104 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. ?3 
of St. Augustine Castle; where they were sheltered. And having Destroyed their Town, 
he returned. 
In the beginning of 1728, a Party of those Yamasees having landed at Daffuskee 
surprised one of our Scout-Boats, and killed every Man but Capt. Gilbert, who com- 
manded her. One of the Indians, seizing him us his Properly, saved his Life. In 
their Return back to St. Augustine a debate arose that it was necessary to kill him, for 
that the Governor mould not have them to bring any one Alive. But Capt. Gilbert, plead- 
ing with the Indian that claim'd him was protected by him; and upon coming to St. 
Augustine was after some Time released by the Governor. 1 
In a letter dated Habana, August 27, 1728, Gov. Dionisio de la 
Vega gives an account of the decline of the Florida missions from the 
time of the first English invasions. He states that before the English 
raid under Palmer there were four Indian settlements near St. 
Augustine, named Nombre de Dios, Tolemato, Palica [probably 
Patica], and Carapuyas, but the occupants of these spoke several 
different languages and it is impossible to say which were occupied by 
Yamasee. Tolemato was, of course, named from the old Guale town, 
but in the changes that had taken place there is no certainty that any 
of the original population remained. The Patica are referred to by 
Bar tram as a former Carolina tribe, but again no certain connection 
can be established between the name and the later population. Nom- 
bre de Dios, or Chiquito as it is also called, was originally a Timucua 
settlement and may have remained such in part ; but as we have seen, 2 
it had now received a new name from the Yamasee who constituted 
at least the larger part of the population. De la Vega says of the 
above mentioned attack: 
A body of two hundred English having penetrated into that town on the aforesaid 
day, the 20th of March, (1728), together with as many Indians, they plundered and 
pillaged it and set the whole town on fire. They robbed the church and the convent 
and profaned the images, killing six and wounding eight Indians, a lieutenant and a 
soldier of infantry. They also took several prisoners with them and withdrew with- 
out further action. In view of this the governor had the church blown up by means 
of powder, withdrawing the Indians who had remained there to the shelter of this 
city [St. Augustine], leaving only the town of Pocotabaco under the protection of 
the guns of this Fort. 
It would appear, then, that after this raid the four towns were 
reduced to one close to St. Augustine, and the fact that its name 
preserves that of the leading upper Yamasee town shows the primacy 
of that tribe among the remnants gathered there. This name should 
be Pocotalaco; the I has been miscopied b. However, the town 
certainly embraced several villages, as appears from a number of docu- 
ments. One speaks of a Yamasee village called Tachumite exist- 
ing about 1734, 3 and another gives an enumeration, not only of the vil- 
lages but the names and ages of the warriors as well. This latter, a 
copy of which is in the Ayer collection, is entitled: "List of Indians 
capable of bearing arms divided according to their towns who are 
i Carroll, S. Car. Hist. Soc. Colls., n, pp. 355-356. De la Vega seems to date this attack a year later 
(see below). 
2 See p. 96. 
3 MS. in Ayer Collection, Newberry Library. 
