Guale

Before European colonization

Archaeological studies indicate that the Guale lived along the Georgia coast and Sea Islands, from at least 1150 AD. Archaeologists identify the Guale as the makers of the Savannah phase (1150 to 1300 AD) and the Irene phase (1300 to circa 1600). While the prehistoric ancestors of the Guale shared many characteristics with regional neighbors, they left unique archaeological features that distinguished the "proto-Guale" people from other groups.

The prehistoric people were organized into polities. They built Mississippian-type platform mounds, major earthworks requiring the organized labor of many people, and using highly skilled soil and engineering knowledge. They used the mounds for ceremonial, religious and burial purposes.

Ceremonies and burials took place at platform mounds and other earthworks. People organized the work of building them. They lived in large towns and smaller settlements associated archaeologically with the Guale and the Savannah and Irene phases of coastal Mississippian culture.

The plaza, mounds, and household shell deposits at Middle Place mark a settlement of more than 272 acres on Ossabaw Island. It was occupied from about 1100 to 1525 CE. Oyster shells from the site suggest that its residents managed local shellfish stocks over time.

The Guale ate crops they grew, animals they hunted, wild plants they gathered, and fish and shellfish from the estuaries. There is still disagreement about how much they depended on farming. How much they moved with the seasons is also disputed. Some early European descriptions were written during drought and disruption.

European contact

Jean Ribault's French expedition encountered Guale people in 1562, whom they called the Oade after their leader, while traveling along North America's Atlantic coast. Oade, a Guale mico named in French records, supplied maize and beans to Charlesfort, the French settlement on Parris Island in present-day South Carolina. The Guale maintained good relations with

When the Spanish later established themselves in St. Augustine in Spanish Florida, they also contacted the Guale. They soon tried to bring them into their mission system. The Guale territory became one of the four primary mission provinces of Spanish Florida; the Timucua, Mocama, and Apalachee Provinces, also named after the resident tribes of their countries, were the others. Jesuits first disrupted the Guale in the 1560s, with a more lasting Franciscan mission system instituted later in the century, with another group of friars arriving in 1587 and missions in at least five principal Guale towns by the end of 1595. Beginning in 1565, Spain based most of these operations out of St. Augustine.

The extent of the Guale Province was along the Atlantic coast and Sea Islands, north of the Altamaha River and south of the Savannah River. It included Ossabaw, St. Catherine's, Sapelo, Tybee, and Wassaw islands, among others. By the mid-17th century, the Spanish had established six Catholic missions in Guale territory, including Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Tolomato and Santa Catalina de Guale. Their largest settlements were probably on St. Catherine's Island.

Guale was the least stable of the four major mission provinces. The first Guale rebellion, often labeled Juanillo's Revolt, began on October 4, 1597. During the rebellion five spanish Franciscans were killed: Pedro de Corpa, Blas de Rodríguez, Miguel de Añón, Antonio de Badajoz and Francisco de Veráscola who are considered martyrs by the Catholic Church. The Guale rebelled again 1645, nearly shaking off the missions. They kept up a clandestine trade with French privateers, which provided them with alternate sources of goods.

Spanish missions and Guale politics

Guale was one of Spanish Florida's mission provinces. Others included Mocama, Timucua, and Apalachee. Missions were generally small compounds within larger Indigenous towns. A church and a friar's residence connected these communities to St. Augustine through religious instruction, diplomacy, trade, and demands for forced labor.

Guale micos maintained substantial authority over secular affairs. Invitations to missionaries often came from the micos, who could call on a resident friar to represent them in disputes with Spanish officials. Imported goods and military support were further reasons for some leaders to cultivate ties with the mission system.

St. Augustine obtained food and forced labor from Guale and other Indigenous communities. Under the repartimiento, Spanish officials compelled Indigenous men to travel there for farm work, construction, and other assigned labor. Guale micos organized the local drafts.

Guale potters made wares in local ceramic traditions for Guale households and for resident Spanish missionaries and soldiers. Iron tools, glass beads, and European cloth were also used.

The 1597 uprising

In September 1597, five Spanish Franciscans were killed in Guale towns: Pedro de Corpa, Blas Rodríguez, Miguel de Añon, Antonio de Badajoz, and Francisco de Veráscola. Francisco de Ávila survived the attacks and was enslaved for almost ten months.

Both responsibility for the attacks and the motives behind them are disputed. The traditional narrative identifies Juanillo as the organizer and attributes the attacks to the friars' opposition to polygyny. Political rivalries and shifting alliances among Guale leaders have also been proposed as explanations.

Governor Gonzalo Méndez de Canzo led a punitive expedition into Guale territory. His forces burned buildings and destroyed crops. Spanish officials questioned Lucas, a young Guale prisoner, in 1598. The confession came under threat of torture: he said he had been present at one of the killings. He was subsequently convicted and executed in St. Augustine.

The Spanish later supported Domingo of Asao against Don Francisco and Juanillo, who were killed by Domingo's forces in 1601. Franciscans began establishing missions in Guale communities again in the early 1600s.

Labor, diet, and health

Maize was already part of the Guale diet before European colonization. At St. Catherines and Amelia islands, diets during the mission period contained a greater proportion of maize. Carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of human remains indicates that shift and changes in the balance of marine and other foods.

Mission populations appear to have done more physically demanding work, as indicated by structural changes in arm and leg bones and by records of forced labor. More tooth decay, nutritional stress, and infection have been linked to changes in their food and living conditions.

In 1645, Guale residents left mission towns while Spanish authorities still owed payment for their forced labor and provisions. Officials tried to force people back and take their leaders to St. Augustine. They continued seeking the return of those who had moved to Tama and Escamazu, as St. Augustine depended on their forced labor.

La Tama and Yamasee settlements

Various non-Guale Indigenous communities settled in or near the coastal mission provinces during the seventeenth century. Many came from the interior region called La Tama in Spanish records. During the 1660s, Westo raiders, armed through trade with English colonists, enslaved people and drove others from the interior toward the coast and other places of refuge, dispersing the La Tama in several directions. Some migrated to the lower Chattahoochee River towns of Coweta and Cussita, the Apalachee mission provinces, and the Guale province.

Yamasee towns appear among the Guale and Mocama missions by the 1670s, although some people recorded as Yamasee lived in the mission towns themselves. In 1675, the Spanish first used the term Yamasee to refer to the newcomer refugees. They thought them similar to the La Tama. In Guale Province, some of the Yamasee joined the existing missions, while others settled on the periphery. Colonial records put Tama people, Guale people, and people from other communities under the name Yamasee. These groups could speak different languages and have different relationships with Spanish authorities.

Raids and displacement

English traders demanded enslaved Indigenous people to settle debts for guns and ammunition. They had supplied the weapons on credit. Armed Indigenous allies raided other communities to capture and enslave people for sale. Many of those enslaved were women and children. The demand for enslaved people intensified warfare across the Southeast and brought attacks on Guale communities.

Between 1675 and 1684, the Westo tribe, supported by English colonists in the colonies of Carolina and Virginia, destroyed all Spanish missions in Georgia. Attacks by English-supported pirates also contributed to the breakup of the missions. In 1680, a group of pirates sacked Mission Santa Catalina de Guale. By 1684, the Spanish had abandoned all six missions.

The La Tama Yamasee, Guale, and other refugees scattered in the southeast. Some relocated to new missions in Spanish Florida, but most rejected Spanish authority. They felt Spain had been unable to protect them and resented their failure to provide firearms. The Guale moved mostly to the Apalachee or Apalachicola regions.

Spain withdrew its last missions from the Georgia coast in 1684. The retreat followed Westo attacks in 1661 and 1662 and further raids by other groups and pirates. Westo power collapsed in 1680–1681, but the raids continued. Communities fled first toward the barrier islands and then farther south.

Some displaced Guale settled in northeastern Florida under Spanish rule. Others lived among the Yamasee, Lower Creeks, or Apalachee. New settlements sometimes brought people from several former towns together. Town identities and leadership lineages could survive these moves.

Guale among the Yamasee

By 1684, groups identified in English records as Yamasee were moving to the southern frontier of Carolina. These included people of Tama and Guale origin. That year, a Scottish colony called Stuarts Town was founded on Port Royal Sound. Stuarts Town survived only about two years, but during that time, the Scots allied with the Yamasee. In late 1684, armed with Scottish firearms, these Indians raided Timucua Province, devastating the mission Santa Catalina de Afuyca. They returned to Stuarts Town with 22 captives, whom they sold as slaves. Over the next two years, word of similar successes was carried throughout the region. The population of "Yamasee" Indians near Port Royal Sound grew rapidly. Although the Indians became known collectively as "Yamasee", the Guale continued to be a significant portion of the population. Armed through this alliance, Yamasee raiders attacked mission communities in Spanish Florida in 1685 and enslaved people from those communities for sale. Spanish forces destroyed Stuarts Town in 1686. Spanish forces destroyed Stuart's Town. In the old Guale Province, they strongly resisted counterattacks by South Carolina. Nonetheless, the alliance between the Yamasee and colonial South Carolina grew stronger in reaction. The "Yamasee" who migrated in 1685 to the Port Royal area were attempting to rebuild the La Tama polity while including numerous Guale, as well as other Indians of mostly Muscogee.

The Guale continued to be a significant part of these communities. European records distinguished Upper and Lower Yamasee towns. The Upper Towns were predominantly Guale and included Pocotaligo, Pocosabo, and Huspah. The Lower Towns included Altamaha, Ocute, and Chechesee, whose names and populations were associated with Tama. Some other towns had mixed populations; the origins of others are uncertain. The Guale were the majority in the Upper Towns, although other tribes were incorporated as well. Upper Yamasee Towns with mostly Guale populations likely included Pocotaligo, Pocosabo, and Huspah. Other Upper Towns, such as Tulafina, Sadketche (Salkehatchie), and Tomatley, were possibly mixed, with Guale, La Tama, and others. It is possible that the La Tama had spent time in missions and become somewhat Christianized. They may have sought out the similarly missionized Guale.

Traders abused Indigenous people, colonists encroached on their land, and trade debts added to the disputes with Carolina. Relations worsened, and the Yamasee War began in 1715. Some of those who survived went to Spanish Florida or joined Lower Creek communities. The Yamasee lived in South Carolina until they were defeated in the Yamasee War, after which survivors were widely dispersed and the people disintegrated as a tribe. But while they lasted, the Yamasee exhibited multi-ethnic qualities. Their towns were described by European colonists as being Upper Yamasee or Lower Yamasee towns. The Lower Towns were populated mainly by La Tama Indians and included Altamaha (after the leader who lived there), Ocute, and Chechesee (Ichisi).

In 1702, when Carolina Governor James Moore led an invasion into Spanish Florida, his men destroyed the few "refugee missions" in Guale. By 1733, the Guale were so few in number that they were unable to resist James Oglethorpe's establishment of the Province of Georgia.

Citations

Sources

• Bushnell, Amy Turner (1994). Situado and Sabana: Spain's Support System for the Presidio and Mission Provinces of Florida. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 74. New York: American Museum of Natural History. ISBN 0-8203-1712-8.
• Crook, Morgan R. Jr. (1986). Mississippi Period Archaeology of the Georgia Coastal Zone (PDF). University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology Series. Vol. 23. Athens: University of Georgia.
• DePratter, Chester B. (14 December 1992). The Foundation, Occupation, and Abandonment of Yamasee Indian Towns in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1684–1715 (National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form). South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Francis, J. Michael; Kole, Kathleen M. (2011). Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida: Don Juan and the Guale Uprising of 1597. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 95. New York: American Museum of Natural History. doi:10.5531/sp.anth.0095.
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• Thompson, Victor D.; Worth, John E. (2011). "Dwellers by the Sea: Native American Adaptations along the Southern Coasts of Eastern North America". Journal of Archaeological Research. 19 (1): 51–101. doi:10.1007/s10814-010-9043-9.
• Worth, John E. (1995). The Struggle for the Georgia Coast: An Eighteenth-Century Spanish Retrospective on Guale and Mocama. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 75. New York: American Museum of Natural History. ISBN 0-8203-1745-4.
• Worth, John E. (2002). "Spanish Missions and the Persistence of Chiefly Power" (PDF). In Ethridge, Robbie; Hudson, Charles (eds.). The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540–1760. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 39–64.
• Worth, John E. (2009). "Razing Florida: The Indian Slave Trade and the Devastation of Spanish Florida, 1659–1715" (PDF). In Ethridge, Robbie; Shuck-Hall, Sheri M. (eds.). Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone: The Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 295–311.

• Oatis, Steven J. (2004). A Colonial Complex: South Carolina's Frontiers in the Era of the Yamasee War, 1680–1730. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-3575-5.
• Saunders, Rebecca (2000). "The Guale Indians of the Lower Atlantic Coast: Change and Continuity". In Bonnie G. McEwan (ed.). Indians of the Greater Southeast: Historical Archaeology and Ethnohistory. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1778-5.