MORE HISTORY OF FLORIDA

The Spaniards had not allowed firearms to the Indians, a practice which may have made them easier to manage but left them relatively defenseless against whites and Indians who came later with such weapons. The men still went half-naked, with the skin of some animal worn from the waist down and sometimes a coat of serge or a blanket. Many of the women wore a sort of tunic made of Spanish moss, though not all, since the bishop reported that he requested that 4,081 women naked from the waist up should be clothed in the moss.
The diet of the Indians consisted of corn, pumpkins, beans, game, and fish. They drank only cazina (sometimes cassina), which was medicinal rather than intoxicating. They slept on the ground in warm weather and in winter in homes made of a frame covered by bearskins, with a fire set in the center. In the center of each village was a council house made of wood and covered with straw, round in shape, with a large opening at the top. The bishop thought most council houses large enough to accommodate 2,000 to 3,000 persons.
When twenty-nine friars appeared in Saint Augustine in 1612 and 1613, the governor became somewhat alarmed at the prospect of maintaining more and more friars, but they continued to come. Losses by transfer were large, but twenty-four arrived in 1676, perhaps as a result of the bishop's report of successes and needs in the field. They were clearly in high favor at the time, and a very considerable proportion of the annual government subsidy went for their support.
The number of missionaries increased from forty in 1676 to fifty-two in 1680. In 1679 a group of secular priests at Saint Augustine, led by pastor Sebastian Perez de la Cerda, proposed to revive the effort to missionize the Calusa Indians where a Franciscan effort to plant a mission the previous year had failed. The project received royal approval but was never implemented with personnel and funds. Partly because of the extent of the activity, partly because Cuba wished to be free of the responsibility, there was also a move to create a separate diocese for Florida. Governor Rebolledo had urged this in 1655 and Juan Marques Cabrera in 1683, but nothing had ever come of it.
Already the missions were being caught up in the international struggle among Spain, France, and England to control North America, a struggle which came to Florida late in the seventeenth century with disastrous consequences. The settlement of Charleston in 1670 meant trouble for the Spanish-Indian frontier. In 1680 a band of Indians directed by the English raided the mission on Jekyll Island but were driven off. Shortly thereafter Captain Francisco Fuentes, with five Spanish musketeers and sixteen Indians he had armed with guns, drove off attackers at Santa Catalina. Governor Cabrera sought to withdraw to more defensible positions at Santa Maria, San Juan, and Santa Cruz farther south but failed to induce most of the converted Indians to make the move. In 1684 the Indians of northern Guale went over to the English in great numbers.
Submitted by Jo Ann Scott