Apalachee massacre

Battle of Ayubale
	Part of ; Detail from a 1733 map showing the Apalachee Province (roughly the eastern end of what is now called the Florida Panhandle). Ayubale is marked "Ayavalla"; the locations of many mission villages are of uncertain accuracy.
Date	25–26 January 1704
Location	Ayubale, Apalachee Province, Spanish Florida; (near present-day Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.)
Result	English-Creek victory
Belligerents
Spain Apalachee;	England Province of Carolina; Creek;
Commanders and leaders
Father Angel de Miranda (killed or captured); Juan Ruíz de Mexía (POW)	James Moore
Strength
30 Spanish cavalry; 400 Apalachee warriors	50 English traders; 1,000 Creek warriors
Casualties and losses
14 Spanish casualties; 200 warriors killed or captured; many civilians killed or taken prisoner	18 English casualties; 15 Creek casualties
	This battle was the major event of the campaigns by Moore and the Creek Indians against Spanish Florida.

The Apalachee massacre was a series of raids by English colonists from the Province of Carolina and their Indian allies against a largely peaceful population of Apalachee Indians in northern Spanish Florida that took place in 1704, during Queen Anne's War. Against limited Spanish and Indian resistance, a network of missions was destroyed; most of the population either was killed or captured, fled to larger Spanish and French outposts, or voluntarily joined the English.

The only major event of former Carolina Governor

James Moore's expedition was the Battle of Ayubale, which marked the only large-scale resistance to the English raids. Significant numbers of the Apalachee, unhappy with the conditions they lived in under the Spanish, simply abandoned their towns and joined Moore's expedition. They were resettled near the Savannah and Ocmulgee

Rivers, where conditions were only slightly better.

Moore's raiding expedition was preceded and followed by other raiding activity that was principally conducted by English-allied

Saint Augustine and Pensacola

.

Background

James Moore.^[5]

La Florida

The Spanish population of Florida at the time was fairly small compared to that of the nearby English colonies. Since its founding in the 16th century, the Spanish had set up a

Georgia) there were 14 mission communities with a total population in 1680 of about 8,000. Many but not all of these communities were populated by the Apalachee; others were inhabited by other tribes that had migrated southward to the area.^[6] By the early 18th century the Apalachee Province had become a major source of food for the principal towns of St. Augustine and Pensacola, which were situated near lands not well suited for agriculture.^[7]

The native populations of Florida were not entirely happy with Spanish rule; there had been several uprisings against the Spanish in the 17th century.

Creeks.^[10]

Raids before 1704

News that the

San Francisco de Potano. In early 1703 Creeks attacked San José de Ocuya and San Francisco de Potano, also raiding either Patali or Piritiba; it is possible that as many as 500 Indians were enslaved as a result of these raids.^[16]

Ayubale

In 1703, ex-Governor Moore presented to the Carolina assembly and his replacement,

Creek Indians to join the expedition against their traditional enemies.^[18]

Reconstructed church at Mission San Luis de Apalache

; Ayubale's church may have resembled it

On January 25, 1704, Moore's force arrived at Ayubale, one of the larger mission towns in Apalachee. While most of the Creeks raided the surrounding villages, Moore took most of the whites and 15 Creek into Ayubale itself around 7:00 am. The only resistance was organized by Father Angel Miranda, who retreated into the town's church compound, which was surrounded by a mud wall. With 26 men he successfully held the English at bay for nine hours, and only surrendered himself, his men, and 58 women and children after they ran out of arrows.[18] According to one Spanish account, Miranda threw himself and his followers on Moore's mercy. He was, according to this account (but apparently not others; see below) then summarily slain in cold blood by Moore's Indian allies, and some of his followers were then tortured and killed.^[20]

Word of the attack reached

San Luis de Apalachee, eight leagues (about 24 miles (39 km)) south of Ayubale, where Captain Juan Ruíz de Mexía raised a force of 400 Apalachee and 30 Spanish cavalry.^[19]^[20] This force engaged Moore's at Ayubale, and was decisively defeated. More than 200 Apalachees were killed or captured, three Spaniards were killed and eight were captured, with Mexía among the captured. There is evidence that as many as 50 Apalachee joined with the English against the Spanish-led forces in this encounter.^[2] Moore considered making an attack on the fort at San Luis, but his force had suffered a significant number of wounds, so he opted instead for an attempt at extortion. Some of the Spanish prisoners managed to escape, so he released Miranda, Mexía and others to go to San Luis with the hope that the San Luis garrison commander would then pay a ransom for them.^[21] However, the garrison commander refused to pay.^[2]

Further raiding in Apalachee

Following the battle at Ayubale, Moore continued his march through Apalachee. One village, San Lorenzo de Ivitachuco, survived when its leader surrendered his church's gold ornaments and a train of supplies.[2] Moore moved slowly, since many of the Apalachee apparently wanted to leave with the English. According to his report, most of the population of seven villages joined his march voluntarily.^[22]

In Moore's report of the expedition he claimed to have killed more than 1,100 men, women, and children. He also stated that he "removed into exile" 300 and "captured as slaves" more than 4,300 people, mostly women and children.^[23] The only major missions to survive in Apalachee were San Luis and San Lorenzo de Ivitachuco. The Spanish at first attempted to fortify these places, but they were eventually judged to be indefensible and abandoned. The survivors were consolidated at Abosaya, east of San Francisco de Potano.^[24]^[25]^[26]

James Moore did not identify by name the places his force destroyed. Historian Mark Boyd has analyzed English and Spanish sources documenting the missions and the effects of Moore's raid. According to his analysis,^[27] the following missions were the ones most likely to have been destroyed:

La Concepción de Ayubale
San Francisco de Oconi
San Antonio de Bacqua
San Martín de Tomole
Santa Cruz y San Pedro de Alcántara de Ychuntafun

Spanish authorities in St. Augustine and Pensacola mobilized their meager forces, but did not return to Ayubale until after Moore's force had clearly left the area. They buried the Christian dead, many of whom they reported as exhibiting evidence of torture.^[21] Despite the losses, they did not immediately abandon or consolidate the missions until further raiding took place, after which the demoralized surviving Apalachee insisted they would either retreat to Pensacola or go over to the English.^[28]

Later raids

In the wake of Moore's raids, further raids were made into northern Florida, principally executed by the Creeks. In August 1704, Creeks destroyed the

Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, wrote that raiding the Florida area resulted in the killing of 2,000 Apalachees and the capture of 32 Spaniards, 17 of whom were burned alive.^[29] By the end of 1706 the Spanish presence in Florida had been reduced to St. Augustine and Pensacola.^[30]

Consequences

All of [this] I have done with the loss of 4 whites and 15 Indians, and without one Penny charge to the Publick. Before this Expedition, we were more afraid of the Spaniards of Apalatchee and their Indians in Conjunction with the French of Mississippi, and their Indians, doing us Harm by Land, than of any Forces of the Enemy by Sea. This has wholly disabled them from attempting anything against Us by Land.

— James Moore's report [31]

Many survivors fled westward and settled near the French colonial outpost of Mobile, while others ended up near either St. Augustine or Pensacola;^[22] Bienville reported that about 600 refugees were settled near Mobile.^[29] The Apalachees taken by Moore were resettled either along the Savannah River, or among the Creek on the Ocmulgee River.^[32] The free Apalachee refugees that settled these areas were frequently harassed by slavers; in some cases Indians taken as slaves were freed after protests were made to Carolina authorities.^[33]

The Spanish responded to the raids by encouraging privateering raids against Carolina coastal plantations. In the following years, the English colonists continued to make inroads against Spanish and French interests in Florida and on the Gulf Coast, but they were never able to capture St. Augustine, Pensacola, or Mobile, the main Spanish and French settlements. Pensacola was twice besieged by Creek forces in 1707, apparently with English colonial support.^[34] English-supplied Indians also made incursions into French-dominated territories to the west, but English intentions to assault Mobile never got beyond the planning stages; there was a raid on an Indian village near Mobile in 1709.^[35]

Historiography

Due in part to the somewhat fragmentary, unclear, and contradictory primary materials about these raids, historians have at times written widely varying accounts of the number of Indians that were enslaved. Although Moore claimed in his report that a large number of Apalachee were enslaved, modern historians believe that a significant number of those resettled by Moore went voluntarily, and were not actually slaves. Vernon Crane, in The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732 (originally published in 1929), uncritically accepts Moore's numbers,^[31] and 19th century South Carolina historian Edward McCrady only mentions 1,400 Apalachees being taken, of whom only 100 were slaves.^[36] Historian Allan Gallay, in a modern analysis, opines that the raids in 1704 alone resulted in the enslavement of between 2,000 and 4,000 Indians.^[30]

Opinions also differ as to the long-term fate of the Indians that voluntarily went with Moore. Since a 1715 census of the Savannah River settlements counted fewer than 650 Apalachees, Allan Gallay believes that the balance were probably sold into slavery.^[30] James Covington believes that a combination of factors was to blame: in addition to active slaving against those settlements, disease, starvation, intermarriage with other tribes, and migration to other communities account for the difference.^[37]