Precursors of Missionization: Early European Contact on the Georgia Coast, 1514-1587

Summary

Beginning not long after the Spanish discovery of the Florida peninsula in 1513, indigenous groups along the Georgia coast were increasingly subject to sporadic maritime visits by Spanish and later French ships. By the time Georgia’s coastal chiefdoms were assimilated into the expanding Franciscan mission system of Spanish Florida after 1587, they had already experienced more than seven decades of occasional interaction with European slavers, colonists, soldiers, missionaries, traders, and shipwreck survivors. While direct evidence for such contact is limited and sometimes ambiguous, combined documentary and archaeological data provide an informative glimpse into the still poorly-known period between first contact and missionization along Georgia’s coast and adjacent regions of the interior.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• 2015 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of David Hurst Thomas

Keywords

Spatial Coverage