Page 31 - Pilgrims in Georgia

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John E. Worth, University of West Florida,
Pensacola,08/07/2002

Illustration courtesy Fernbank Museum of Natural History

Meanwhile the Spanish try to establish Missions

with the Native American tribes in Georgia.

However, “Over the course of the mission period Indian population levels declined rapidly and substantially, plummeting
well over 90 percent in many areas. Depopulation, combined with widespread forced resettlements and raids from other
tribes and then the English, eventually led to the abandonment of Georgia's interior missions. A final pirate raid in October
1684 left Georgia's remaining missions in ruins, ending the mission period in this state. Georgia's surviving mission Indians
retreated south of the St. Mary's River, where they were pushed farther southward. All remaining missions across Spanish
Florida had retreated to St. Augustine by the summer of 1706”.