1880.] 40 J [Gatschet. 



Indians, who held the south-western portion of the peninsula (Brinton, 

 Notes, p. 113). Among twenty of their number, Comachica and Cala-obe 

 are probably belonging to the Timucua language (hica, land, country ; 

 kala-abo, fruit-stalk or fruit-tree) ; the town of Tampa has a Maskoki name: 

 itimpi near, close to it. Some of these towns were located on Lueayo Islands 

 (the Keys?), and four in the land of the Tocobayo, on Lake Mayaimi. 

 Near Manatee, Brinton found a small lake called Lake Mayaco, a name 

 not altogether unlike Mayaimi ; but Lake Mayaimi is described by the 

 chroniclers as being of huge proportions. Sarasota Bay and Island, Mana- 

 tee Co., on the western coast, seems to be a Timucua name, but the ma- 

 jority of the present Indian names of localities found on maps of the pen- 

 insular part of the State are Seminole, an idiom differing but very little from 

 the Creek, of the Maskoki family. Thus Welaka, a town on St. John's River, 

 Putnam Co., is the " great water," o iwa thhiko, contracted into withlako; 

 this was or is still the Seminole name for the St. John's River, and is inter- 

 preted by some writer : "river of many lakes. " The French called the 

 St. John's River la Riviere Mai, because entered on May 1st by their ves- 

 sels ; the Spaniards named it Rio de San Mateo, Rio Picolata, Rio de San 

 Juan. 



South of Cape Canaveral, the country along the Atlantic Coast was called 

 by the Spaniards, who had a post there, the "Province of Tequesta." The 

 northern portion of this section of land was called in later epochs Ais, Ays, 

 Is, and Santa Lucia by the Spaniards. Ais is interpreted by ai'sa, deer, a 

 term not belonging to the Timucua language, but identifiable with itcho, 

 deer, in Seminole, or itchi, itche in Hitchiti and Mikasuke. 



The work of christianizing the Florida Indians began with the establish- 

 ment of a permanent Spanish garrison at St. Augustine by Adelantado 

 Pedro Menendez de Aviles, in 1564. The padres mostly went to the 

 southern portions of the land ; two were sent to the " Calusas" in 1567, 

 and 1568 ten others arrived, who dispersed themselves in various direc- 

 tions. Padre Antonio Sedeno settled in the island of Guale (Mary's, Santa 

 Maria, now Amelia Island) and was the first to compose there a catechism 

 and a grammar of some North American language not specified. 



After Menendez had returned to Spain in 1567, the French Huguenot 

 leader DeGourgues, allied with the paracusi Saturiwa, demolished the most 

 important Spanish forts in the same year, and the Spanish missionaries met 

 with the most cruel reverses. Padre Rogel returned from the Calos count ry, 

 disgusted with his ill-success, and went to San Felipe, a Spanish coast set- 

 tlement in the "Province of Orista, " north of the Savannah River, but did 

 not remain long. Coava, chief of an inland country named Axacan, one 

 hundred and fifty leagues from San Augustine, put to death all the apostolic 

 missionaries sent among his people. The English captain Francis Drake 

 destroyed San Augustine in 1586. 



In 1592 twelve Franciscan padres were sent to this bloody field of Catho- 

 lic martyrdom, and two years after this, twenty " mission houses " were in 

 existence. But the indomitable spirit of the aborigines could not tolerate 



