[1700 - North America Territories]
The Ending of Spanish Rule and the Timucua
Many of the Timucua had already died from exposure to Eurasian infectious diseases, to which they had no immunity, while others died from warfare with both the Spanish slavers and colonizers.
By 1700, the population of the Timucua tribe had been reduced to an estimated 1,000.
The Timucuan rebellions occurred primarily as a result of the mistreatment and forced labor policies of the Timucua people by Spanish authorities.
The harsh methods imposed by Spanish Governor, Diego de Rebolledo, exacerbated existing tensions.
The rebellion was led by Lucas Menendez, the principal chief of the Timucua at the time that led to escalated tensions between the Timucua and the Spanish.
The rebellions from the central and northern groups disrupted the Spanish mission system in Florida and highlighted the growing discontent within the indigenous populations.
It also marked a significant moment in the oncoming end of Spanish colonialism in La Florida.
The Spanish government was also experiencing problems throughout its empire at this time.
The Spanish were spread to thin throughout the Americas and other colonies.
They were more focused on their other more productive colonies, so Florida was not a priority.
When native rebellions, and later invasions by other tribal nations and the British, occurred, the Spanish did not have the strength to deal with them.
The attacks on their missions and colonialist settlements, forced the Spanish to pull everyone back to the protective domain around St. Augustine.
Spanish governor Diego de Rebolledo ordered all Spanish peoples, missionaries, and Timucua allies to consolidate along the Camino Real, the road connecting St. Augustine to the Apalachee Province.
This opened up the areas of Northern Florida for Creek, Gullah, and British immigrants from the Georgia and Carolina Territtories.
British incursions during the late 1600s and early 1700s further reduced the few remaining Timucua.
The rival European nations used native allies to fight their colonial wars.
The British allied with tribes, including: the Creek, Catawba, and Yuchi, who killed and enslaved the Spanish allied Timucua.
[Creek and Later Seminole Territories]
All of the Florida Natives began to suffer from the invasion of the
tribes from the North.
These northern Natives were most likely portions of the Creek Confederacy, that later became known as the Seminoles.
This was accentuated after the break-up of the
Apalachee tribe,
in 1704, by the expedition under Moore.
The majority of the remaining Timucua were then concentrated into missions near St. Augustine
However, this did not secure immunity against further attacks by the English and their Indian allies.
The "savage" Native mercenaries of the British, the Creek, Catawba, and Yuchi, destroyed the Spanish mission system.
The British had been more successful in establishing a permanent presence in North America than either the Spanish or the French.
They had greater self-sufficiency by reason of their larger numbers.
Another reason for the British success was because they brought in cheap manufactured goods such as utensils and tools, rum, and guns.
In exchange for these goods, the British took deer skins and slaves.
This trade eventually made the southeastern tribes dependent on the British for tools, cloth, and ammunition, as they lost their land to an encroaching agricultural economy.
The British traders in Charleston, South Carolina gave guns to the Northern tribes in order for them to launch their slave raids on the Timucua.
These raids by the Creek and other northern tribes were particularly successful against the Florida mission Indians, because they had lost any ability to defend theselves.
Hundreds of people were killed or carried off into slavery by the invading tribes.
The surviving remnant took refuge close to the walls of St. Augustine.
However, with the decline of the Spanish power in North America, and the imigration of the Creeks, the native Timucua and colonizing Spanish populations rapidly declined.
This opened the way for the creation of a new group of Native Americans who eventualy prevailed in Florida and came to be known as the Seminoles.
In 1711, the Catholic Bishop in Havana had received word that the Creek from North Florida were destroying South Florida villages and selling the Natives as slaves. He sent two ships, under Captain Luis Perdomo, to rescue their ally tribes of the Keys. Captain Perdomo was only able to rescue 270 of the Natives, but said he would have brought back more than 2,000 had he had the vessels. Of the 270 refugees, 200 died of European diseases in Cuba and 18 later returned to Florida.
The mission system's collapse came in the early 1700s due to raids and rebellions by English colonists and their Native allies.
Citrus trees had been maintained in settlements until migrations left abandoned groves behind, but the resilient sour orange rootstock allowed trees to continue to persist and spread.
Surviving trees persisted, however, and formed the basis for later grafting with sweet orange varieties in the 1800s.
A census in 1711 found 142 Timucua-speakers living in four villages under Spanish protection.
Another census in 1717 found 256 people in three villages where Timucua was the language of the majority, although there were a few inhabitants with a different native language.
The population of the Timucua villages was 167 in 1726.
By 1728, the single town which seems to have contained most of the surviving Timucua had only 15 men and 20 women.
In 1736, 17 Timicua men were reported living there.
Soon, the tribe disappears entirely, though, the remnants of the Timucua people seem to have removed themselves to a stream near the Mosquito Lagoon, in present Volusia County, which bears their name in the form Tomoka.
It is probable that some had eventually moved and made their homes with other tribes.
In 1743, another Spanish rescue attempt was made from Cuba, but the priests did about as much harm as good. The priests set fire to a Native house of worship and committed other acts against perceived idolatry, but the Natives stood fast in their beliefs.
By 1759 the Timucua under Spanish protection and control numbered just six adults and five half-Timucua children.
The last major Native exodus occurred when the Spanish traded Florida to England.
[1763 - North America Territories]
In 1763, following the French and Indian War and Seven Years' War, the Spanish population was diminished so much that they ceded Florida to Great Britain.
The Spanish took the estimated 100 Timucua and other natives with them mainly to Cuba and New Spain (Mexico).
In 1763, James Spalding established a trading post in Astor, where there were few Native Americans remaining in the area.
In the same year, Bernard Romans documented that 80 indigenous Florida Native families had fled from the Keys on a ship bound for Havana.
The ship may have sailed from the port at St. Augustine.
Some of these refugees may have returned later to form the "Spanish Indians."
Research is underway in Cuba to discover if any Timucua descendants exist there.
It was during this evacuation that the Creek and Seminoles began to move into Florida.
By the late 1700s, it is thought that all of the indigenous peoples of Florida were gone, having been replaced by the immigrating Seminole tribe, which was already forming as a unique tribe in the early 1700s. Some historians believe a small group of Timucua may have stayed behind in Florida or Georgia and possibly assimilated into the Seminoles.
[Creek and Later Seminole Territories]
At this point, the Timucua disappear from history. population.
The Timucua are now generally considered an extinct tribe. However, today there survive a small group of people in Florida who are of Timucuan heritage who have united, even though they have lost much of their language and culture. Peoples of Taino descent, such as the Timucua, are trying to recover as much of their cultural heritage as they can and gain the tribal recognition.