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Jacksonville's Other Lost Fort: Pilijiriba

Panel 11

In 1703, some Mocamas relocated from St. Augustine to present-day Queen’s Harbor Yacht and Country Club. Years earlier a small number of Mocamas had established a satellite settlement there called Pilijiriba—or “standing field” in Mocama. Now, Mocama and also Guale refugees erected two town sites and began to build a fort, with the Spanish.

But ongoing raids by the Yamasees, Creeks, and English prompted them to return to St. Augustine, now the only site of Franciscan missions in all of Florida. Over the course of the eighteenth century, the number of Mocamas and Guales in St. Augustine declined. In 1717, after a major war with the British, over 400 Yamasees established three new settlements in and near St. Augustine. But they soon became the targets of attacks by the Creeks, Yuchis, and British. By the 1740s, many Yamasees had migrated to the Florida Panhandle where there were new Yamasee, Apalachee, and Creek towns. While we do not know whether survivors of Pilijiriba accompanied them, it is possible. If they did, they interacted with and joined groups that would eventually be called the Seminole Indians.

Images

Jacksonville's Other Lost Fort: Pilijiriba Panel This panel describes the history of Pilijiriba, a Mocama settlement that eventually housed two Mocama and Guale towns in the eighteenth century. Source: Department of History and Department of Anthropology, University of North Florida Creator: Dr. Denise Bossy, Dr. Keith Ashley, and University of North Florida students Date: 2020

Metadata

“Jacksonville's Other Lost Fort: Pilijiriba,” Indigenous Florida, accessed October 16, 2024, https://indigenousflorida.domains.unf.edu/items/show/83.