Visitors to the mission learn about Spanish and Native American life.

On a steamy July day in 1704, the Spanish and Apalachee residents of Mission San Luis de Talimali learned that British enemy forces were approaching. The women and children hid outside while the men set fire to the entire community, determined to prevent its occupation. Abandoning their home, the Spaniards headed east to St. Augustine, while most of the Apalachees took off in the opposite direction. Either way, they faced difficult terrain, taking cover in the Florida pines, palmetto and scrub, and foraging for food. Some were captured by the enemy troops and their Creek allies.

Mission San Luis was founded in 1656 in the Apalachee Province of “La Florida.” This area in the central Florida Panhandle had been the Apalachees’ home for a thousand years. After Spain planted roots in St. Augustine in 1565 to create a safe Atlantic harbor for its merchant ships, the Spanish set out to convert the “Indians” of Florida to Catholicism. They established a hundred mission settlements, stretching south and west from St. Augustine. These missions pre-dated their California counterparts by more than 150 years.
The Apalachee grew enough corn, beans and squash to feed a large population—estimated at 20,000 to 36,000. Around 1607, some Apalachee rulers approached the Spanish governors requesting Catholic friars to visit them. Theories have them seeking protection from “imported” diseases and outside enemies that were decimating their numbers. Whatever the reasons, within a few decades thousands of Apalachee had been baptized, earning a degree of recognition by the Spanish crown. The San Luis chief agreed to move his Apalachee village to the mission site and to help build the fort, church and other buildings.

Most remarkable, given the troubled history of encounters between Europeans and Native Americans, is evidence that for almost 50 years these two peoples lived side by side at the mission. During that time, the Apalachee sometimes railed under the thumb of cruel and abusive Spanish governors, and at other times lived well under fairer, kinder rulers. Many Apalachee women intermarried with Spanish men and were granted social privileges for themselves and their children.

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