Michelle Pigott University of West Florida

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A Tale of Two Villages: Apalachee Culture Change in the 18th Century

By the late 17th, early 18th century, the European colonial presence, including trade,

military encounters and religious missions, was a permanent fixture in most Southeastern Native

Americans’ daily lives. This constant influence resulted in major change culturally and spatially

for these populations. One such group was the Apalachee Indians, originally from a region

centering about modern Tallahassee, Florida. This study examines and analyzes the changes

these people experienced after their dispersal from their homeland through ceramic data

collected from two contemporaneous Apalachee villages settled in the early 18th century during a

time of mass Native American migrations.

Brief History

In the Apalachee heartland of Tallahassee, fertile uplands supported large scale

agriculture, which in turn produced large populations organized into chiefdoms during the late

prehistoric era. This subsistence system was deemed ideal for the colonial Spanish and their

missionaries’ survival. During the course of the 17th century, the Apalachee people became fully

incorporated into the Spanish Florida mission system, supplying the colony’s small population

with food and labor in return for access to Spanish goods. Modern Tallahassee was the location

of the capital of the Christian Apalachee province and contained one of the largest missions, San

Luis de Talimali, in the chain of Franciscan mission settlements running through the interior of

the Floridian panhandle. Fueled in part by a booming Indian slave trade, English soldiers and

Creek warriors attacked and ultimately destroyed the large settlement, the mission and its

garrison, as well as most other missions in the province, in 1704, leading to its abandonment and

the dispersal of the Apalachee people. They separated into three major groups; one fleeing east

St. Augustine

Mobile

Pensacola

San Luis

Charleston Creek Country

The Southeast in the late 17th century

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toward the Spanish in St. Augustine, another west towards Pensacola and Mobile, and a northern

group comprised of prisoners and “exiles” living amongst the Creek and English.

The western band of Apalachees, as many as 800 people, made their way through

Pensacola in mid-1704, many eventually settling under the protection of the French in Mobile,

claiming their French allies were willing to support them (and supply them with firearms), unlike

their previous relationship with the Spanish. Immediately allying themselves with French

colonial officials and local Indian groups such as the Tensaw, Chickasaw and Choctaw, the

Apalachee in Mobile settled upriver from Mobile Bay and quickly became involved in the local

economy; working in French forts, raising corn for trade with French colonials, as well as

operating a ferry across the many inlets of the marshy bay. In 1721, Mobile received requests for

a priest to perform mass for the Apalachee regularly, which was happily supplied.

In 1733, the original Apalachee villages situated to the north of Mobile-Tensaw Bay were

abandoned to be relocated to the final site on the eastern side of the bay, in modern Blakeley

State Park. This Apalachee village was part of a greater network of trade throughout the bay and

most likely into the Pensacola region, where the Apalachee mission San Joseph de Escambe was

located. However, just like many native populations of the time, the Apalachees’ numbers slowly

dwindled as a result of various diseases, especially yellow fever. When French Mobile was ceded

to the British in 1763, the remaining 80 or so Apalachee, along with several other local Indian

groups, fled west, where a village of Apalachees was last noted in historical documents along

Red River in 1825. A small group of Apalachees exist today in modern Louisiana, and appear to

be the direct descendants of this western band of Apalachee people.

de L'Isle 1718

Sartine 1778

St. Augustine

Mobile

Pensacola

San Luis

Charleston Creek Country

The Southeast in the late 17th century

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The Apalachees that found themselves north, in Georgia and South Carolina, after 1704

resided with Creek Indians after their homeland’s destruction until about 1718, when their chief

Juan Marcos Ysfani arrived in Pensacola on a diplomatic mission with the Spanish, which

eventually led him all the way to Veracruz, Mexico that year. Upon his return, Juan Marcos

established a new settlement for his people north of the Pensacola Santa Maria presidio in 1718.

A brief incursion of the French in 1719 destroyed Santa Maria, prompting the construction of the

new Presidio Santa Rosa. Juan Marcos had brought most of his fellow Apalachee exiles from

Creek country into Pensacola, and lived at the mouth of the Escambia River inland from Santa

Rosa. When the Spanish built a new inland settlement, later known as Presidio San Miguel, in

1741, the Apalachee moved their village farther up the Escambia River.

The village became known as “San Joseph de Escambe”, and contained nearly all the

Christian Apalachee Indians in the Pensacola region. The village contained a small church, and

at times a Spanish friar who performed regular Catholic rites, as well as a small contingent of

Spanish soldiers after 1750. The settlement had trade relationships with Alabama Creek Indians,

as well as western groups in Mobile Bay (and likely the Blakely Park village). By the end of

1759, deteriorating relations with the Creeks to the north led to the fortification of the small

mission and the arrival of a more substantial contingent of Spanish soldiers and cavalry.

Unfortunately, these preparations did not prevent the village from being attacked and burned to

the ground by Alabama Indian warriors in April of 1761. All surviving the encounter, the

Apalachee villagers fled back to Pensacola and resided just outside the presidio until 1763, when

Florida was handed over to Great Britain. The remaining Apalachee, still led by Juan Marcos,

evacuated Pensacola with the Spanish to Veracruz, where the last historic documentation of these

Spanish Pensacola and Apalachee Settlements 1718 - 1763

Mission San Joseph de Escambe 1741 - 1763

Santa Maria de Galve 1698 - 1719

Santa Rosa 1722 - 1756

San Miguel 1756 - 1763

Nuestra Señora de Soledad y San Luis 1718 - 1741

Taitt 1771

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people mention them settling a small village outside the Mexican city. Their descendants may

reside there today, although none are known to identify themselves as Apalachee.

The Assemblages and Method

Between 2001 and 2004, the Mobile Bay Apalachee settlement, located today in Blakely

State Park, was excavated as part of a field methods class by the University of South Alabama

under the direction of Dr. Gregory Waselkov. The Blakely Park site, which was first excavated

in 1977, was known to have several components including prehistoric shell mounds, an Early

American Period town and trenches from a Civil War era skirmish. The recent investigation by

the University of South Alabama was conducted to locate the Apalachee village, which

consequently produced a sizable collection of 18th century aboriginal and European ceramics.

Mission San Joseph de Escambe was rediscovered in 2009, and excavations by the University of

West Florida led by Dr. John Worth commenced the same summer. Escambe, located near the

rural town of Molino, Florida, is another multi-component site, with at least one prehistoric

settlement, the mission and village, and a late 19th century lumber mill complex all located

within a few hundred meters of each other. The UWF summer field school excavations between

2009 and 2012 have recovered substantial Native American sherds, as well as European

ceramics.

The large amounts of ceramics recovered from both sites offer extensive data to analyze

what happened to these two separate Apalachee populations after 1704. Beginning in the fall of

2012, I performed a detailed analysis on all decorated and rims of native ceramics, continuing an

earlier study of the material by Jennifer Melcher of UWF. Detailed measurements of the sherds

included weight, thickness, temper, rim style and thickness, incision style, incision width,

Mission Escambe

Blakeley Park

Blakeley Park - Plain to Decorated Sherds

Total Plain

Total Decorated

9,438.5 g

Mission Escambe - Plain to Decorated Sherds

Total Plain

Total Decorated

10,540.4 g

4,574.4 g 2,641.2 g

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distance between incisions, depth of incisions and thickness of slip. I also recorded when present,

the length of folds on rims as well as the relative location of pinches, incisions or folds from the

rim edge. Any sherds that were confidently identified to be colonoware were removed from the

total sample to avoid skewing data. Of the total Blakely Park sherds, a total of 1086 were

decorated, weighing 2641.2 grams; only 21% of the total weight of the ceramics assemblage.

There were 1943 decorated ceramics from Escambe, weighing 4574.4 grams, a little over 30% of

the total assemblage. All percentages discussed further in this study are a percentage of weights,

not counts, of sherds.

Results and Discussion

During the course of my analysis, it became quickly apparent that the native ceramics

from the two villages contained influences from a few historic native pottery traditions,

especially Apalachee, interior Lamar, and the western Fatherland style. Traditional Mission

Apalachee pottery, as defined by sherds recorded at San Luis in Tallahassee, tends to consist of

thickly grog tempered ceramics with folded rims, complicated stamping, Mission Red slipped

and some incised decorations. The Lamar tradition, centered in modern Georgia (Creek country)

involves grit or shell tempered paste, folded and pinched rims, complicated stamping replaced by

pine needle brushing, corn cob roughening and an incision tradition known as Ocmulgee Fields

or Columbia Incised (depending upon the design). Fatherland Incised pottery, from the

Plaquemine Lower Mississippi River valley culture, is normally on a fine shell and grog

tempered paste, with a distinctive decorative style: three to five close lines forming long

curvilinear patterns across an entire vessel, leaving large empty spaces in between the clustered

incisions.

Lamar

Plaquemine

San Luis de Talimali Escambe

Blakeley Park

Total Tempers- Blakeley Park

Grog no Shell

Shell no Grog

Sand/Grit, no Shell, no Grog

Grog and Shell

Grog and Shell 21.2%

Sand/Grit 26%

Shell 37.9%

Grog 14.7%

Total Tempers- Escambe

Grog no Shell

Shell no Grog

Sand/Grit no Shell, no Grog

Grog and Shell

Grog 28%

Shell 23.3%

Sand/Grit 39%

Grog and Shell 9.6%

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The degree of “Apalachee-ness” that the pottery of Escambe and Blakely Park reflect was

actually surprisingly less than first expected. Putting aside surface decorations and rim

treatments, the tempers of the sherds deviated greatly from traditional Apalachee grog temper.

Of the total native sherds identified from Escambe, 39% were tempered with sand; only 28%

were grog tempered. In Blakely Park, over 36% of the total decorated sherds were tempered with

shell; over 58% if grog-shell tempered ceramics are included. The displacement of grog temper

as preeminent seems to stem from the other cultures the Apalachee interacted with; the Creeks

from the northeast, with their sand/grit and shell tradition, and the historic Mobile Bay Indians’

(like the Choctaw and Tensaw) shell temper pottery.

Mission Escambe’s ceramics, whose Apalachee creators resided with Creek Indians for

some 14 years, took on a peculiar hybrid of Apalachee-Creek pottery styles. Of Escambe’s total

decorated ceramics, over 50% were decorated by some form of roughening, a Creek-Lamar

tradition. Similarly, decorated sherds at Blakely Park were mostly roughened by almost 37%, but

slipped pottery (nearly all red) was a close second at 35%. Complicated stamping, a mainstay of

the Apalachee ceramic tradition, is poorly represented. In fact, the next major decoration of both

villages is incised, which makes up some 20% of the total weight of decorated sherds in Molino

and 25% in Blakely Park. Interestingly, the incision styles vary widely between the two sites.

Over 96% of historic ceramics at Escambe fall into the Creek-Lamar tradition, while only 29%

of incised sherds at Blakely Park are in the same category. In fact, the dominant incision style at

Blakely Park is the western Fatherland tradition, totaling in at over 70% in comparison to the

meager 4% identified at Escambe. While this decoration type is traditionally located upon a fine

grog and shell paste, the Apalachee at Blakely Park also used the same style of incisions on sand

tempered and shell tempered pottery. The shell tempered variation of this incision style may also

Surface Decorations - Escambe

Incised

Stamped

Slipped

Burnished

Roughened

Surface Decorations- Blakeley Park

Incised

Stamped

Slipped

Burnished

Roughened

Stamped 2%

Incised 25%

Slipped 35.1%

Roughened 36.9%

Incised 20.2%

Stamped 10.3%

Slipped 8.6% Burnished

9.2%

Roughened 51.5%

Burnished 0.9%

Historic Incised - Escambe

Creek-LamaroidFatherland

Creek-Lamaroid 96%

Fatherland 4%

Historic Incised – Blakeley Park

Creek-LamaroidFatherland

Fatherland 71.1%

Creek-Lamaroid 28.8%

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be identified in the Mobile Bay area as Port Dauphin Incised or Doctor Lake Incised, depending

upon rim treatments, which were impossible to determine with the ceramics I had at my disposal.

Keeping in mind both settlements were populated by Apalachee with a common ancestry,

who just 30 or so years before had parted ways, the ceramic styles evolved quickly. Folded rims

are a hallmark of Apalachee rim treatments, which while a small sample, can be used to track

Apalachee traits still present in the pottery the village women were creating. Escambe and

Blakely Park both produced a majority of grog-tempered folded rims, at an average of nearly 15

mm in length (17mm at Escambe and 14mm at Blakely), which could be used to clearly show the

continuing tradition of Apalachee style rims. However, when one looks at the total percent

folded rims make up in the assemblage (less than 10% of total rim styles in both cases) it is

impossible to use such data to argue these people fully retained their Apalachee ceramic

tradition, without appropriating neighboring cultures’ practices. In fact, by examining the two

assemblages it is easy to see other cultures’ influences upon the Apalachees’ manufacture of

pottery. From the Lamaroid roughening found at both sites, to the presence of external incision

styles, one can see the influence of migrations and interactions with new cultural groups on the

Apalachee people.

Conclusion

While all of this data is still preliminary, it is not difficult to observe that after the

destruction of the Apalachee homeland, the Apalachee people experienced a major change in

culture, especially evident in their pottery styles. The impact of neighboring people, in

combination with old traditions, shaped the assemblages found at Mission San Joseph de

Escambe and the Blakely Park settlement. These two villages, populated by people with the same

Folded Rims- Escambe

Grog no Shell

Shell no Grog

Shell and Grog

Sand/Grit no Shell/noGrog

Sand/Grit 10.6%

Folded Rims - Blakeley Park

Grog no Shell

Shell no Grog

Shell and Grog

Sand/Grit no shell/no grog

Grog 69.9%

Shell 9.3%

Shell and Grog 10.1%

Grog 71%

Shell 8.8%

Sand/Grit 17.2%

Shell and Grog 2.7%

Thank you to: Dr. John Worth Jennifer Melcher Jan Lloyd Norrine Caroll UWF GAA

Waselkov and Gums 2000 Historic Indians of the Mobile Bay. In Plantation Archaeology at Riviere aux Chiens. Pp 6-62

Cordell, Ann. 2001 Continuity and Change in Apalachee Pottery Manufacture. Mobile, University of South Alabama Center for Archaeological Studies.

Blitz, John Howard 1985 An Archaeological Study of the Mississippi Choctaw Indians. Jackson, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Ivas, Alice 2005 Caught in the Middle: The Apalachee of Mobile. MA Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of South Alabama.

Referenced Texts

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heritage, produced varied ceramics reflective of their transformed culture. Ceramic style is not a

stable unchanging marker of a culture tradition, but is a reflection of the culture changes that a

population experiences, such as the migrations of the Apalachee without a homeland.

Works Cited

Cordell, Ann.

2001 Continuity and Change in Apalachee Pottery Manufacture. Mobile, University of

South Alabama Center for Archaeological Studies.

Blitz, John Howard

1985 An Archaeological Study of the Mississippi Choctaw Indians. Jackson, Mississippi

Department of Archives and History.

Ivas, Alice

2005 Caught in the Middle: The Apalachee of Mobile. MA Thesis, Department of

Anthropology, University of South Alabama.

Worth, John and Melcher, Jennifer (et al.)

No date- Mission Escambe Site report. University of West Florida.

Waselkov, Greg and Gums, Bonnie

2000 Historic Indians of the Mobile Bay. In Plantation Archaeology at Riviere aux

Chiens. Pp 6-62