174 BUREAU OF AMEIRICAN ETHNOIX)GY [Bull. 137 



considerable trouble and in 1584 cut off a body of Spanish soldiers 

 under a Captain Andrada. They were defeated later and driven from 

 their town, or from one of them, remaining away apparently until 

 1601, when they asked permission to return. On September 12, 1597, 

 48 Potano Indians came in company with the heir to the Potano chief- 

 tainship to St. Augustine, where they remained 4 days and were given 

 rations of 288 pounds of flour. By 1602 Potano was reported to be 

 asking for missionaries. In "Yea Potano" (i. e., Potano Town) there 

 were 9 Christians, and in "Potano" 10 Christians and a number of 

 catechumens. In 1606 Father Martin Prieto with one companion 

 entered the Potano country and founded three missions called San 

 Francisco, San Miguel, and Santa Ana, and baptized all of the inhabi- 

 tants of another place called San Buenaventura "where formerly 

 Indians had been killed by Spanish adventurers." These adventurers 

 were evidently the companions of De Soto, and we are told, further- 

 more, that the old chief of Santa Ana had been imprisoned by that 

 Spanish explorer and had in consequence acquired such an antipathy 

 to Spaniards in general that missionary work there would have been 

 a failure except for the fortunate interposition of a hurricane. We 

 are somewhat puzzled to find the towns of the Fresh Water province 

 included at times in that of Potano. The principal Potano missioL 

 was San Francisco de Potano, except perhaps Santa Fe de Toloco, 

 which lay between Potano and Utina and regarding the tribal affilia- 

 tions of which we are left in doubt, though it was one of the most 

 important of all missions in the Timucua country. San Miguel was 

 perhaps the mission station afterward called Apalu, a word which 

 means "fort" in the Timucua language. The Potano chief's name 

 occurs among those who took part in the uprising of 1656, and Bishop 

 Calderon reported in 1675 that the mission was deserted. Some sort of 

 visita was perhaps kept up, however, since Governor Salazar in a letter 

 to the king written that same year lists it among the missions and says 

 there were about 60 persons connected with it. The name is further- 

 more present in a list dated 1680. After that period the Indians must 

 have declined rapidly in numbers, since we only hear of a small town 

 of Timucua near St. Augustine, and the rest must have scattered to 

 other tribes. 



Potano population, — Our only clue to the separate population of this 

 tribe is contained in mission letters dated about 1602, in which it is 

 said that there were five towns in the Potano province in which as 

 many as 1,100 were being instructed in the Christian religion. In 

 1675 there were about 160 in the two Potano missions. Mooney ven- 

 tures an estimate of 3,000 as the entire Potano population in 1650. 



