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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
MAY 9, 1926
f
M.
Missionaries Labored in Georgia
Generations Before English Made
Their First American Settlement
Article in The Commonweal Reveals That This State Has History Antedating That of
Any State But Florida—Friars Came in 1565—107 0 Indians Confirmed 'Near
Savannah in 1606, Year Before Jamestown and Fourteen Years Before Plymouth
(Richard Reid in The Commonweal.)
The record of the Georgia mis
sions is an inspiring story of the
Franciscans, the Jesuits, the Domini
cans, and the secular clergy. It
links us with the days of Saint
Ignatius Loyola, Saint Francis Xavier,
Saint Francis de Sales. Saint Vin
cent de Paul, Saint Philip Neri, Saint
Peter Canisius. Indeed, it was the
great Saint Francis Borgia himself
who sent sons of Loyola to labor
“Ad Majorem Gloriam Dei” in the
new country.
The English settled / Georgia in
1733. Yet one year before the first
permanent English settlement, at
Jamestown, and 14 years before
the Pilgrim Fathers “fell on their
knees and then on the aborigines”
in the Old Bay Stale, His Lordship,
Cabeza de Altamirano, Bishop of
Santiago de Cuba, administered the
Sacrament of Confirmation in Geor
gia to 1,070 neophytes.
The early history of Georgia is
. closely linked with that of Florida.
Both were governed from St. Au
gustine; there was 11 o clear line of
demarkation between them such as
now exists. Indeed, the name Flor
ida was applied equally to the pres
ent Georgia. It is common knowl
edge that the roots of Florida his
tory are deeply imbedded in Catholic
soil. Ponce de Leon and his Cath
olic companions discovered Florida
on Easter morn of 1513. but their
attempt to found a colony was aban
doned eight years later. It was in
Florida—at Tampa—that Luis Cancer
de Barbastro, Apostle of Guatemala
was killed by the savage Catoosas—
this a generation before the fiust
permanent settlement on ihe North
American continent, the Catholic St.
, Augustine, colonized in 1565.
The Catholic history, of Georgia
is hardly less ancient. It is prob
able that Ayllon. who in 1526, but a
score of years after the death of Co
lumbus, planted a short-lived colony
on the coast of South Carolina, trod
Georgia soil. It is certain that Her
nando de Soto crossed the state
“from the Savannah to the Chatta
hoochee” on his ill-fated march
(1539-1542) to his grave of running
waters in the Mississippi. DeSoto
was accompanied on his historic
march by “twelve priests, eight eccle
siastics, and four religious.” With
this expedition and that of Nar
vaez at least fifteen priests lost their
lives in the Southwest. Some of
them, worn out by the hardships
of battling their way through treach
erous swamps and dangerous for
ests. found their final resting place
in Georgia graves.
By right of exploration the entire
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Southeast was Spain’s. For nearly a
century and a half after the dis
covery of Florida by Ponce de Leon
and for a century after Mencndez
settled £t. Augustine and colonized
Georgia, their Catholic Majesties
held practically undisputed sway
over it. The Spanish at first, were
not partreularly enthusiastic about
prospects in this territory. ’Ihe fail
ure of de Leon, Ayllon, de Luna,
Villafane, Narvaez, de Soto, and
other intrepid sons of Aragon and
Castile to plant settlements which
would lake root, rather discouraged
King Philip. He thought there were
better lands in South America, and
he decided to withdraw from the
north country. The French changed
his mind for him by settling Port
Royal in 1562, and Fort Caroline,
on the St. John’s river, two years
later.
Ihe king dispatched Menendez dc
Aviles to eject the intruders and to
colonize llie threatened coast. This
Menendez dpi in very thorough fash
ion, blotting his otherwise admirable
record by the massacre of the de
fenders of F’ort Caroline. The Set
tlement of St. Augustine by Menem
dez at this time, 1565, was the be
ginning of the continued and heroic
effort to evangelize the Indians
which ended 200 years later when
Georgia, and subsequently Florida,
passed by treaty to English sov
ereignty.
Georgia claims the first Jesuit
Martyr in the western hemisphere.
He was Father Pedro Martinez, one
of three missionaries sent to the
Southeast by Saint F’rancis Borgia
immediately after the settlement oi
Florida. This pioneer was mar
tyred in 1566 by tile Yamassee on
Cumberland Island. Previously
Menendez had visited Georgia ar
established friendly relations witn
the Indians of Guale, now St. Cath
erine’s Island, near Savannah.
After the death of Father Martinez
the province of Florida, including
Georgia, became a Jesuit vice-prov
ince with F'ather Segura as proviu
cial. Ten more Jesuits were assigned
to the new field; a school for In
dian boys was started at Havana.
At Guale, at St. Elena, the Carolina
Spanish post among the Oriste, and
elsewhere, the Jesuits began their
civilizing and Christianizing efforts
Brother Baez compiled a dicionary
and Brother Domingo a grammar
and cathechisin, the first hooks writ
ten in an Indian tongue. After con
siderable discouraging work among
the fickle Indians the Jesuits with
drew. Father Segura and his com
panions went to martyr’s deaths o
Virginia; the others were trans
ferred to the more promising fields
of Mexico and Cuba.
The labors of the Jesuits were not
fruitless. The results of their ef
forts and of those of the Domin
icans, who had established a mis
sion on St. Simonjs Island, were
merely lying dormant, to blossom
after further cultivation by the
Franciscans who succeeded them, in
the early 1570’s. Under the leader
ship of "Father Alonzo Rcynosa, the
prototype of the renowed Junipero
Serra, the sons of Saint Francis es
tablished missions i,n Georgia at
Ossabaw, Santa Catalina, San Simon,
Sail linenventura and San Pedro Is
lands, at Toloinato on the mainland
opposite Sane do Island, at Santa
Maria, and at other points.
The exact location of most of the
old Franciscan missions is unknown,
hut occasionally ruins of them are
revealed. The archives in Cuba, re
cently examined indicated the site
of the Franciscan establishment on
the hanks of the Altamaha. Miss
Mary Ross, of the University of Cal
ifornia, found the spot and the ruins;
the cells of the monks were being
used as pigpens. The owners of ihe
property regarded the relics of the
missions as the remains of slave
cabins built before the war. Pictures
of the ruin s of the Altamaha mis
sion and of Santa Maria mission
near St. Mary’s. Georgia appear the
recently issued “Debatable Land.”
(Debatable Land, by Herbert Bolton
and Mary Ross. Berkley: Univer
sity of California Press.) What
as effect the reconstruction of the
original missions would have on the
minds of the numerous body in Ihe
Southeast which is convinced that
this is a Proptestant country, that
Catolics are newcomers, and that as
newcomers they should know their
places and keep it!
It would be pleasant to record that
the Franciscan missions flourished
from the beginning, extending their
influence and increasing in prosper
ity witli eacli succeeding generation,
hut it would not be true, yet there
is no more brilliant page in the
Catholic history of this continent
than that which records the trials,
the triumphs, and the reverses of
these followers of Saint Francis in
Georgia.
The difficulties of Christianizing
the Indians were many. The natives,
wlidn not hostile, were frequently
fickle. The king’s officers, soldiers,
traders, and adventurers in the new
country at times made the work of
tli e missionaries harder by had ex
ample. a condition warned against
in a letter from Pope Pius V to
Menendez emphasizing the fact that
“nothing is more important in the
conversion of these Indians and idol
aters than to endeavor by all means
to prevent scandal being given by
the vices and imorality of such as
go to those western parts.”
More serious was. the hostility of
the English and- the depredations of
their buccaneers who repeatedly at
tacked and sacked file missions, un
doing in a day the expenditure of
years of unbelieveable toil. The raids
of Drake are an example; in 1586
he and his followers destroyed the
Dominican mission at St. Simon’s
Island, killed the missionaries,
sacked other missions along the
coast, and burned St. Augustine. At
San Domingo they hanged two
Franciscans who came to negotiate.
included in a new Franciscan ^mis
sionary province, that of Santa Ele
na; and Fray Juan de 'Capillos, a
Georgia missionary, became first
provincial, with' headquarlcrs at St.
Augustine. The number of priests
working in the Southeast was c»ig-
incnled by llie arrival of twenty-
four friars. “Thirty, forty, and even
fifty was the usual corps of priests
in the Florida province” at this
period, Professor Bolton writes. It
was the golden age of the Franciscan
missions in the Old Southeast. Ply
mouth Rock was yet untouched by
English feet!
The number of these Catholic In
dians in the Southeast is variously
estimated. One authoriiy declares
that in 1634 the province of St. Ele
na, with the motherhouse at St. Au
gustine, contained forty-four Indian
missions, thirty-five missionaries,
and 30,000 Catholic Indians. A more
conservative, although not necessa
rily more accurate estimate, states
that in 1655 there were thirty-five
Franciscan missions in Georgia and
Florida with a Catholic Indian pop
ulation of 26,000. It is estimated
that more than twenty stations were
established along the Georgia coast
and up into South Carolina by 1650,
and in 1655 Georgia is credited with
five main missions, San Pedro oil
Cumberland Island. San Buenaven
tura on Jekyl Island, Santo Domin-4
go at Talaje on the mainland, San
Jose on Sapelo Island, and Santa
Catalina on St. Catherine’s Island.
In South Carolina there was San
Felipe on Parris Island, and Cliatu-
cache further north.
“To us was the good God most
merciful and gracious,” Drake wrote
in 1593 to Queen Elizabeth, “in that
He permitted us to kill eighteen
Spanish, bitter enemies of your
sweet Majesty. We. further wasted
the country and brought it to utter
ruin. We burned their homes and
killed their few mules and cattle,
eating what we could of the fresh
beef and carrying the rest aboard
our ships. Having in mind the mer
ciful disposition of your gracious
Majesty, we did not kill the women
and children, but having destroyed
their provisions and property and
taken away all their weapons, we
left them to starve.” The world does
grow better. What a wave of re
sentment such an act of “mercy”
would arouse throughout tlieChris-
tian world were it prepetrated today 1
Twelve additional Franciscans
came to Georgia in 1593 to suplement
their predecessors. One was founded
on Jekyl Island, the present site
of an ultra-exclusive club. Another
mission is believed to have been es
tablished on the mainland north of
the Altamaha river. The great ex
pan je of swamp land between the
island and coast-fringe and the
Georgia back country did not prevent
the zealous Franciscans from pene
trating to the interior. The Brown
Robes soon came in contact with the
powerful Apalaclie Indians, whose
territory extended through south
western Georgia from the banks of
the Suwance in F'lorida to the Al
abama Apalachicola.
The friars worked among the Apa-
laclie whose territory centered
around the site of modern Valdosta,
Georgia. This tribe was superior to
its neighbors; evidence never has
been discovered to show that it of
fered human sacrifice, a practice
of even the intelligent Timuqua.
After repeatedly petitioning for
missionaries, their requests were
answered in 1633 and in a few years
the entire tribe from northwest F'lor
ida to eastern Alabama was Chris
tianized. A flourishing trade Wiyi
St. Augustine was developed. Unjust
exactions of the governor created
such discontent that in 1657 it be
came, necessary to abandon eight
prospering missions in the Apalaclie
territory, hut they were restored
later by Bishop Gabriel Diaz Vara
Calderon of Santiago de Cuba who,
on a visitation of the Southeast, es
tablished several new foundations.
In the meantime the English had
settled Charleston. The Spanish set
tlements in Georgia barred thir way
to Alabama,'and conflict was inev
itable. The Spanish kept firearms
away from their Indians; the Caro-
lians armed and incited theirs. An
attack on Santa Catalina in 1680 by
300 Indians headed by the English
was the first of a scries of such
troubles; a troop of Christian In
dians was carried off to be sold as
slaves. Spain, already dissipating
her energies, was not in a position
to give her colonies the assistance
and defense they needed. The Span
ish frontier fell back from Santa
Catalina to Sapelo and the Altamaha.
stone age. The Ynnimassce changed
their allegiance and with English
buccaneers wrecked the Guale mis
sions. The frontier again receded,
this time to Santa Maria, San .Tuan,
and Santa Cruz now Amelia Island.
The Spanish retaliated hr attacking
Port ltoyal. England refused t«
sanction a counter-attack, saying
that. Charleston had harbored pirates
and that the Scotch in the Carohnas
had abetted the Yamassee.
In the meatime Carolina and Flor
ida contended for the posession.ot
inland Georgia, peaceably occupied by
the Snanish for Over a century, llie
Spanish, on the whole, fought a los
ing fight. At the dawn of the eigh
teenth e'entury, Moore, a former gov
ernor of Carolina, leading fifty Eng
lish and 1,000 or more well-armed
Greeks, Catawbas, and other un-
Christianized savages, destroyed
ten of the eleven Apalache missions,
slaughtered hundreds of Christian .
Indians and Spaniards, four PJiests,
including F'ather Pareja and Father
Mirando—who were among the many
burned at the stake—and carried oil
1,400 Christian Indians to be Sold
as slaves in Carolina or to be dis
tributed for adoption or torture.
Of the 7,000 Christian Apalclie only
400 escaped. Everything on the
peaceful flourishing missions was
destroyed.
Undaunted, the Franciscan mis
sionaries soon were directing their
energies to the task of restoring the
ruins of their .generations of work.
The Yamassee, dissatisfied with
their treatment at the hands of the
Carolinans, made .peace with the
Spanish. By 1720 there were again
six towns and seven missions of
Catholic Indians in the devasted
area inland; six years later there
were still 1,000 Catholic Indians in
Georgia.
In 1733 Georgia was founded as a
buffer colony between Carolina and
the Spanish settlements; Ihe grant
ended at Une Altamaha river. The
English desired the territory be
tween the Altamaha and the St.
John’s to he regarded, as ai kind of
no man’s land. Despite the efforts
of the English government to main
tain peace by forbidding the Geor
gians to- settle below the Altamaha,
the colonists often ignored the
boundary. .
England was engaged in a war with
F'rance at the time, and desired
Spain’s neutrality. The task of .re
maining neutral became too great
for Spain; she entered the war, in
1761, on the side of the French.
Tlie subsequent victory of the Eng
lish sealed tlie doom of the Geor
gia missions; the neutral territory
being practically all of what is now
known as South Georgia, was lost to
Florida. The history of the Francis
can missions in Georgia was a close;}
book.
No longer arc tile Christians of
Georgia Catholic, but that does not
dim the lustre of the priestly am
bassadors who first preached Christ
Crucified along the placid Savannah,
the historic Altamaha. and the
storied Suwance. No other American,
state is more generously sowed with
__ that priceless seed of Hie Church,
St. Augustine, disturbed, entered its' the blood of martyr’s!
’Tlie missions were also victims of
fickleness on the part of the In
dians along the coast in the dying
days of the sixteenth century, long
before Jamestown and Plymouth,
when the friars were recovering
from the raids of Drake and llie
other buccaneers. A young Yamas
see chief, a cacique’s son, after a
short period of fervor plunged into
scandalous excesses and was private
ly and later publicly reproved by
Father Corpa of the Tolomala mis
sion. EniHged, the young brave
gathered some kindred spirits around
him, found Father Corpa in his
chapel in the darkness of the night,
stretching him lifeless with one
blow and then, cowering the peo
ple, started out on a bloody expe
dition that gave the Church four
other martyrs.
Father Corps's companions in
death were Father Rodriquez of Tor-
piqui, whom the murderers allowed
to say Mass before execution; F'ath
er Aunon ant),. Father de Badajoz of
Santa Catalena, also killed at the
cnd_ of Mass, and whom a friendly
Indian chief tried in vain to save;
and Father Velascola of Asao, now
St. Simon’s Island, the most learned
and most humble of the missionar
ies, struck down with clubs and axes
by the murderous band which met
him in an apparently friendly man
ner on his return from a visit to St
Augustine. At the present Jekyl
Island the assassins found F'ather
de Avila who. instead of being sent
to eternity after his brother friars,
was sold into slavery and a year
later was rescued.
In 1602 there were 1,200 Christian
Indians among the Timuqua, who
numbered perhaps 20,000. Three
years later seven more friars came
and the Yamassee missions, de
stroyed by the young chief’s band,
were reestablished. The Potano
tribe along the Suwance was al
most entirely Christianized; efforts
among tlie lower Creeks were fruit
ful; Bishop Cabeza made the con
firmation tour previously referred
to, administering the Sacrament to
1,070 at four Georgia missions.
F'ather Pareja published a Timuqua
catechism in Mexico in 1612 and a
grammar two years later. In the
former year the Atlantic coast was
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