1880.] 4JO [Gatschet. 



Address op TnANKS, 



Sent to the King of Spain by his Loyal Subjects, the Chiefs of 

 the Timucua People ; dated the 28th of January, 1688. 



Shortly after the revolt of the Indians of the northern part of the Flori- 

 dian peninsula against their Spanish governor, who attempted to semi some 

 of their number to the mines in the West Indies, and after the inroad of 

 the Yamassi Indians into their pueblos (1C87), the loyal Apalache chiefs 

 sent a letter of explanation to the Spanish monarch, dated Apalache, Febr. 

 15, 1688, and endorsed by the Governor Diego de Quiroga y Lossada, 

 "Capitan- general," on April 1, 1688; the Timucua chiefs sent to him a 

 loyalty address bearing date of Jan. 28, 1688. The vidimus of this letter 

 states, that it was "escrita de todos los CaCiques de la timucua," and 

 translated by Fray Francisco de Rojas, a Franciscan of Santa Elena Prov- 

 ince, interpreter of Timuquano in the city of St. Augustine and "ministro 

 de los naturales, etc." This remark of the translator is dated February 17; 

 the vidimus of the magistrate, " Alonsso Solana," is dated February 21, 

 1688. 



The Apalache and the Timucua letter were published in fac similes of 

 the original documents, with printed Spanish translations and vidimus, by 

 Mr. Buckingham Smith, in an undated (1859) folio edition of nine leaves, 

 and printed in fifty copies only. 



A copy having no printed title is in the Library of Congress, and from 

 this I have reproduced the text below. Leclerc mentions the publication 

 of Mr. Smith in his "Bibliotheca Americana," Paris, Maisonneuve & Co., 

 1878. 8°. 



In my English rendering of the address I have followed as closely as 

 possible the corrected Timucua text. The vertical bar ] shows the end of 

 each line in the text of the original. 



Readers will remember that only the " Text of the Original" and the 

 "Spanish Translation of 1688," are reproductions of what is left to us. 

 The original is worded in a dialect differing in some respects from that 

 found in Pareja's books, and was written some eighty years later. Where 

 we find, e. g., lahacu, bota in the address, Pareja would use leheco, mota. 

 The queer orthography of the original prompted me to attempt a more cor- 

 rect reading of it, and this I have sought to reproduce in my English 

 translation. 



At the head of the letter stands the sign of the holy cross, and in the 

 original it is repeated where the C stands before reiheca. Every C of the 

 text is written as a capital letter. The i's have all long oblique dashes over 

 them (i). In the term namonimanibotela the nam is erased in the original 

 with ink. Numerous difficulties still encumber the full understanding of 

 this interesting missive. 



