The Religion in Florida is abominable, wicked, and cruel: When they return Conquerors from a Battel, the old Women rake off the dry’d Hair from the fore-mention’d Poles, hold it aloft, and thank the Sun for their Victory. But the Offerings of their first-born Sons are terrible, for they knock out their Brains with a Club in the presence of the King. Their annual worshipping of the Sun is also very ridiculous; for filling the Skin of a Stag full of sweet-smelling Herbs, they hang the Horns and Neck with Garlands, and carry it with the noise of their kind of Vocal and Instrumental Musick, to a high Trunk or hollow Body of a Tree, on which they place the stuff’d Stag, with his Head towards the Sun; which done, they falling down, desire that he would please to afford them plenty of all such Fruit as they Offer to him; after which taking their leave, they let the fore-mention’d Skin remain there till the following Year.
The Spaniards since their Defeat in the Fort Carolina, and their Engagement with Sir Francis Drake, Anno 1585. have had little disturbance on Florida.
Drake’s Exploit on Florida.
Drake having burnt and plunder’d Domingo and Carthagena, steer’d along the Coast of Florida, and discover’d a Beacon on the same; whereupon he sent out Spies, who sail’d a League up a River, on whose Banks they saw a Fort, and somewhat higher the Town Augustine, built full of woodden Houses; all which being related to him, he steer’d thither, fir’d his Guns twice against the Fort St. John; which the Spaniards answering onely with one Volley, fled, with their Commander Peter Menendez; when the English prepar’d to Storm, a Prisoner, being a French-man, came in a Boat from them to Drake, and inform’d him that the Spaniards had left the City Augustine and Fort St. John; to which Drake going, found there Pallisado’s of pleited Boughs, cover’d with Earth, and a Chest with two thousand Pound, for the payment of the Soldiers, and fourteen Brass Guns, with which he set Sail from thence.
The Mountains of this Countrey are onely the Apalatei, suppos’d by the Natives to have rich Mines of Gold in them, and which the Spaniards saw, but had not time, nor other accommodation to stay and search them, by reason they were so much wearied and wasted with a long March before they gat thither, and found the People so stout and obstinate thereabouts, that in stead of entertaining them with their Hens and Fowl, as other places had done, they were welcom’d with Blows, and made to return, leaving not a few of their best Soldiers behind.
Rivers there are many, and those very large and commodious, as 1. Rio Secco, or The Dry River, so call’d by the Spaniards (as some think) because they could find no Gold in it. 2. Rio Grande, or The Great River. 3. Ligeris. 4. Garunna. 5. Sequana, &c. These last, so nam’d by the French, who, after the Spaniards, for some time had, but never held any long possession of the Countrey. There are also Rio de Flores, Rio de Nieves, and Rio de Spirito Santo, lesser Streams, yet all of them, with the rest, falling at several places into the great Lake of Mexico; and some of them not a little haunted by the Caymans or West-Indian Crocodiles, a Creature, as hath been said before, dangerous both at Sea and Land.
The Natives, who as yet hold Possession and Command of it for the most part, are themselves generally sorted into certain Tribes or great Families; all which are Govern’d severally by Chiefs of their own, whom they call Paracoussi, and by reason thereof are almost continually in Feud and War one with another.
The Towns and Places most known in this Province, are 1. St. Helens, seated on or near unto a Promontory of the same Name, where this Countrey bordereth on Virginia. 2. Fort Charles, or Arx Carolina, built and so nam’d by the French King, but afterwards ruin’d by the Spaniards. 3. Port Royal, a well frequented Haven, at the Mouth of a River which beareth the same Name. More within Land there is, 1. Apalache, an old Town of the Natives, formerly a Place of great resort, but now a poor thing of about forty or fifty Cottages; and yet as poor as it is, Pamphilius Narvaez, as before related, when he search’d the Countrey, found the Natives not willing to part with it: for though he took it from them, it was not without some resistance, and they quickly recover’d it again: and at the 2. nam’d Aute, another old Town of theirs, nine days March from the other, they overtook him, and fell so resolutely upon him, that he left not a few of his best Soldiers dead upon the place, and was content himself to march quietly away with the rest. 3. Ochalis, a Town consisting of about five or six hundred Sheds and Cottages likewise of the Natives. 4. Vittacuche, a Burrough of two hundred Houses.
There is also on the Eastern Shore of this Peninsula, St. Matthews, a Place possess’d and well fortifi’d by the Spaniards; and St. Augustines on the same Shore, but lying somewhat more Southerly than the other, at the Mouth of a River of the same Name, taken and sack’d by Sir Francis Drake in the Year 1585.
