San Juan del Puerto was a Spanish

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

mission founded before 1587 on Fort George Island, near the mouth of the

St. Johns River The St. Johns River () is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and is the most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At long, it flows north and winds through or borders 12 counties. The drop in elevation from River s ...

in what is now

Jacksonville Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. It was founded to serve the

Saturiwa The Saturiwa were a Timucua chiefdom centered on the mouth of the St. Johns River in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. They were the largest and best attested chiefdom of the Timucua subgroup known as the Mocama, who spoke the Mocama dialect of ...

, a

Timucua The Timucua were a Native American people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The va ...

tribe who lived around the mouth of the St. Johns. It was organized by separating them into nine smaller villages. It has an important place in the study of the Timucua, as the place where Francisco Pareja undertook his work on the Timucua language.

History

The

were one of the chiefdoms of the

Mocama The Mocama were a Native American people who lived in the coastal areas of what are now northern Florida and southeastern Georgia. A Timucua group, they spoke the dialect known as Mocama, the best-attested dialect of the Timucua language. Their ...

, the Timucua-speaking people who lived in the coastal areas of what is now northern Florida and southeastern

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. The Saturiwa were allied with the French of

Fort Caroline Fort Caroline was an attempted French colonial settlement in Florida, located on the banks of the St. Johns River in present-day Duval County. It was established under the leadership of René Goulaine de Laudonnière on 22 June 1564, follow ...

, and were thus initially hostile to the Spanish – who ousted the French colonists from the Florida coast in 1565. However, the Saturiwa soon made peace with the Spaniards, and ''Misión San Juan'' was founded near their main town on Fort George Island prior to 1587. This became one of the three principal missions in what the Spanish called the Mocama Province, together with San Pedro de Mocama (to the Tacatacuru) on Cumberland Island and Santa Maria de Sena between them on

Amelia Island Amelia Island is a part of the Sea Islands chain that stretches along the East Coast of the United States from South Carolina to Florida; it is the southernmost of the Sea Islands, and the northernmost of the barrier islands on Florida's Atlant ...

.Ashley, p. 135. Father Francisco Pareja worked at this mission and at San Pedro de Mocama. He devised a system of writing for Timucuan and taught some of the Mocama. In 1612, he printed a

catechism A catechism (; from , "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of Catholic theology, doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult co ...

in Spanish and Timucua, the first book printed in an indigenous language of the Americas. After 1650,

Guale Guale was a historic Native American chiefdom of Mississippian culture peoples located along the coast of present-day Georgia and the Sea Islands. Spanish Florida established its Roman Catholic missionary system in the chiefdom in the late 16th ...

refugees from the next chiefdom to the north along the (present-day) Georgia coast were settled at the mission. The Spanish abandoned the mission around 1702, partly in response to

raid RAID (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...

s from Native Americans and allied English colonists from South Carolina during

Queen Anne's War Queen Anne's War (1702–1713) or the Third Indian War was one in a series of French and Indian Wars fought in North America involving the colonial empires of Great Britain, France, and Spain; it took place during the reign of Anne, Queen of Gr ...

Notes

References

*Ashley, Keith H. (2009)
"Straddling the Florida-Georgia State Line: Ceramic Chronology of the St. Marys Region (AD 1400–1700)"
In Kathleen Deagan and David Hurst Thomas, ''From Santa Elena to St. Augustine: Indigenous Ceramic Variability (A.D. 1400-1700)'', pp. 125–139. New York : American Museum of Natural History *McEwan, Bonnie G., Ed. (1993) ''The Spanish Missions of La Florida''. University Press of Florida. Pp. 98, 330. {{coord, 30.41, -81.43, display=title Archaeological sites in Florida Duval County, Florida Spanish missions in Florida History of Jacksonville, Florida Timucua 1578 establishments in the Spanish Empire Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve Fort George Island

History

See also

Notes

References