Santa Fe de Toloca facts for kids

Santa Fe de Toloca was a Spanish mission built in the 1600s. It was also known as Teleco, Toloco, or Señor Santo Tomás de Santa Fe. This mission was located near the Santa Fe River in what is now Alachua County, Florida, United States.

Santa Fe de Toloca became a very important stop on the camino real. This was a "royal road" that connected St. Augustine to the Apalachee Province. Apalachee Province was located where Tallahassee, Florida is today. Archaeologists have dug up parts of the original mission site. They learned a lot about what life was like there in the 1600s.

History of the Mission

The Santa Fe de Toloca mission was started around 1610 or 1612. Franciscan missionaries were moving into new areas at that time. Father Martín Prieto likely founded this mission. He had also started the nearby San Francisco de Potano.

Like other Spanish missions, Santa Fe de Toloca was built near a Timucua village. The Timucua were a group of Native American people. This village might have belonged to the Potano or the Northern Utina tribes. Some think the village was Cholupaha, which was visited by the de Soto Expedition in 1539.

Challenges for the Timucua People

The Timucua people at Santa Fe, like those in other mission villages, faced many challenges. They were greatly affected by diseases brought by Europeans. These included serious outbreaks like bubonic plague (1613-1617), yellow fever (1649), smallpox (1653), and measles (1659).

Before Europeans arrived, there may have been as many as 200,000 Timucua people. By the late 1500s, their population dropped to about 20,000 to 25,000. By the mid-1600s, only about 2,000 to 2,500 Timucua remained.

Timucua Rebellion and Mission Changes

In 1656, the Western Timucua people rebelled against the Spanish. After the rebellion, Spanish leaders punished many Native American chiefs. This included the chief of Santa Fe. The first mission site was left empty around the mid-1600s. The mission then moved to a new location, which we don't know about today.

St. Augustine depended on food from the missions. They also relied on workers from the missions to help in the city. The Timucua Province was a large area. It stretched from the Atlantic coast to the Aucilla River. It also went from Marion County north into southern Georgia.

As the Native American population near St. Augustine decreased, the Spanish needed more corn and other food from Apalachee. Food from Apalachee reached St. Augustine in different ways. One way was completely by land, with people carrying everything on their backs through Santa Fe.

Another way was by boat. Products went to St. Marks on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Then they traveled by boat to Cofa, at the mouth of the Suwannee River. From there, they went up the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers. They would stop where the Santa Fe River comes out from underground, near the mission. Then, the rest of the journey to St. Augustine was by land. The longest way was by boat all the way around the Florida peninsula to St. Augustine.

After the 1656 Timucua rebellion, some missions closed. Others moved closer to the camino real road. The remaining Timucua people gathered in these new mission locations. These missions became important stops along the royal road.

Bishop Gabriel Diaz Vara Calderón of Cuba visited the Florida missions in 1674-75. He said Santa Fe de Toloca was the main Timucuan mission. More diseases hit the relocated village in 1675 and 1686. People from other Native American tribes also moved to the village during this time.

The village and mission were abandoned after May 20, 1702. English soldiers from the Province of Carolina and their Native American allies burned the village and the mission church. A small Spanish army and local Native American fighters tried to defend it, but they were not successful.

Archaeological Discoveries

The site known as Santa Fe de Toloca today is called 8AL190. It is in the Robinson Sinks area of northwestern Alachua County. This is where the Santa Fe River goes underground in O'Leno State Park. A local family first explored the site in the early 1900s.

In the 1950s, students from the University of Florida looked at the site. They didn't realize it was a mission at first. A deeper study began in 1986, led by Kenneth W. Johnson. At first, they thought it was a 17th-century farm. But later, they realized it was a Spanish mission. Based on old documents, they identified it as Santa Fé de Toloca.

Archaeologists used different methods to study the site. They used metal detectors and special tools to look at the soil. They also collected things from the surface and dug into the ground. Plowing over the years had damaged some parts of the site. They found signs of several buildings, the old Spanish road (camino real), and a cemetery.

Mission Structures Found

• First Structure: One building was about 8 meters by 16 meters. It seems there were two different buildings in this spot, built in the early 1600s. They might have been a chapel or the convento (the priest's house). The building had a hard-packed dirt floor. Its roof was held up by posts.
• Second Structure: About 16 to 20 meters west of the first, a smaller building was found. It was about 4 meters by 5 meters. It had a red clay floor. There might have been a clay wall around it, forming a courtyard. A fireplace inside showed signs it was used for smudge fires to keep mosquitoes away, not for cooking. This might have been the convento too.
• Third Structure: This building is not as clear. It might have been a gatehouse for the mission area. It was located where an old north-south road seemed to split around the mission.
• Cemetery: A cemetery was found with many burials. Posts and nails suggest some kind of building stood over it. This could have been the church itself, as burials were often made inside churches. Or it might have been an open shelter. The cemetery is larger than what has been dug up so far.
• Other Buildings: A fifth building was about 16 meters by 28 meters. It had a fireplace at each end. This might have been a dormitory or barracks for people living at the mission. A sixth building was also found nearby, but its use is not clear. These last two buildings had walls made of wattle and daub. This is a building method using woven branches covered with clay.

Other sites close to Santa Fé might also have been part of the mission or the village it served.

Further Reading

• Johnson, Kenneth W. (1993). "Mission Santa Fé de Toloca", in Bonnie G. McEwan. The Spanish Missions of La Florida. University Press of Florida. ISBN: 0-8130-1232-5
• Milanich, Jerald T. (2006). Laboring in the Fields of the Lord: Spanish Missions and Southeastern Indians. University Press of Florida. ISBN: 0-8130-2966-X
• Wenhold, Lucy L. Translator and Ed. (1936). "A 17th Century Letter of Gabriel Diaz Vara Calderón, Bishop of Cuba, Describing the Indians and Indian Missions of Florida." Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 95, No. 16. Reprinted in David Hurst Thomas. Ed. (1991). Spanish Borderlands Sourcebooks 23 The Missions of Spanish Florida. Garland Publishing. ISBN: 0-8240-2098-7