Forging a new identity in Florida’s refugee missions

Worth, John E. (author)

53rd International Conference of Americanists, Mexico City, Mexico, 19-24 July 2009

July 2009

By 1706, the once-extensive mission system of Spanish Florida had been reduced to a handful of refugee communities near the two remaining colonial Spanish settlements at St. Augustine and Pensacola, largely in consequence of demographic collapse and English-sponsored slaving during the 17th century. Over the next decades, these communities consolidated into an increasingly smaller number of refugee missions, the last inhabitants of which chose evacuation and exile with Spanish colonists in Cuba and Mexico in 1763. This paper explores the process through which indigenous political and ethnic subdivisions were ultimately minimized in favor of a single “Florida Mission Indian” identity.

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