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Lake City, Florida: A Sesquicentennial Tribute (2009) H. Morris Williams, Dr. Kevin M. McCarthy

Chapter Two: 16th and 17th Centuries

Jesuit missionaries had begun establishing missions after the
founding of St. Augustine in 1565, but – because of increased Indian
hostility, which resulted in the murder of some of the missionaries –

the Jesuits left the field in 1572. Franciscan missionaries arrived the
next year to work among the Indians. The missions eventually extended
due west of St. Augustine to Apalachee Province south of Tallahassee
toward the Apalachicola River. 5

The
buildings of
the mission
near Lake
City as
elsewhere
in north
Florida

were often
built with
wooden
A picture of what a Florida posts set
mission may have looked like
into the
ground. Workers made the walls of palmetto thatch or of a mixture of
wattle and daub. The roofs were probably thatched and the floors
were clay. The buildings at the compound might consist of a house for
the missionaries, a barracks for the soldiers, and a separate kitchen. 6

The mission system lasted until the beginning of the 18 century,
th
when raids by Indians from the Carolinas killed or captured many of
the Indians who had settled at the Spanish missions. The burning down

or destruction of the missions by the intruders left very few remains of
the sites, although archaeologists continue to search for them.

5

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