Talk:Spanish missions in Georgia

Map

I want to use this map, File:Base map of Georgia. LOC 2005625110.jpg, as the base for a map showing provinces served by missions. - Donald Albury 17:05, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

No sources for Chart list of Spanish missions in Georgia

I'm wondering why GoldenArmorYeah hasn't added any sources for the chart this user has created. Since that account has added all the info it contains, I believe, it's incumbent on them to provide sources for it. Apparently they think we should just take it on faith that it's all correct, which is contrary to WP policy on verifiability. If the editor is actually consulting reliable sources for this information, then there is no reason they can't cite those sources. They cannot expect other editors to do the work for them, and if they can't be bothered to do so, the info should be removed. I will challenge and remove it no sources are provided. Carlstak (talk) 01:14, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

All of the Georgia missions are in the table in Spanish missions in Florida with sources. I have treated that article as including all of "Spanish Florida". Actually, I've always felt that having an article about "Spanish missions in Georgia" was anachronistic, as Georgia did not exist until much later, but I have a lot of other things to worry about. It's my bedtime, so I won't try to solve this now. Donald Albury 01:39, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Donald. Since that's the case, it should be very easy for GoldenArmorYeah to cite those sources, at least there will be some refs here until that problem is solved. I agree that the very concept of this article is anachronistic, as what is now Georgia was part of La Florida at the time. Perhaps the title of the "Spanish missions in Florida" article could be changed to "Spanish missions in La Florida", or better, "Missions in Spanish Florida". and the non-duplicative info in this one merged with it. Carlstak (talk) 02:04, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking of "Missions in Spanish Florida" as being a better fit for the content. I did put in some work on the Georgia article a couple of years ago, but I think breaking up the history of the missions by modern US states is misrepresenting that history. Indeed, the mission San Buenaventura de Guadalquini moved from St. Simon's Island to the St. Johns River, other people from various missions in Guale and Mocama provinces were relocated to near St. Augustine, and the various missions to Sabacola were located in what is now Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. I'm now thinking of consolidating the history into one article, and perhaps leaving a simple list of mission sites that are located in what is now Georgia. Donald Albury 11:38, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's the way to go, all the way around. If anyone is suited to doing that, it's you, of course, having created the article and having written most of it. I'll assist in any way I can, with deference to your preferred iteration. It's a great subject, and living in St. Augustine most of my life, I have a special consideration of it. The school system in St. Johns County actually taught us Florida History, including some decent coverage of its Spanish history. St. Augustine was still a very Catholic town when I moved there as a kid, and most of my friends were Catholic. Many of them were descendants of some of the Spanish and Menorcan (it was Minorcan then) people who had notable roles in that history. I miss seeing the Minorcan fishermen with their hand-built boats and seine nets on the beach for the mullet runs. I did yard work for a woman who told stories about sailing to Summer Haven when she was a girl in the 1880s, before there was a road to it. I lived for a year in the Mellons' "Lodge", no AC or heating except the fireplace. I'm glad I got to have the experiences we did then, gone forever. Bittersweet memories. Carlstak (talk) 17:08, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll start working on it. When I was kid, a woman of Minorcan descent, maiden name of Perpall, lived next door when her husband was at sea (US Navy) and after he retired. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the history then. My mother did stay in touch, but the last time I saw her would have been in the late 70s. Donald Albury 19:14, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on the article; should have some time this weekend to read up and gather sources in case they can be of use at a suitable point. I did business with and rented a house from one of the Perpalls in the early 90s. They have a long history in the St. Aug area of course, especially regarding Spanish land grants. I've seen many mentions of them. Carlstak (talk) 02:23, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I haven't seen these messages. I have the sources and can provide them. Some of these are NOT articles (to my knowledge) but I can still re-add these to the new list if you decide to keep the page up. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 19:22, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

It's odd that this article is substantially larger than the Missions in Spanish Florida; it reflects an imbalance in emphasis. I realize that perhaps the sheer volume of published research papers and archaeological monographs on sites in what is now Georgia may be larger, but I believe the confusion in nomenclature misinforms readers, or at least leaves them with an incomplete understanding of what "La Florida" actually was. It looks to me like it would be fairly easy to merge most of the information in this one into "Missions in Spanish Florida" and leave a list of mission sites here, as you say, Donald. Carlstak (talk) 01:09, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

A prime cause for that is that I saw this article needed work a couple of years ago and made a project of expanding it. I intended to then do the same thing for the Florida missions article, but as usual, one thing led to another (literally, I created the article about Sabacola, an ephemeral mission which may or may not have briefly been in southwest Georgia, so that I could link to it from this article, which led to a bunch of articles about Native American topics in Apalachicola Province and panhandle Florida (I had bought Hann's book), and I never circled back to work on the Florida article, other than to turn the list in it into a table this summer. I'm currently plugging away at a couple of articles, a major expansion and a draft. I'll see if I'm in the mood to tackle the Florida missions article after that. Donald Albury 02:28, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah, yeah, I certainly know the feeling.;-) I won't mess with the articles too much, just some copy editing. Thanks for your reply. Carlstak (talk) 02:41, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I've got enought on my todo list that I won't miss working on anything that someone else fixes up. Donald Albury 13:14, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

If time permits I would enjoy diving in; you've already done all the hard work. It could be a learning opportunity on a subject I'd like to know more about. Need to go to Jacksonville today and then submit a proposal. Carlstak (talk) 13:32, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Have at it. If I run across sources I think might be helpful, I'll drop them into a refideas template on the talk page. Donald Albury 15:00, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Carlstak (talk) 15:06, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Missions table copied from another article

The Table of missions in the Missions section was copied from Missions in Spanish Florida after missions sites that not in the present-day US state of Georgia were removed. It replaced the unsourced list of missions that was in the Missions section. Donald Albury 21:37, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

They were NOT copied from your edit. These have been up for some time before your edit. I am glad you added a new table but I did not copy yours. I removed the sites from that article as I believe it was previously named Spanish missions in Florida, not Spanish Florida which I am aware contained the states Georgia and Florida. I had used another source which seemingly did not include a few other missions in Georgia. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 19:24, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for any misunderstanding, but I was simply stating that I had copied the table from another article, per the guidance at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Donald Albury 19:34, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Ahh, you were talking about the new one. Thank you for the clarification. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 01:51, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Adding locations to certain missions

I've noticed that in the new table, the locations that are given are Spanish Florida provinces. I would like to keep these for certain missions that have not been located, but there are some that I have the coordinates for. I know in the other Spanish mission articles, the table adds coordinates. What do you all think about adding these? I have sources for this just as I have sources for my old table. I've used https://www.hmdb.org, https://www.aucillaresearchinstitute.org/borderland-conferences.html, and other research papers that I have downloaded. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 19:25, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

We can add a column to the table for that, it you would like. I would like to keep the province listed for each mission, as that provides information about who the mission served when such is not obvious from the name of the mission. Donald Albury 21:17, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Second what Donald says. Please cite your sources. I'm still puzzled why you didn't cite them in your old table, especially after I added the tag. I usually prefer to "just fix it" and find sources myself rather than add a tag, since they are so often ignored anyway, but I figured you must have been consulting some, and it was your job to fix it, rather than someone else's. Carlstak (talk) 00:35, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I was going to add them. I saw the tag and was trying to figure out how to source a local pdf file. But I think I have it figured out and I will just add a column. Thanks. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 02:12, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I could not find a way to cite https://www.npshistory.com/series/archeology/seac/air/cumberland-island.pdf as a source for one of my coordinates. Let me know if there is a way I can add this. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 05:46, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

You can cite it like this:

{{Cite report |last=Hellman |first=Robert |date=2007 |title=Archaeological Investigations at Dungeness Historical District: Cumberland Island National Seashore |url=https://www.npshistory.com/series/archeology/seac/air/cumberland-island.pdf |publisher=Southeastern Archaeology Conference |page=? |access-date =August 24, 2024}},

but you need to add the page number(s). - Donald Albury 15:54, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

What a great source. Fascinating and so much information. Carlstak (talk) 16:05, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Which reminds me, the American Museum of Natural History has sponsored a series of conferences on the Georgia Sea Islands, and published the papers. You can see some cites to papers from those conference reports in the Refideas section at Talk:St. Catherines Island. - Donald Albury 17:32, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. John E. Worth's The Struggle for the Georgia Coast is the one of those I most want to read. I just downloaded it. Worth is always "worth" reading (sorry). I have a special interest in Cumberland Island, having heard tales about it since the '70s from the old Frenchman who taught me how to hunt wild boar. He really knew their ways. He was poaching, launching his boat in Fernandina, but his stories were fascinating and I finally got there myself in the '90s. A magical place. Carlstak (talk) 23:04, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Isn't it by now established that the mission of Santa María de la Sena on Amelia Island was located at the Harrison Homestead site? Worth seems to take it for granted in his 1997 paper "Integrating Ethnohistory and Archaeology among the Timucua: An Overview of Southeast Georgia and Northeast Florida", and in his later (2009) monograph, Ethnicity and ceramics on the Southeastern Atlantic Coast: An ethnohistorical analysis (scroll down and you can read page 199. On page 193 he calls it a "Documented Triple-Ethnicity Site"). So you should be able to get exact geocoordinates for that location somewhere. Carlstak (talk) 22:30, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I haven't yet researched that mission, so I don't have the coordinates for that yet. I'll check out the paper and see if I can find the coordinates for that site.

I have coordinates for other sites in present-day Florida as well. I'll be adding these locations to the Spanish Florida page. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 17:22, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Good deal. Carlstak (talk) 21:55, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Harrison Homestead is also known as Harrison Plantation by the Florida Museum (https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/histarch/collections/florida/sites/#santa_catalina), The Harrison Cemetery is also located on a section of the Harrison Plantation (https://aigensoc.org/records/harrison-cemetery/), so I just put it there. The site was probably the same area as that. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 05:42, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Nice detective work. As the Harrison Cemetery marker says, it's now surrounded by Amelia Island Plantation. I once was the only white person who lived at American Beach, and knew MaVynee Betsch, an activist who gave away all the money she had inherited from her grandfather, founder of American Beach, to environmental causes. I knew some of the descendants of the enslaved persons who had labored on the Harrison plantation, and then remained at the black community of Franklintown after the Civil War. Sadly, Franklintown was devoured by Sea Pines Company, predecessor of Amelia Island Plantation Company. Notice that the very recent article I've linked here, that purports to give the "history" of Amelia Island Plantation and published on the Amelia Island Museum of History's website, erases this history, and doesn't even mention the Black people who were dislocated by rich white people. The racism continues. Carlstak (talk) 14:42, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

There may be complications. Rebecca Saunders, who led excavations at the Harrison Homestead site, in "Architecture of the missions Santa Maria and Santa Catalina de Amelia", in the 1993 The Spanish Missions of 'La Florida', describes two successive missions at the site, and states that the northern three acres of the Harrison Homestead site (8NA41) has been renamed the Dorian site (8NA41d). She places the earlier mission, Santa Maria de Yamassee on the southern part (what seems to still be the Harrison Homestead site). After the Yemassees were moved to St. Catherines Island, the Guale mission of Santa Catalina (formerly on St. Catherines Island before moving to Sapelo Island) was later moved to Amelia Island (called Santa Maria by the Spanish), so the mission is also called "Santa Catalina de Santa Maria". The church and cemetary for Santa Catalina are on the southern side of the Dorian site, about 40 meters north of the Santa Maria site. Per the map on page 41 of Saunders, the church/cemetary is close to the center point of the two mission complexes. That list of sources on the museum's page should be helpful, although some of them may not be available on line. It does look like there are plenty of sources available for an article or two about the missions. Donald Albury 14:50, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Duh! It took a while to sink in. Santa Catalina started on St. Catherines Island, moved to Sapela Island, and then moved to Amelia Island. But, Amelia Island is in what is now the state of Florida, and that is where those coordinates point. It is misleading to give coordinates to a location in what is now the state of Florida for a mission that was in what is now Georgia. Donald Albury 15:29, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I second that "Duh!" But they can still be used in the Missions in "Spanish Florida" article, right? So this isn't really fruitless. I am working on the merge of the articles under discussion, but I have to write up another proposal just now. Carlstak (talk) 15:35, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

For missions that moved, and there are several, showing coordinates for each of the sites will complicate things. And now I see that the coordinates given for Santa Catalina point to Amelia Island, but the source cited for those coordinates is about St. Catherines Island, and does not mention Amelia Island or the Harrison Homestead site. @GoldenArmorYeah: do you remember the site you used to source those coordinates? Donald Albury 15:47, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Santa Catalina de Guale? The coordinates I have put for the first site in Georgia were on St. Catherines Island. My source was a PDF from the South Atlantic Division. Then my description says it moved down to Sapelo and to 8NA41. GoldenArmorYeah (talk) 03:17, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh fun! The only in-line cite in Santa Catalina de Guale is for the move from St. Catherines Island to Sapelo Island, but the link is dead. I have now located the cited document, and I stumbled across this statement (p. 10), Bushnell (in press) has recently traced [Santa Catalina de Guale] to at least seven known sites between 1564 and 1728. In a way, not so suprising, as tribal towns in the interior typically moved every few decades. That timeline goes back to before any mission was established, and after the loss of the missions on Amelia Island with the survivors withdrawing to St. Augustine. The Bushnell source appears to be The Archaeology of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale: 2. The Support and Supplying of Florida Conversions. I haven't found a freely accessible copy of that, yet. Donald Albury 15:03, 28 August 2024 (UTC)