338 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 73 
claims that 4,000 Indians had been converted in a year and a half 
and that 1,000 more were under instruction by the missionaries. 
He says that the church in San Pedro was as big as that in St. Augus- 
tine; that it had cost the Indians more than 300 ducats, and had 
they not worked on it themselves it would have cost them more 
than 2,000 ducats. 1 In 1609 the chief of Timucua (Utina) with his 
heir and the leading men of his tribe were baptized in St. Augustine; 
and later we are told that 28 Timucua and Apalachee chiefs begged 
for baptism. 2 A letter from the missionaries dated January 17, 1617, 
informs us, however, that in the preceding four years more than 
half of the Indians had died of pestilence. Yet they claim 8,000 
Christianized Indians still living. 2 It is stated that many mission- 
aries died of the pest in 1649 and 1650; yet in the latter year there 
were 70 in Florida. 2 It is not said whether this pestilence extended 
to the natives. The number and names of the Timucua missions 
existing in the years 1655 and 1680 have already been given. 3 
In the year 1656 a rebellion broke out among the Timucua and 
lasted eight months, even spreading to the Apalachee. Governor 
Robelledo says that it was directed against the friars, but the letter 
of a missionary lays the blame upon the governor himself, because 
he had tried to compel the Indians to bring corn on their backs 
into St. Augustine. The leader of this revolt is said to have been 
the chief of St. Martin, evidently the town known as San Martin de 
Ayaocuto, and was participated in by 10 others, including the chiefs 
of Santa Fe de Toloco, San Francisco de Potano, San Pedro y San 
Pablo de Puturiba, Santa Elena de Machaba, San Francisco de Chua- 
quin, Santa Cruz de Tarixica, San Matheo de Tolapatafi, San Juan del 
Puerto, and San Juan de Guacara. The Sergeant Major Adrian de 
Canicares was sent to the disturbed area by Governor Kobelledo with 
60 infantry, the rebellion was put down, and 11 Indians garroted. 2 
This appears to have been the only uprising of any consequence in 
which the Timucua Indians were involved. A letter from Capt. Juan 
Francisco de Florencia to the then governor of Florida, dated 1670, 
states that in November, 1659, he had been ordered to go to the prov- 
inces of Ustaqua and Timucua to people and rebuild the towns of San 
Francisco, Santa Fe, San Martin, and San Juan de Guacara, which had 
been depopulated because some natives had died in the pestilences 
they had had and others had gone to the forests (montes), " because 
these places formed the passageway and means of communication to 
the said provinces from the presidio of St. Augustine." J This depopu- 
lation was probably due immediately to the great rebellion. 
In 1672 there is said to have been another great mortality among 
the Indians. 1 A memorial by Fray Alonso del Moral, dated September 
« Lowery, MSS. 2 Loweryand Brooks, MSS. 8 See p. 322. 
