miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. Lake George is
approximately miles due west and St. Augustine is about miles
to the northwest following the Atlantic coastline. Archaeological test-
ing of the site in yielded San Marcos and red filmed sherds.
Of note is the absence of San Marcos Check Stamped sherds,
although a few of the red film fragments displayed check stamping.
In addition, five majolica plate fragments were recovered, including
Puebla Polychrome and San Agustin Blue on White; the presence
of the latter majolica type points to a post- date of occupation.
Charred corn cobs from colonial contexts were radiocarbon dated to
the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.
I am aware of no unequivocal documentary evidence that places
Guale or early Yamasee immigrants in this part of coastal Florida.
Historic Florida Indians referred to as Los Costas were in the gen-
eral area, or perhaps a little farther south, but they are not known to
have produced San Marcos pottery. However, in a letter to the
Spanish Crown, Fray Joseph Ramos Escudero writes of the Yamasees’
exodus from Carolina, the governor’s approval of their move to
Bossy.indd 73 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Spanish Florida, and the establishment of their “towns at a distance
of ten and twelve leagues from the said city [of St. Augustine].”
is distance would put the relocated settlements in the vicinity of
the Riverbend site, although we must keep in mind that Escudero’s
letter was written nineteen years after the fact. In Fray Joseph
de Bullones wrote that the Yamasee community of Pocotalaca had
been located six leagues south of St. Augustine in an area known as
Las Rosas. is distance places the Yamasee about miles north
of the Riverbend site.
An alternative scenario for the Riverbend site is that it is related
to one of the two settlements established in the aftermath of the
uprising by Indians in Mayaca. Afafa was reported to have been located
two days from Mayaca, and the other village, Las Cofas, was two days
from Afafa. ese settlements may have held remnant Yamasee pop-
ulations associated with Anacape and Mayaca. Little is known about
the exact locations and durations of these two settlements, so it is
unknown whether either was occupied into the early s. Additional
archaeological and archival research are needed to determined exactly
when the Riverbend site was occupied and by whom.
In conclusion, the Yamasee for too long have been a neglected or at
least underpursued topic of research in Spanish Florida studies, often
taking a back seat to mission Indians. eir fascinating history, which
witnessed the loss and uprooting of previous cultures and the creation
of something new, played out against a turbulent backdrop of European
and Native alliances and rivalries. While some strides have been made
in building a foundation for future Yamasee research in northern pen-
insular Florida, we have only scratched the surface. I hope this volume
sparks more interest in Yamasee archaeology and leads to new rounds
of broad- scale excavations and detailed analyses. We still need to con
-
tend with how to identify Yamasee components at sites also occupied,
either earlier or later, by Guale and Mocama, all of whom manufac-
tured San Marcos pottery. Future investigations at Mt. Royal and in
the Mayaca area, which lack Mocama and Guale occupations, might
help to identify details of early Yamasee ceramic assemblages that dis-
tinguish them from Guale and Mocama. e Riverbend site in Volu-
Bossy.indd 74 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
sia County is also an excellent candidate for additional research. At a
more theoretical level, a critical examination of the Yamasee through
combined efforts of archaeology and ethnohistory holds the poten-
tial to elucidate conditions and processes in which ethnic groups are
created and how they endure within a broader milieu of sweeping
change and discontinuity.
Notes
. Yamasees were in northeastern Florida in – and returned to St. Augustine and
West Florida during the period – . Some even remained after the Spanish evacuated
Florida in , living with Creeks, Seminoles, and Cherokees. See Amanda Hall, “e Per-
sistence of Yamasee Power and Identity at San Antonio de Pocotalaca, – ,” this vol-
ume; Andre White, “Refuge with the Spanish,” this volume; John E. Worth, “e Yamasee in
West Florida,” this volume.
. Recently historians and archaeologists have addressed the coalescence of Native groups
in the aftermath of European contact through the concept of a shatter zone. See Robin Beck,
Chiefdoms, Collapse, and Coalescence in the Early American South (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, ); Robbie Ethridge and Sheri M. Shuck- Hall, eds., Mapping the Mississippian
Shatter Zone: e Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South (Lin-
coln: University of Nebraska Press, ).
. John E. Worth, “Yamasee,” in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. : Southeast, ed.
R. D. Fogelson (Washington : Smithsonian Institution Press, ), ; John E. Worth, e
Struggle for the Georgia Coast (; repr., Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, ), .
. Mark Williams and Gary Shapiro, “Mississippian Political Dynamics in the Oconee Val-
ley,” in Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, ed. John F. Scarry
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, ), – ; Stephen A. Kowalewski and James W.
Hatch, “e Sixteenth- Century Expansion of Settlement in the Upper Oconee Watershed,
Georgia,” Southeastern Archaeology (): – .
. Frays Carlos de Anguiano and Juan Bauptista Compana, April , Archivo General de
Indias, Santo Domingo, , translated in Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. Worth, “Yamasee,” ; Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, – .
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. Antonio de Argüelles Order , August , , in Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. Amy T. Bushnell, Situado and Sabana: Spain’s Support System for the Presidio and Mission
Provinces of Florida, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, no.
(Athens : Distributed by University of Georgia Press, ), .
. Spain’s vulnerability along its northern edge likely contributed to their willingness to allow
Native groups to move into La Florida, hoping the refugees would strengthen their first line
of defense against the expanding English Carolina colony. See Worth, Struggle for the Georgia
Coast, . For an overview of the repartimiento system see Bushnell, Situado and Sabana, – .
. Argüelles Order , August , , and Argüelles Order , April , , in Worth, Strug-
gle for the Georgia Coast, – .
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
Bossy.indd 75 6/14/18 2:50 PM
. John H. Hann, A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions (Gainesville: University
Press of Florida, ), ; Jerald Milanich, Laboring in the Fields of the Lord: Spanish Missions
and Southeastern Indians (Washington : Smithsonian Institution Press, ), , ; Worth,
Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. Keith Ashley, “Distribution of Contact and Early Mission Period Sites in the Mocama
Province,” Florida Anthropologist (): – .
. e Pedro de Arcos census is translated in Mark F. Boyd, “Enumeration of Florida Span-
ish Missions in With Translations of Documents,” Florida Historical Quarterly (): .
. Antonio de Argüelles [Visitation of the Place of Santa Maria de los Yamases], translated
in John H. Hann, Visitations and Revolts in Florida, 1656– 1695, Florida Archaeology (Tallahas-
see: Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, ), .
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. Worth, “Yamasee,” .
. John H. Hann, “e Mayaca and Jororo and Missions to em,” in e Spanish Mis-
sions of La Florida, ed. Bonnie G. McEwan (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, ), .
. Hann, “e Mayaca and Jororo and Missions to em,” .
. Hann, “e Mayaca and Jororo and Missions to em,” .
. Hann, “e Mayaca and Jororo and Missions to em,” – . e majority of the
inhabitants of both San Antonio de Anacape and San Salvador de Mayaca were Yamasee. See
John H. Hann, Indians of Central and South Florida, 1513– 1763 (Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, ), .
. Bushnell, Situado and Sabana, .
. Bushnell, Situado and Sabana, .
. John H. Hann, “Summary Guide to Spanish Florida Missions and Visitas with Churches
in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Americas (): – , see – .
. Hann, “e Mayaca and Jororo and Missions to em,” – .
. Amy T. Bushnell, “e Sacramental Imperative: Catholic Ritual and Indian Sedentism
in the Provinces of Florida,” in Columbian Consequences, vol. , ed. David H. omas (Wash-
ington : Smithsonian Institution Press, ), ; and Hann, “e Mayaca and Jororo and
Missions to em,” – .
. Bushnell, “e Sacramental Imperative,” – . See Amy T. Bushnell, “Living at Lib-
erty,” this volume, for a discussion on the ungovernable nature of the Yamasee.
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. John H. Hann, “Twilight of the Mocamo and Guale Aborigines as Portrayed in the
Spanish Visitation,” Florida Historical Quarterly (): – .
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. Hann, “e Mayaca and Jororo and Missions to em,” .
. William G. Green, Chester B. DePratter, and Bobby Southerlin, “e Yamasee in
South Carolina: Native American Adaptation and Interaction along the Carolina Fron-
tier,” in Another’s Country: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Cultural Interactions in
the Southern Colonies, ed. J. W. Joseph and Martha Zierden (Tuscaloosa: University of Ala-
bama Press, ), .
. See Hall, “Persistence of Yamasee Power and Identity”; White, “Refuge with the Span-
ish”; Worth, “Yamasee.”
. John H. Hann, “St. Augustine’s Fallout from the Yamasee War,” Florida Historical Quar-
terly (): .
. Worth, “Yamasee,” .
Bossy.indd 76 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
. Hann, Visitations and Revolts in Florida, .
. In Pedro de Arcos notes that in the mission province of Apalachee, “there are La
Tama and Yamases all of one Nation” living in the newly established mission of Candelaria. See
Boyd, “Enumeration of Florida Spanish Missions,” .
. is total combines Yamasee and all other towns deemed “pagan” by the Spanish. See
Boyd “Enumeration of Florida Spanish Missions,” .
. Calendar of State Papers, America and the West Indies, February , , in Bradley
Scott Schrager, “Yamasee Indians and the Challenge of Spanish and English Colonialism in the
North American Southeast, – ,” PhD diss., Northwestern University, , .
. Norman E. Whitten Jr., “Ethnogenesis,” in e Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, ed.
D. Levinson and M. Ember (New York: Henry Holt, ), .
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, , suggests that Yamasee existence came about
in the early s. Although Schrager, “Yamasee Indians and the Challenge of Spanish and
English Colonialism,” , , acknowledges Yamasee origins in the s, he maintains that
“the move from Florida to Carolina, from Spanish to English alliance, stands as the defin-
ing moment when ‘yamasi’ as a category gained powerful meaning.” While Yamasee tribal
ethnicity had not been formed during the early years in Spanish Florida, it is important to
note that Mocama and Guale tribal ethnicity had not been lost at this time, despite being
part of the mission system.
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, .
. Worth, “Yamasee,” .
. Argüelles, in Hann, Visitations and Revolts in Florida, .
. Bushnell, “e Sacramental Imperative,” – ; Hann, Indians of Central and South
Florida, .
. Schrager, “Yamasee Indians and the Challenge of Spanish and English Colonialism,”
, , .
. Kenneth Sassaman, “Hunter Gatherers and Traditions of Resistance,” in e Archaeology
of Traditions: Agency and History Before and After Columbus, ed. Timothy R. Pauketat (Gaines-
ville: University Press of Florida, ), ,
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, , .
. Sassaman, “Hunter Gatherers and Traditions of Resistance,” – .
. Kathleen A. Deagan, “St. Augustine and the Mission Frontier,” in e Spanish Missions of
La Florida, ed. Bonnie G. McEwan (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, ), ; John S.
Otto and Russell L. Lewis Jr., “A Formal and Functional Analysis of San Marcos Pottery from
Site SA – St. Augustine Florida,” Bureau of Historic Sites and Properties Bulletin (): .
Rebecca Saunders, Stability and Change in Guale Indian Pottery, 1300– 1702 (Tuscaloosa: Uni-
versity of Alabama Press, ), .
. Vicki L. Rolland and Keith H. Ashley, “Beneath the Bell: A Study of Mission Period
Colonoware from ree Spanish Missions in Northeastern Florida,” Florida Anthropologist
(): - ; Richard H. Vernon and Ann S. Cordell, “A Distribution and Technological Study
of Apalachee Colono- Ware from San Luis de Talimali,” in e Spanish Missions of La Florida,
ed. Bonnie G. McEwan (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, ), – .
. San Marcos/Altamaha pottery appears to be rooted in the precontact Irene and Lamar
ceramic traditions of coastal and interior Georgia, respectively. See various articles in Kathleen
Deagan and David Hurst omas, eds., From Santa Elena to St. Augustine: Indigenous Ceramic
Variability (A.D. 1400– 1700), Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural His-
tory, no. (New York: American Museum of Natural History, ).
Bossy.indd 77 6/14/18 2:50 PM
. Rebecca Saunders, “Pottery and Ethnicity: Yamasee Ceramics in Florida during the
Mission Period,” paper presented at the th annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference,
Macon, Georgia, November – , , .
. John E. Worth, “Materialized Landscapes of Practice: Exploring Native American Ceramic
Variability in the Historic- Era Southeastern United States,” paper presented at the st meeting
of the Society of American Archaeology, Orlando Florida, April , , . is argument is based
on the concept of “community of practice,” which entails the active learning of a craft among prac-
titioners that leads to the formation of a group affiliation based on a shared history of practice.
. See Suzanne L. Eckert, Pottery and Practice: e Expression of Identity at Pottery Mound
and Hummingbird Pueblo (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, ), for a case study.
. William G. Green, e Search for Altamaha: e Archaeology and Ethnohistory of An Early
Eighteenth Century Yamasee Indian Town, Volumes in Historical Archaeology (Columbia:
South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, ),
; Gifford J. Waters, “Aboriginal Ceramics at ree th- Century Mission Sites in St. Augus-
tine, Florida,” in From Santa Elena to St. Augustine: Indigenous Ceramic Variability (A.D. 1400–
1700), ed. Kathleen Deagan and David Hurst omas, Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History, no. (New York: American Museum of Natural History, ), .
. Keith Ashley, Vicki Rolland, and Robert L. unen, “Missions San Buenaventura and
Santa Cruz de Guadalquini: Retreat from the Georgia Coast,” in Life Among the Tides: Recent
Archaeology on the Georgia Bight, ed. Victor ompson and David Hurst omas, Anthropolog-
ical Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, no. (New York: American Museum
of Natural History, ), .
. Ripley P. Bullen and John W. Griffin, “An Archaeological Survey of Amelia Island, Flor-
ida,” Florida Anthropologist (): – ; Boyd, “Enumeration of Florida Spanish Missions,” .
. Other sites reported to have yielded small amounts of San Marcos on Amelia Island are
– in the vicinity of Old Town; southwest of Old Town along the west side of
Clark Creek; and near Harrison Homestead. See Bullen and Griffin, “An Archaeologi-
cal Survey of Amelia Island,” .
. John W. Griffin and Robert H. Steinbach, “Archeological Survey of Old Town Fernan-
dina: A Study of the Archeological Resources in Old Town and Recommendations for eir
Preservation,” report on file with the Florida Division of Historical Resources (Tallahassee,
); Greg C. Smith, “Archaeological Monitoring in Old Town () Fernandina Beach,
Nassau County, Florida,” report on file with the Florida Division of Historical Resources (Tal-
lahassee, ); Hale G. Smith and Ripley P. Bullen, Fort San Carlos, Notes in Anthropology
(Tallahassee: Florida State University, ).
. Bullen and Griffin, “An Archaeological Survey of Amelia Island,” ; Smith and Bullen,
Fort San Carlos, . According to the excavators of Fort San Carlos, “It now appears that most of
the aboriginal materials were brought into the area when the earthworks were built.... How-
ever, there were various areas where undisturbed aboriginal campsites occurred as evidenced by
fireplaces in which San Marcos Complicated Stamped and earlier types were found.” See Smith
and Bullen, Fort San Carlos, .
. e seal, which was pressed onto wax to send official documents from the mission through
the colonial bureaucracy, portrays the Christian martyr St. Catherine of Alexandria. See Saun-
ders, Stability and Change in Guale Indian Pottery, .
. omas Hemmings and Kathleen Deagan, Excavations on Amelia Island in Northeast Flor-
ida, Contributions of the Florida State Museum (Gainesville: University of Florida, );
Rebecca Saunders, “Architecture of the Missions Santa María and Santa Catalina de Amelia,”
Bossy.indd 78 6/14/18 2:50 PM
Yamasee Migrations into Florida, –
in e Spanish Missions of La Florida, ed. Bonnie G. McEwan (Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, ), – ; Saunders, “Stability and Change in Guale Indian Pottery.”
. Saunders, “Stability and Change in Guale Indian Pottery,” – ; Worth, Struggle for the
Georgia Coast, , , , .
. Amy T. Bushnell, Santa María in the Written Record, Florida State Museum Department
of Anthropology Miscellaneous Project Report (Gainesville: University of Florida, );
Milanich, Laboring in the Fields of the Lord, . Hann, “Summary Guide to Spanish Florida
Missions and Visitas,” – .
. Worth, Struggle for the Georgia Coast, – , , , .
. Saunders, “Pottery and Ethnicity,” ; Christopher M. Stowjanowski, Mission Cemeteries,
Mission Peoples (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, ), , , , .
. Clark S. Larsen, “On the Frontier of Contact: Mission Bioarchaeology in La Florida,”
in e Spanish Missions of La Florida, ed. Bonnie G. McEwan (Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, ), – , .
. Calvin B. Johns and Louis Tesar, “– Survey, Salvage and Mitigation of Archaeo-
logical Resources within the Mount Royal Site () Village Area, Putnam County, Florida,”
report on file with the Florida Division of Historical Resources (Tallahassee, ).
. John W. Goggin, Space and Time Perspective in Northern St. Johns Archaeology, Florida,
Yale University Publications in Anthropology (New Haven: Yale University Press, ), .
. Jones and Tesar, “– Survey, Salvage and Mitigation,” , .
. Keith H. Ashley, “Archaeological Overview of Mt. Royal,” Florida Anthropologist
(): .
. Jeffrey M. Mitchem, “Florida Indians after A.D. : e Question of Archaeological
Evidence for Antillean- Florida Migrations,” American Anthropologist (): – .
. Barbara A. Purdy, “American Indians after A.D. , Reply to Jeffrey, M. Mitchem,”
American Anthropologist (): . Purdy’s assertion does contradict reports by residents of
nearby Deland, who claim that a mission bell was recovered on Hontoon Island in the s.
See Ryan J. Wheeler and Christine L. Newman, “An Assessment of Cultural Resources at the
Lake George State Forest Including Mount Taylor and the Bluffton Site,” report on file with
the Florida Division of Historical Resources (Tallahassee, ), .
. Asa Randall, pers. comm., .
. Michael Russo, Janice R. Ballo, Robert J. Austin, Lee Newsom, Sylvia Scudder, and
Vicki Rolland, “Phase II Archaeological Excavations at the Riverbend Site (VO), Volu-
sia County, Florida,” report on file with the Florida Division of Historical Resources (Tal-
lahassee, ).
. John R. Swanton, Early History of the Creek Indians and eir Neighbors, Bureau of Amer-
ican Ethnology Bulletin (Washington : Smithsonian Institution, ), ; Kathleen
Deagan, Spanish St. Augustine: e Archaeology of a Colonial Creole Community (New York: Aca-
demic Press, ), .
. Translation in John H. Hann, Mission to the Calusa (Gainesville: University of Florida
Press, ), . In the Yamasee village of Pocotalaca at Las Rosas de Ayamón was pur-
ported to have been located about sixteen miles south of St. Augustine or two or three miles
south of Matanzas Inlet. See Susan R. Parker, “e Second Century of Settlement in Spanish
St. Augustine,” PhD diss., University of Florida, , .
. Afafa was located twenty leagues south of St. Augustine on the St. Johns River. Hann,
“Summary Guide to Spanish Florida Missions and Visitas,” ; Hann, Indians of Central and
South Florida, .
Bossy.indd 79 6/14/18 2:50 PM
