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Authors

John H. Hann

Abstract

Between 1702 and 1705, Englishmen from South Carolina and their Indian allies destroyed all the surviving missions in Spanish Florida from Apalachee to Amelia Island. A remnant Guale population drawn from at least fifteen settlements of coastal Georgia had taken refuge in the 1680s at three mission sites on Amelia Island. In 1702, James Moore, governor at Charles Town, captured and burned St. Augustine. Only the town’s castillo and the refugees it housed survived Moore’s assault. Renewed English and Indian attacks against the inland missions in 1704 and 1705 brought new waves of native refugees to St. Augustine. The greatest influx, however, began in 1715 in the wake of the general uprising among the native inhabitants of South Carolina known as the Yamasee War. Paradoxically, many who came in flight from the failed rebellion had played prominent roles in the destruction of the Florida missions. The influx led to a significant reorganization and the expansion of the native settlements that had appeared in the period 1704-1711 to accommodate refugees from the destroyed missions.

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