Santa Catalina de Guale (1602-1702) was a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

mission and town in Spanish Florida. Part of Spain's effort to convert the Native Americans to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, Santa Catalina served as the provincial headquarters of the

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 16t ...

mission province. It also served various non-religious functions, such as providing food and labor for the colonial capital of St. Augustine. The mission was located on St. Catherines Island from 1602 to 1680, then on Sapelo Island from 1680 to 1684, and finally 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 Atlanti ...

from 1684 to 1702.

History

The mission Santa Catalina de Guale was founded in 1602 on St. Catherines Island, one of the

Sea Islands The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the Southeastern United States. Numbering over 100, they are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of South Caroli ...

of the present-day

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. It was probably associated with a Guale village known today as the archaeological site "Wamassee Head", on St. Catherines Island. During the 17th century the

people experienced a dramatic population loss, mainly due to

epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious ...

diseases. This resulted in the consolidation of mission settlements. By 1675 the Guale mission village of San Diego de Satuache was incorporated with Santa Catalina de Guale. Likewise the mission villages of Santa Clara de Tupiqui and San Joseph de Sapala were merged. After two major

slave raiding Slave raiding is a military raid for the purpose of capturing people and bringing them from the raid area to serve as slaves. Once seen as a normal part of warfare, it is nowadays widely considered a crime. Slave raiding has occurred since an ...

attacks in 1680, the Santa Catalina de Guale mission was moved south to Sapelo Island. The attacking force consisted of about 300

Westo The Westo were an Iroquoian Native American tribe encountered in the Southeastern U.S. by Europeans in the 17th century. They probably spoke an Iroquoian language. The Spanish called these people Chichimeco (not to be confused with Chichimeca i ...

Indians who had been armed, supplied, and encouraged to attack Spanish missions by English colonial authorities in

South Carolina )'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

. Santa Catalina de Guale was the first to fall. Its defenses included a recently built stone fort, 6 Spanish soldiers, and about 40 Christian Indians. Other missions in the region quickly fell to the slave raiders. Relocated to Sapelo Island, the four original mission villages of Tupiqui, Sapala, Satuache, and Santa Catalina were merged in one. Thus the old intervillage hierarchical political system of the Guale

chiefdom A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...

was lost, although the chiefly lineages associated with each village were retained. As a result, the Santa Catalina de Guale population contained many

titular Titular may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Title character in a narrative work, the character referred to in its title Religion * Titular (Catholicism), a cardinal who holds a titulus, one of the main churches of Rome ** Titular bisho ...

leaders lacking actual roles as village headmen. In 1683 the French pirate Michel de Grammont raided Spanish Florida settlements, including St. Augustine and 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 t ...

mission province, forcing further southward migrations. In 1684 the Santa Catalina de Guale mission was moved to

in present-day

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. The appearance of other pirates in 1684 prevented the nearby missions of Santo Domingo de Asao and

San Buenaventura de Guadalquini San Buenaventura de Guadalquini or San Buenaventura de Boadalquivi was a Spanish mission located on St. Simon's Island, Georgia, United States from between 1597 and 1609 until 1684, when pirates burned the mission and its town. The mission moved t ...

from moving south. Both were burned. Their inhabitants fled to the mainland. By 1685 the Guale peoples had either fled inland, joining unconverted groups such as the

Yamasee The Yamasees (also spelled Yamassees or Yemassees) were a multiethnic confederation of Native Americans who lived in the coastal region of present-day northern coastal Georgia near the Savannah River and later in northeastern Florida. The Yamas ...

, or had relocated to Amelia Island's three settlement of Santa Catalina de Guale, San Felipe, and Santa Clara de Tupiqui. In 1702, during

Queen Anne's War Queen Anne's War (1702–1713) was the second 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 Great Britain. In E ...

, the English colonial governor of

, James Moore, launched an invasion of Spanish Florida. In the process the settlements on Amelia Island, including Santa Catalina de Guale, were destroyed. The surviving inhabitants who remained under the Spanish mission system moved to the vicinity of St. Augustine.

References

* * {{cite book , last= Oatis , first= Steven J. , title= A Colonial Complex: South Carolina's Frontiers in the Era of the Yamasee War, 1680-1730 , year= 2004 , publisher= University of Nebraska Press , isbn= 0-8032-3575-5 Native American history of Georgia (U.S. state) Spanish missions in Georgia (U.S. state) 1602 establishments in the Spanish Empire Populated places established in 1602

History

See also

References