Читать книгу History of Duval County - Pleasant Daniel Gold - Страница 10

ALTHOUGH San Mateo was abandoned in 1573, it seems to have been again used as a haven in 1586, when Sir Francis Drake attacked St. Augustine and drove the garrison and inhabitants therefrom. The former fled to San Mateo, according to Fairbanks. It may have been inhabited during the intervening years, but if so, no record is found. Sir Francis Drake intended to follow his success at St. Augustine by also attacking San Mateo, but the tempestuous weather prevented a landing. Whether the garrison continued to man the fort after Drake' s departure, or whether they returned to St. Augustine is not known; certainly little mention is made of it in the territory of Duval for the next fifty years. Sometime later reference is made to a small fort on the south bank of the San Juan River, the St. Johns, the name of which was changed about this time from San Mateo to the San Juan River.

The territory of Duval was now left to the Timucuan Indians who remained unmolested in the villages, scattered throughout its confines. The accompanying map, being an enlarged section of " Floridae Americae Provincias, " published by Jacques Le Moyne, soon after his return to France in 1565, shows the location of these Timucuan villages.

Le Moyne had a remarkably accurate conception of the region, considering that it had never been previously explored by white men. Especially is this true as to the course of the St. Johns River, or the River of May ( designated as F. May ). The creeks now called Trout, McCoys, McGirts and Pottsburg can be easily recognized, though unnamed. The Indian village of Choya is shown upon the present site of the city of Jacksonville just where the St. Johns River turns eastward. This town is mentioned by Laudonnière, the commander of the first French colony, but is spelled " Coya " by him. The fact that there was an Indian village where Jacksonville now stands is also borne out by later evidence, such as the existence of an Indian graveyard, the discovery of pottery, implements, etc.

Almost all of the villages shown on the map, including Choya, are named by John R. Swanton in his list of Timucuan villages published in Bulletin No. 73 of the Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology. Patchica is referred to as being a village on the " west bank of the St. Johns River in the territory of the Timucuan tribe. " The Spanish speak of it also, but spell it Palica. Enecaque, which is across the river from Choya, and is presumed to be near the present site of South Jacksonville, is also included in the Smithsonian Institution list and is mentioned by Laudonnière in his writings.

Calanay is a town reported by the French in 1565 as having allied with the Indian Chieftain Utina against them. Meras also tells of Menendez' s visit there. He spells the village " Calabay, " which was the name of the chieftain, who ruled over it.

Other villages shown in Swanton' s list are Chilili, and Ecidnon ( mentioned by Laudonnière as well as in one of the old Spanish Chronicles ), also the villages of Casti, Edelanou, Omitaqua ( also spelled Matiqua ), Atore or Ayotore and others. Most of these villages shown on Le Moyne' s map were located on the hammock lands near the St. Johns River as he had little opportunity to go back into the flatwoods. Homoloa can be found in the lower part of the map near the St. Johns River, which according to the Smithsonian Institution records, was also called Moloa and is often referred to by Laudonnière and some of the Spanish writers as being located on the south side of the River May near its mouth. It is also stated that there was a Spanish mission there in the Seventeenth century and an early Spanish document speaks of the town or its chief as " Moloa, the Brave. " This is one of the two missions known to be located in the territory now comprising Duval County although there are undoubtedly many more which were destroyed by the English and the Yamassee Indians in 1715.

Alimacani, shown upon the map just north of F. May, which is the St. Johns River, is undoubtedly Fort George Island, and is described in the Smithsonian Institution records as being an island and town not far to the north of the mouth of the St. Johns River. Here was located a Spanish mission, established many years after Le Moyne' s day, called San Juan del Puerto.

Sarrauahi, appearing on the map just north of Alimacani, is described by the Bulletin of the Smithsonian Institution as being the River Nassau, and states that there was an Indian town of the same name near its mouth.

After the death of Pedro Menendez conditions in the province rapidly deteriorated, explorations ceased, many of the forts were abandoned and the Spaniards contented themselves with remaining within the walls of St. Augustine. Yet, when the soldiers retired the priests advanced, and they accomplished what arms could not gain. The Dominicans were the first missionaries, and their policy as expressed by Father Peter de Feria, one of them, was that " by good example, with good works, and with presents, to bring the Indians to a knowledge of our Holy and Catholic truth. " The first Vicar and Superior in the territory of Duval was Lopez de Mendoza of Yeres, who held the office both for San Mateo and St. Augustine and was appointed by Menendez " with the consent of the Bishop of Santiago de Cuba " under whose jurisdiction was the Province of Florida.

The Dominicans, however, soon retired from the province, and King Philip requested the General of the Society of Jesus ( Jesuits ) to send twenty-four of its members to Florida for missionary work. The General was unable to send so large a number but in 1567 assigned three, Fathers Peter Martinez and John Rogel and Brother Francis de Villarroel. Father Peter Martinez, as before stated, was murdered by the Indians on what is now Fort George Island, according to Fairbanks, though some authorities state it was on what is now Cumberland Island. The ship which bore the other two returned to Havana, where they remained until 1567 when they came to Florida. Later other Jesuits came but several of these were killed by the Indians and in 1571 the General of the Society recalled all of the members of the Society who were then in Florida.

The Dominicans and Jesuits having failed in successfully establishing Indian missions, it was undertaken by the Society of St. Francis. Toward the close of 1577, Father Alonzo de Reynoso arrived with a number of priests of this order called Franciscan friars,' who were successful from the beginning. They were the vanguard of faithful priests, who for two centuries were to spread the teachings of Christianity among the Indians of Florida. In 1592, there were only seven, in 1594 twelve more arrived. At first the Indians were hostile and the priests could not go beyond the palisades of the forts, but through patience and kindly treatment the savages gradually yielded to the teachings of the friars and baptisms followed. In 1595, one priest had baptized eighty and another had penetrated one hundred and forty miles from the coast, traveling alone where no soldier would have dared to have gone unaccompanied. In 1597, the son of a chief, on what is now Amelia Island, murdered a priest and with several followers went from mission to mission in Guale, killing as they went. Five members of the order fell under the scalping knife, but these atrocities did not quench the fire of religious zeal which sustained the Sons of St. Francis. They continued in their work and missions were soon established in most of the important Indian towns throughout the Spanish territory from St. Elena ( Hilton Head, S. C. ) to the Mosquitoes ( Volusia County, Fla. ).

In a letter of Fra Francisco de Pareja to King Philip in 1600, the priest claims " there are more than eighty churches which have been built in the different missions and others under construction. "

In 1606, an event happened of great interest to the religious. Bishop Cabezas of Santiago de Cuba came to Florida, visiting several provinces and the result was an intense religious awakening among the natives. In 1609, the great cacique of the Timucuans with his son and ten of his chiefs sought baptism and asked for missionaries to reside among his people; and in 1621, the King of Spain by decree made special provision for the maintenance of the Franciscan Missions, which in 1634 claimed thirty thousand converted Indians.

These events are chronicled as general to all Florida but the Duval territory was the fertile ground of the Franciscan Friars and for nearly a hundred years they were the only white men who visited it. These zealous priests, robed in gowns of gray or brown coarse cloth, pointed hood, whose vows prescribed that they go barefoot and never on horseback, walked from village to village through the forests of Duval territory or were carried in the canoes of the friendly Indians that they might minister unto the savages. The warlike Timucuans, who, in earlier days, had slain the Spaniards at sight and ruthlessly cut the heart out of their prisoners, now received the priests in their wigwams, sat at their feet and learned of the teachings of the lowly Nazarene.

In 1674, the Bishop of Cuba came again to St. Augustine and visited the missions along the coast, including San Pedro Mocama on Cumberland Island and then crossed to the mission of Santa Fe de Toloco, which was in the country of Alachua to the west of the St. Johns, " and gave confirmation to all who had been prepared for the Sacrament. " The Bishop spent eight months in his personal visitations of the missions and presumably passed through the territory of Duval. As stated before only two missions have been found in the records as located in Duval territory.

In the Spanish archives there have been found two lists of Florida missions, one called the " list of 1655 " and the other the " list of 1685. " In neither of these does the Mission of Moloa appear, probably for the reason that it was only a " mission station. " The mission of San Juan del Puerto, however, is among those listed in " Provincia de Guale Y. Mocamo " and for that reason has been believed to have been located in the land of the Guale Indians, the center of which was in Georgia. All traces of it have disappeared and only the records can be depended upon for its location. Merely the fact that it was classified by the Spaniards as " in Guale " cannot be taken as conclusive evidence that it was not at the mouth of the St. Johns River, for all missions north of that river were listed as being " in the Province of Guale. "

The testimony of modern Catholic authorities lends weight to the belief that it was on Fort George Island. The very Reverend H. P. Clavreul in his " notes on the Catholic Church in Florida, " says: " Besides the missions near St. Augustine, we find forty miles to the north, the mission of San Juan del Puerto. " Shea in his " Catholic Church in Colonial Days, " says " that San Juan mission was located on an island about fifteen or sixteen leagues north of St. Augustine. " An old Spanish league was 2. 63 miles, making about forty miles which is the approximate distance from St. Augustine to Fort George Island.

More evidence is found in the account of Jonathan Dickinson, a Quaker, who was wrecked on the coast of Florida in 1699 and saved from the Indians by the Franciscan Friars and conducted north, from mission' to mission, to the English colony of Carolina. He published an account of his experiences in which he gives an account of his visit to " St. Whan' s " Island where a mission was located. He says: " Taking our departure from Augustine ( Sept. 29 ) we had about 2 or 3 leagues to an Indian town called St. a Cruce. This morning early ( Sept. 30 ) we left this town, having about 2 leagues to go with the canoes, and then we were to travel by land; but a cart was provided to carry our provisions and necessaries, in which those that could not travel were carried. We had about 5 leagues to a sentinel' s house, where we lay all night and next morning traveled along the seashore about 4 leagues to an inlet. Here we waited for canoes to come for us, to carry us about 2 miles to an Indian town called St. Whan' s ( San Juan' s ), being on an island. We went through a skirt of wood into the plantation for a mile. In the middle of this island is the town, St. Whan' s, a large town and many people; they have a friar and worship house. The people are very industrious, having plenty of hogs, fowls, and large crops of corn, as we could tell by their corn houses. The Indians brought us victuals as at the last town, and we lay in their warehouse, which was larger than at the other town. "

" This morning ( October 2 ) the Indians brought us victuals for breakfast, and the friar gave my wife some loaves of bread made of Indian corn which was somewhat extraordinary; also a parcel of fowls. "

" About 10 o' clock in the forenoon we left St. Whan' s, walking about a mile to the sound; here were canoes and Indians ready to transport us to the next town. We did believe we might have come all the way along the sound, but the Spaniards were not willing to discover the place to us. "

" An hour before sunset we got to the town call'd St. Mary' s. "

That this mission or " Worship house " which Dickinson calls St. Whan' s was on St. George' s Island there can be no doubt. It was the distance of about fourteen leagues north of St. Augustine " along the seashore " to the inlet which he crossed which could be no other than the St. Johns River. The Island was just across this inlet and a day' s journey by canoe south of St. Marys. The description and distances certainly agree with the location of Fort George' s Island. In addition to this evidence is the further fact that Oglethorpe in 1736 gave the name George' s Island to an island called San Juan by the Spanish and reported an old fort thereon in sight of the St. Johns River, which he rebuilt and named St. George.

San Juan Mission was one of the earliest and was established about 1604. Fra Francisco de Pareja was the first missionary and according to a letter of Governor Ibarra, was supported by Dona Maria, Chieftainess of the local tribe of the Timucuans, whose husband was a Spaniard. Pareja states that in this district of the San Juan Mission there were ten settlements and about five hundred Christians, " big and little. " Most of these are believed to have been in the Duval territory. A letter of Fra Francisco Pareja of November, 1607, complains of attacks made by wild Indians on the Christians.

In 1638 the Apalache Indians attacked the Spaniards and advanced on St. Augustine, but were repulsed and driven back into their own province. There is no record as to the stand the Timucuan Indians in Duval territory took in this action, though it is believed they were either neutral, or, were on the side of the Spanish.

In the latter part of the Seventeenth Century the English colony, established in South Carolina, had grown to the point that it had become a menace to the Spaniards. St. Elena, a Spanish settlement, was located within the present limits of that state. Both the Spaniards and the English endeavored to make allies of the Yamassee Indians, who lived in the territory that lay between the provinces of Carolina and Florida. The English were successful and as a protection to the Timucuan Indians, who had by this time become so peaceful as to be known as the Mission Indians, the Spanish Governor about 1684 endeavored to persuade them to move from the interior to the missions on the coast. Those of the Duval territory were urged to go to San Juan del Puerto. The Indians, however, refused to go and, for a time, abandoned their missions. In 1676 the Spaniards attacked the English colony on the Ashley River in South Carolina, but were repulsed and three years later attacked a Scotch settlement at Port Royal in that state and destroyed their houses there as well as at points in the interior. Later the English with their allies, the Yamassees, wreaked summary vengeance on the Spaniards and their protegees, the Timucuans. Desultory skirmishes and inroads by the Yamassees, encouraged by the English, occurred during the latter part of the Seventeenth Century. The missions to the north of Duval, in what is now Georgia, were the first to suffer. It was not until 1702, when Governor Moore of South Carolina invaded Florida and turned loose a horde of Yamassees upon the peaceful Indians of Duval, that the extermination of the great Timucuan tribe began. Then the missions were destroyed, vestments and plates taken from the churches, and many of the Indians carried away into slavery.

San Juan del Puerto at the mouth of the St. Johns suffered with others and. evidently was not reestablished. According to Shea, another mission of the same name was located later " in the province of the Apalache, established for all who joined it from the Apalache nation and the Yamassees. "