in the council house and presented to each a blanket. Impressed with the offer, the leaders permitted him to speak to the town. The following day, Chozas had “the king” place a cross in the center of the plaza, and then he and Veráscola called the community to meet inside the council house, where, after observing a grave and prolonged silence, Chozas proceeded to instruct the people about the Christian faith. A sudden rain shower convinced his listeners of his cosmological connections, and the town accepted baptism en masse and reciprocated with gifts to the Spaniards. In both acts, Altamahas expressed their own desire to build a deeper relationship.29 Continuing inland one more day to Ocute, the visitors were again “well received.” They noted with surprise and hope that the women of Ocute wore shawls similar to those of New Spain. All seemed well, but as soon as they indicated a desire to continue further on their journey, perhaps to determine the proximity of New Spain itself, the chief Ocute “obstructed them with much pleading and crying,” explaining that many of those further inland still recalled de Soto’s visit and hoped to kill some of those related to the ruthless invader. More troubling, the valley residents’ ardor was cooling, and the missionaries failed to convert anyone in Ocute. The situation became downright perilous when, on their return through Altamaha, the formerly friendly chief sent a warrior to scalp Chozas. The Franciscan evidently possessed great power, and the chief had decided that the hair on his head—rather than the ideas in it—might improve the chief ’s chances of winning an imminent competition against a neighboring leader. Only a timely shot from Salas’s harquebus saved the missionary. Chozas apparently could not imagine this disappointing reversal was in earnest: the next day, he still insisted on asking for porters to carry his goods. The chief’s emphatic refusal made enough of an impression to send his visitors scurrying home.30
For the Spanish, the expedition accomplished little. Chozas, Veráscola, and Salas returned from the province they called La Tama with glorious accounts of conversions and tantalizing rumors of silver mines, but nothing ever came of either of these chimeras. Altamahas and Ocutes, and especially their leaders, had much more to appreciate from the visit. They had acquired items from the powerful new people of the coast, and perhaps the Spaniards’ ally and subordinate, Juan of Tolomato, might return by way of the newly blazed trail with more such items.31 For his part, Ocute could proudly reflect that he had maintained effective control over his subordinates and his guests. Altamaha’s sudden interest in Chozas’s scalp probably had something to do with Ocute’s refusal to accept conversion, so the shift probably reassured the paramount leader in Ocute that the chief of Altamaha remained loyal to him. The Spaniards had heeded his injunction against venturing further inland, and they had left respectful of but not angered by Ocute’s and Altamaha’s displays of independence. From Ocute, prospects looked good.
Despite these positive developments, Oconee peoples’ hopes of deriving new benefits from St. Augustine, whether via the hands of Franciscans, Guales, or others, took an unexpected turn shortly after Chozas’s hasty departure. Late in September 1597, Guales revolted, destroying the missions, killing five Franciscans, and capturing a sixth. Despite Spaniards’ two years of successes with gifts, old coercive habits died hard. Franciscans had already stacked ample tinder by attacking important Guale traditions and restricting converts’ movements among the province’s towns. Disputes about marriage and authority provided the incendiary spark. When Juan refused to observe monogamy as required by Christian practice, Franciscans sought to oust him in favor of his more tractable uncle Francisco. The outraged mico “went into the interior among the pagans, without saying anything or without obtaining permission as they were wont to do on other occasions.”32 After “a few days,” Juan returned to Tolomato with some of these inland supporters (probably Guales who had fled the missions) and rallied Francisco and other followers against the missionaries.33
Although not directly involved in the revolt, Altamahas were never far from the minds of those who were. In the spring of 1598, Governor Méndez met with Guale leaders to ransom the captive Franciscan, offering axes, hoes, and blankets for the return of the priest. When the Guale leaders demurred, insisting on the return of some of their own sons who had been living in St. Augustine for several years, the governor became enraged and threatened to send for three hundred soldiers, “and put them to the sword, and cut down all their maize and food, and follow them as far as La Tama.”34 Guales promptly returned the missionary. Spaniards and Guales both recognized that the Oconee Valley’s residents, however distant, played a pivotal role; they could be the refuge to which Guales might flee or the anvil against which Spaniards could crush them. Although they were not the only peoples that Spaniards courted, Oconee peoples’ potentially pivotal role encouraged Spaniards to remain in indirect contact with them. This contact, coupled with gifts, enabled Altamahas to challenge Ocute’s primacy in the valley. Indeed, Spanish gifts in the hands of Indian emissaries altered the valley far more thoroughly than de Soto or Chozas did with swords or crosses.
Altamaha’s opportunity and Ocute’s problems appear only fleetingly, but they were tied inextricably to Floridanos’ experiments with gifts as diplomatic tools. These experiments began with Méndez’s decision to pacify Guale with a new round of gift giving. The governor contented himself with this imperfect strategy because he had little choice. Despite his earlier threats of scorched-earth campaign, he acknowledged to the king that because the rebels had retreated so far inland, “there was no way that one could punish them there unless it were by the hand and order of the same Indians.” Méndez’s generosity, though, did enjoy some success. Raids from Spaniards and their Indian allies convinced many Guales to make peace by early 1600, and newly conciliatory Guale leaders offered to bring some of their followers to St. Augustine to work in the agricultural fields that supported the presidio and private citizens. Despite the advantages of the new labor draft—also called the repartimiento—for securing food supplies for St. Augustine, the new friendship had its shortcomings. Guale’s nominally pacified towns continued to defy Spanish authority by welcoming French traders, and they would continue to do so for another three years. Before 1602, no Spaniard was foolish enough to think that Guales were ready to welcome new missionaries.35 The Oconee Valley loomed increasingly large as one remedy to this persistent instability in Guale. These initial successes confirmed the value of generosity, but Floridanos were also learning that the meaning of gifts depended in part on the power of those who gave them away. If offerings were to appear as gifts rather than tribute, the colonists had to show themselves to be a formidable chiefdom in their own right. The expansion and organization of the missions served as one indicator of Spanish strength, and in 1598 one royal official believed that the governor favorably impressed “inland Indians” when he raised tribute payments among those Indians still loyal to St. Augustine.36 And yet, two months later, as the governor sent sixteen soldiers to help defend the Mocama mission of San Pedro, the same official noted that the governor needed to send rations with these soldiers instead of expecting the Mocamas to feed them because “the inland Indians are watching to see how we aid our friends.”37 By exacting appropriate tribute from subordinate polities and providing necessary support for these same dependents, Spaniards could demonstrate their power—and the power of their goods—to observant Oconee peoples.
Although Méndez probably did not decide to provision the San Pedro garrison, he was doing his best to convince inland peoples like the Altamahas that his friendship could be of great service to them. Not surprisingly, he also had need of their friendship. As he had already acknowledged to the king, Indians would be crucial to suppressing the last of the insurgents, and Altamaha assistance would prevent the insurgents from fleeing further inland. The Spaniards knew that gifts would make this alliance possible, but to distribute these gifts Governor Méndez enlisted the help of two Christian chiefs from Mocama, Cacica María of the mission town of Nombre de Dios and Cacique Juan of San Pedro. Each cacique received gifts valued at 350 ducats—roughly equivalent to three years’ pay for a common soldier—to take “into the interior land to the caciques with whom they have contact.” Offering such gifts to their friends, the Christian leaders could also explain that all who joined the Spaniards could expect similar generosity from His Most Catholic Majesty.38 Such generosity might encourage recalcitrant Guales to reciprocate with allegiance rather than continued hostility. If not,
