Hispano-⁠indigenous Alliances and Cacical Political Authority in La Florida, 1565–97

Abstract

Many scholars of La Florida argue that indigenous societies welcomed missionaries only in the seventeenth century, once they had no choice but to align with the Spanish Empire or risk geopolitical isolation and effacement. This argument fits into the problematic general narrative that Spanish missionaries enslaved native peoples and forcibly converted them to Catholicism—problematic because it leaves indigenous rulers out of the story. In this article, I use the brief missions to the Calusa, Tequesta, Tocobaga, and Guale peoples of the present-day southeastern United States to show that indigenous rulers in La Florida encouraged missionary activity well before the seventeenth century, and not as a last resort but as a way to further their expansionist ambitions. The indigenous rulers’ encouragement of missionaries and gains from the Spanish presence show how sharply the interests of the indigenous political classes diverged from those of indigenous commoners. I argue that in light of the reality of political privilege in La Florida’s native societies, historians must view historical indigenous societies as they do more familiar societies—as broad groupings riven by political interests rather than as social collectivities—and jettison the thematic lens of colonialism to achieve a faithful history of the transformation of the Americas.