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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 9/340

The Early Beginnings: The Period Before United States Acquisition

The destruction of Santa Catalina was the beginning of the
end of the missions of Florida. Sporadic raids against northern
missions continued during the 1680’s and 1690’s, but the most
serious blow took place while England warred with Spain during
the War of Spanish Succession starting in 1702. Governor James
Moore of Carolina with a force of one thousand Indian warriors
and Carolina militia made an unsuccessful attack on St. Augustine,
while a small English-led raiding party destroyed the mission of
Santa Fe. In 1704 Moore led a force of some one thousand Creek
braves and fifty Carolina militia against the missions of Apalachee.
More than one hundred and sixty-eight men and one thousand
women and children were killed, and three hundred and twenty-
five men and four thousand women and children were captured as
slaves. Additional raids were made in 1706 and 1707. By 1708 the
Florida mission structure was destroyed. Over twelve thousand
mission Indians had been carried off to Carolina as slaves while
thousands of others had been murdered. Only some three hundred
Christian Indians were able to find refuge in St. Augustine where
they were protected by the guns of the Castillo.11
In the period after 1708 the destruction of all organized tribal
life in northern Florida was continued by the Yamassees, Creeks
and Carolinians. By 1710 the area was virtually devoid of human
population. Some Yamassee moved into the area around St.
Augustine in 1715 after they had been defeated by the Creeks and
Carolinians along the South Carolina coast. They were subse­
quently pursued by the Creeks and many were killed or enslaved.
When the English gained control of Florida in 1763 only some two
hundred and sixty Indians were evacuated with the Spaniards—
the remnants of an Indian population and culture that had num­
bered some twenty-five thousand a century earlier.12

11 Fairbanks, Ethnohistorical Report, pp. 91-93; Gannon, Cross in the Sand, pp.
70-73.
12 John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War 1885-1842 (Gainesville,
1967), pp. 2-3; Fairbanks, Ethnohistorical Report, p. 135.

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