Searching for Mission San Nicolas - Jackson County, Florida

Historic Rock Cave - Site of Mission San Nicolas?

My previous post on the site of Mission San Carlos at Sneads (see Mission San Carlos)generated a lot of email and interest, so I thought you might enjoy learning about another likely Spanish mission site in Jackson County.

Of the three Spanish settlements thought to have been located in Jackson County, Mission San Nicolas was the oldest. Located in the secondary town of the Chacato Indians, San Nicolas was established by Franciscan friars in 1674, more than 336 years ago. It was the location of the first Christian church and the first known European home between Pensacola Bay and the Apalachicola River.

Trace of the real "Old Spanish Trail"

The Chacato were one of the most enigmatic tribes in Florida history. Also called the Chatot or Chacto and often incorrectly confused with the Choctaw tribe, they arrived in western Jackson County late in the Mississippian era (A.D. 900 - A.D. 1500). During the prehistoric era their settlement was concentrated around the Waddell Mill Pond site, a fortified village and mound group between Marianna and Campbellton. By the 1600s, however, they had abandoned that site and dispersed to three large and a number of smaller villages scattered through western Jackson County and eastern Washington County.

The largest of their towns was located somewhere in the vicinity of Falling Waters State Park in northeastern Washington County, although the site has not been located to date. The secondary town was west of the Natural Bridge of the Chipola River on the old trail leading from Blue Spring across the Natural Bridge to a forks between today's towns of Cottondale and Campbellton. The third largest Chacato town was near Campbellton.

Historic Rock Cave Entrance

When they were first encountered by the Spanish, the Chacato were extremely warlike. In 1639, when the Governor of Florida negotiated a peace treaty between them and the Apalachee and other tribes living in the Big Bend region, he noted the accomplishment was extraordinary because the Chacato had "never had peace" with any other tribe. It would take another 35 years, however, before the Spanish finally ventured to send missionaries west to the Chacato province.

The first mission, San Nicolas, was established at the secondary Chacato town in 1674 by an expedition that included soldiers, missionaries and Christian Apalachee Indians. Fray Rodrigo de la Barreda became the village friar and was left there alone to live among the Indians when the men making up the main expedition returned to Mission San Luis at what is now Tallahassee.

Historic Rock Cave

The mission, according to Barreda and other Spanish writers, was located at a cave so large it could hold 200 people. Inside the cave, he wrote, was a spring of water that flowed from "the living rock." The friar's home was located on the bluff above the cave while the church was located nearby. Surrounding this small group of structures was the Chacato village itself.

Mission San Nicolas was temporarily successful and an estimated 100 of the village's inhabitants converted to Christianity. The success, however, did not last. Less than one year after the mission was established, a portion of the Chacato rose in revolt against the Franciscans. One of their chiefs was outraged because a friar, probably Barreda, had told him that to be a good Christian he must give up his multiple wives and live only with the first woman he had married.

Fray Rodrigo de la Barreda was wounded in the head by a blow from a stone axe but managed to escape to safety at Mission Santa Cruz de Sabacola in what is now Seminole County, Georgia. Mission San Nicolas was destroyed.

The exact site of Mission San Nicolas has never been identified, but there is a strong probability that it was located at the historic Arch Cave northwest of Marianna. Of all the caves along the route of the old trail followed by the Spanish, it is the only one that closely matches the descriptions given by the Spanish writers. Not only is it large enough to hold a large number of people, it holds a natural spring that flows from one of the walls. The cave is protected and is on private property. The photographs seen here were taken with the permission of the owner.

To learn more about the early Spanish settlements of Jackson County, please consider my book: The History Of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years. ($19.95)

It is also available as an instant download for your Amazon Kindle reading device or free Kindle software: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years. ($9.95)

Mission San Carlos - One of the Oldest Settlements in Jackson County

West Bank Overlook near Sneads

Noted for its beautiful views of Lake Seminole, the West Bank Overlook near Sneads also holds the distinction of being one of the most significant historic sites in Jackson County. It was here during the 1680s and 1690s that the Spanish maintained the mission of San Carlos de Chacatos.

A mission was a religious center where Franciscan friars worked to convert Native Americans - in this case Chacato Indians - to Christianity.

View of Jim Woodruff Dam from the Overlook

Mission San Carlos was established in around 1680 to serve a group of Christian Chacatos that had relocated to the hilltop near Sneads from their original homes west of the Chipola River in Jackson and Washington County. A 1675 rebellion involving part of the tribe had destroyed the original Mission San Carlos, thought to have been located near Falling Waters State Park in Washington County. A sister mission, San Nicolas, was destroyed in what is now Jackson County at the same time.

Both of these original missions had been dedicated in 1674, but lasted for less than one year. Spanish soldiers and allied Apalachee warriors retaliated against the Chatot by invading their territory and destroying their towns and fields.

Lake Seminole

Not all of the Chacato had been involved in the rebellion, however, as several hundred members of the tribe had accepted Christianity through the teachings of the Franciscans. Opting to remain close to the Spanish, they relocated to the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers (today's Lake Seminole), where they built a new town on the high ground where the West Bank Overlook can be seen today. The site was then directly across the Chattahoochee River from Mission Santa Cruz de Sabacola, which stood in what is now Seminole County, Georgia.

In around 1680 the Franciscans responded to the calls of the Chacato and established a new Mission San Carlos at the site near Sneads. It would remain for the entire time of its existence the westernmost establishment on the Florida mission chain and the most outlying post of the King of Spain in the Florida colony.

Part of the Mission San Carlos Site

This status gave Mission San Carlos a unique place in history. In 1686, for example, Marcos Delgado left the mission on a noted overland expedition to establish an alliance with the Upper Creeks of Alabama. Seven years later in 1693, Governor Don Laureano de Torres y Ayala rested briefly at San Carlos while making the first known overland crossing of the Florida Panhandle by Europeans. Both expeditions also stopped at another well-known Jackson County landmark, Blue Springs.

Another view of the Mission Site

Mission San Carlos, tragically, did not survive the decade of the 1690s. Attacked by war parties of Creek Indians from Alabama and Georgia, the mission was destroyed. Many of its people were slaughtered and others carried away into slavery to be sold to the English in South Carolina. The church was desecrated and its religious objects either destroyed or carried away as booty.

The site of the mission was rediscovered in 1948 by Florida archaeologist Ripley P. Bullen. Working on the hilltop at the west end of the then under construction Jim Woodruff Dam, Bullen found pieces of Spanish ceramics and other artificacts indicating the presence of the mission site. The West Bank Overlook now crowns the hill where Bullen conducted his work.

There are no interpretive markers at the site noting it as the location of the long forgotten mission, but perhaps the future will bring about an effort to place one there.  To learn more about Mission San Carlos and other Spanish sites in Jackson County, please consider my book: The History Of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.

It is also available for Amazon Kindle by clicking here: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years