Mission Santa Catalina de Guale

Out of the many historical sites in the United States that I have seen, perhaps one of the most interesting and lesser known places that I have had the privilege to see was St. Catherine’s Island. While the beaches on the Atlantic side are accessible to the public, the interior of the island is not as it is privately owned. And it is in that interior of the island where one can find the site of one of Georgia’s most prominent early Spanish missions. What remains today is just an outline of the former church marked by a family of palm trees. What is more fascinating is the actual early Spanish Mission history that is attached to the site.

The mission’s history begins in April 1566 where, following the expulsion of the French Huguenots from the La Florida region and the founding of the city of St. Augustine, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his men visited the village of Guale, named after its mico (or chief) who lived there which at that time was said to be located either on St. Catherine’s Island or initially on another nearby island such Ossabaw Island or Skidaway Island. They were initially brought to the region as a result of rumors from Native Americans indicating that Frenchmen were there. Therefore, in order to expel the frenchmen and establish a Spanish presence in the region, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés along with 2 brigantines and a force of 50 left Fort San Mateo (the former site of Fort Caroline) and after 3 days at sea, they landed at a harbor in what is today the Georgia Coast. Upon landing on the shores, the Adelantado was greeted to several Native American archers, however, amongst them was what appeared to be a European man. This European man was actually a native of Cordoba who served under the French as an interpreter to the native peoples of the Americas. He had come to the Guale region previously under Jean Ribault as an interpreter and he had been living in the region ever since. Initially, Menéndez de Avilés established a rapport with the interpreter and through him, he was able to communicate to the Guale.

When the Adelantado was given an invitation to enter their village and meet the chief, he immediately accepted the offer. Through the interpreter, Menéndez de Avilés had also learned that previously 15 men from Ribault’s force had arrived in the region where they were well received by Chief Guale who provided them with both food and a house where they lived for 5 months prior to departing for Newfoundland. The Adelantado entered the village of Chief Guale on April 12, 1566 where he too received a good reception. While there, he stayed in the very same house where the French stayed and proceeded to introduce Christianity to the locals. Following the establishment of a peace treaty between Chief Guale and the chief’s enemy - Chief Orista of Santa Elena, Menéndez eventually assigned a military captain and a garrison of 30 soldiers to stay in the village and ordered the construction of a new Spanish blockhouse in the town. In the years following the events noted, a priest named Francisco Enrique de Fromonte (who was said to have been sent by Menéndez) along with Jesuit missionaries Agustin Vaez and Antonio Sedeño labored in the Guale region albeit unsuccessfully. Following the devastating tragedy that took place at Mission Santa Maria de Ajacan (in what is today Virginia) in 1570, the Jesuits were recalled from the mission field. A few years later, the Franciscans replaced the Jesuits although their efforts in the region were initially very minimal. Despite early Guale rebellions in 1582 and 1584, the Franciscans managed to succeed where the Jesuits failed and by the mid-1580s, the Franciscans established their new mission on what is today St. Catherine’s Island and named it “Santa Catalina de Guale”.

The site of the Mission Santa Catalina de Guale mission church today marked by a set of palm trees marking where the church walls once stood. - © Christian G. Martinez, 2024.

By 1597, there were about 14 Franciscan friars serving in the La Florida missions with 2 of them - Fray Miguel de Añon (who was the one in charge) and Fray Antonio de Badajoz (Fray Miguel’s interpreter) being stationed at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale. While efforts initially went well at Mission Santa Catalina, tensions did arise between the Guale and the missionaries. The Guale who lived at Mission Santa Catalina lived a life of physical labor and when the missionaries ministered to them, this often involved the Guale having to give up many of their traditional customs. Indeed, when a young Guale Prince named Juanillo wanted to take a second wife (due to it traditionally being seen as a sign of status), Fray Pedro de Corpa at nearby mission Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Tolomato instantly told him that he could not do so as a baptized Catholic. When Juanillo rebelled against what the priest told him, Fray de Corpa along with Fray Blas Rodriguez at Mission Santa Clara de Tupiqui interfered in his succession as the Guale mico and instead appointed Don Francisco in his place. Juanillo, feeling humiliated, then decided to take vengeful action against all of the Spanish priests in the Guale missions by gathering others who were not only engaged in the same vice of polygamy but also resentful of the friars and their Gospel.

Not too long after that, Juanillo and his men then made their way to Tolomato where they killed Fray de Corpa in the morning hours of September 14, 1597, and following the murder, they then ordered the Guale mico at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale to join their campaign and kill the two priests at Mission Santa Catalina. The mico of Santa Catalina, however, did not want to carry out the murders and in defiance of Juanillo, went to Fray Antonio at the mission to warn them of Juanillo’s threats as well as to beg them to take a vessel and flee to Mission San Pedro de Mocama (Cumberland Island, GA) where they would be safer. Fray Antonio however was not convinced that the Guale would actually execute the threats the Santa Catalina mico warned them of, and so Fray Antonio ended up not telling Fray Miguel of what he was told. On the next day, the mico returned and again pleaded with them to escape but Fray Antonio still did not believe the threats. On September 17, 1597, the same mico went to the friars for the last time and told him that Juanillo and his men were finally near and went off into the woods in tears to cry for them. It was then that Fray Antonio and Fray Miguel had realized the reality of their situation. They proceeded to hold Mass and following the Mass, they decided to spend their last 4 hours on this earth in prayer.

When that too had passed, Juanillo and his men finally entered the mission village where they burned the friary and then went to the mission church where the 2 friars were praying. Upon entering the church, a Guale warrior (who was said to not be baptized) went towards the friars and proceeded to hit Fray Antonio with a macana, or stone hatchet, thus killing him. He then hit Fray Miguel as well who was not killed on the first blow. A few Christianized Guale tried to come forward to stop the rebels from killing Fray Miguel but they were unsuccessful. Another warrior then came forward and hit Fray Miguel’s head with a second blow which ultimately killed him. Following the killings, the rebels fled the scene and the Christianized Guale of the mission went and buried the friars near the entrance to the former mission church. It is also said that in an odd twist of fate, the Guale warrior who dealt the deadly second blow to Fray Miguel ended up repenting of what he did and hung himself from a tree using the rope of his own bow. When Spanish Florida Governor Méndez de Canço heard of what happened, he ordered for a force of soldiers led by Sargento Mayor Alonzo Diaz to enter Guale Province to investigate and upon arriving there on November 4, 1597, they entered the former Mission Santa Catalina where they found the ruins of the friary and church as well as the remains of Fray Antonio and Fray Miguel who were reburied in a much more decent manner at the foot of the mission cross due to the state of decomposition of their bodies.

What is next known is that the bodies of the friars were eventually exhumed between 1603-1605 and transported to the Convento de San Francisco in St. Augustine where they ultimately disappeared. The mission would not be rebuilt until around 1604 when the mission was resettled by the Spanish who had reconstructed the church and friary, as well as added to the complex a small kitchen building, two wells, a stone fort, Guale council house for native meetings, and a pueblo for the mission inhabitants where they built their rectangular waddle-and-daub homes separated by streets. Thus, Mission Santa Catalina de Guale managed to rise again from the ashes and become yet again an important Franciscan mission and economic center for the Spanish in Guale Province. Life for the Guale, however, was not so idealistic either as not only did disease epidemics plagued many of the natives but a growing British presence further north (beginning with the establishment of James Town in 1607 in Virginia) also threatened the stability of the Catholic settlement. The British then formed an alliance with the Westo (or Chichimeco as the Spanish had called them) and gave them weapons thus resulting with Westo raids on Guale province around 1661 and not too long after that, another native people, the Yamassee, also attacked the same region against the Spanish.

By late 1662, more Westo raiders crossed the Savannah River region north of the mission of San Diego de Satuache which alarmed Spanish authorities and not too long after April 7, 1663, the inhabitants of Mission San Diego de Satuache were relocated further south. By 1666, Mission San Diego had merged with Mission Santa Catalina de Guale which became the place of refuge for the inhabitants of Mission San Diego. For the next 2 decades, Mission Santa Catalina de Guale continued to operate undisturbed as a formal Franciscan mission. By 1670, that period came to an end when the British established Charles Town (in what is today Charleston, South Carolina) and the passage of the Treaty of Madrid that same year wherein the Spanish were forced to recognize British dominion over certain domains although the precise boundary was not specified. As a result, the future of Spanish Guale had become much more uncertain and Mission Santa Catalina again rose to become the Spanish Crown’s northernmost post in La Florida. Following unsuccessful Spanish attacks on Charles Town in the summer of 1670 and in 1671, the British began utilizing their Native American allies again to retaliate by having them raid the Spanish missions in Guale. Should the British be successful, this would open up the territories for further British expansion southward.

In late April 1680, following an attack on the town of San Simon (on today’s St. Simon’s Island, GA), a band of around 300 British-allied Native Americans including Westo, Uchise and Chiluque invaded Mission Santa Catalina where a battle broke out. Captain Francisco de Fuentes, alongside 40 Guale warriors and 5 Spaniards hid inside of the mission friary and, by the grace of God, they managed to succeed in fighting off the raiders. The mission village was subsequently burned by the raiders and the raiders went away. Spanish reinforcements arrived 4 days later but by then they were already too late. Despite the successful defense, the mission’s inhabitants were left absolutely terrified by the ordeal and so they decided to seek refuge further south on Sapelo Island where they merged with the population at Mission San Jose de Zapala. They would not be long on Mission San Jose as in 1683, the French pirate Michel de Grammont, whom the Spanish called Agramon, raided the Guale and Mocama missions in the region which again forced the former Guale inhabitants of Mission Santa Catalina to retreat even further south. By August 1684, Mission Santa Catalina was relocated to Amelia Island at the former site of Mission Santa Maria de los Yamazes at Harrison Creek overlooking the marshes.

The remnants of the burned door sill of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale's friary/convento from its later Amelia Island location - taken at the Amelia Island Museum of History. © Christian G. Martinez, 2025.

At Harrison Creek, the inhabitants built a new compound consisting of a friary, kitchen building, and a church operated by a Franciscan friar. Unlike its Georgia predecessor, however, this new Mission Santa Catalina would not be as successful and the historical record notes that the new mission’s inhabitants failed to comply with the creation of two required communal fields - one for the natives and another used for raising funds for the acquisition of church materials. By 1691, the inhabitants of Amelia Island’s Mission Santa Catalina de Guale reportedly failed to complete construction on their defensive stockade due to the natives complaining that they had neither the manpower or sufficient food supply for them carry wood from such a far distance to build the stockade. Furthermore, the natives also had a habit of moving constantly between native villages leading to labor shortages and a decreased population. By 1700, the blockade was reported as still not being completed and this would be extremely problematic as it left the settlement vulnerable to British southward expansion. Indeed, on the night of November 3, 1702, a British Carolinian force led by Col. James Moore and Col. Robert Daniel from Port Royal arrived on Amelia Island where they attacked another relocated Guale mission, Santa Clara de Tupiqui, causing a large number of its inhabitants to flee into the night and others to run to Mission Santa Catalina seeking refuge. Within a few hours, on the morning of November 4, 1702, the inhabitants of Mission Santa Catalina were warned of the impeding threat and so Captain Fuentes and two Franciscan priests, Fray Manuel de Urisa and Fray Domingo Santos immediately rang the mission bell to warn the mission inhabitants.

As a result, many of Mission Santa Catalina’s inhabitants decided to either run off into the woods or hide out in the salt marshes leaving only the Franciscans and Spanish garrison to serve as the defense of the mission. As a result, Captain Fuentes ordered for the town to be evacuated and after collecting all of the church’s statues, vestments and ornaments, they all got into a canoe and rode off to Mission San Juan del Puerto a distance south from there on what is today Fort George Island. Not too long after that, the Carolinians came and set the remaining mission structures ablaze with zero human casualties. Captain Fuentes and the friars would later be captured by the British and taken to Charles Town where Captain Fuentes would die a prisoner. Some of the missions’ former Guale inhabitants also ended up fleeing to St. Augustine. By 1711, Mission Santa Catalina de Guale appears again on Spanish mission lists as being located at Mission Nombre de Dios. In 1726, Mission Santa Catalina is documented as consisting of its own church and friary built of palm with a population of 104 Guale men, women and children. In 1728, Mission Santa Catalina is noted as being in a consolidated Guale-Yamassee mission called Nombre de Dios Chiquito served by a missionary named Fray Tomas de Aguilar and a population of 24 Guale and 24 Yamassee. Eventually, as mission settlements around St. Augustine consolidated, Mission Santa Catalina de Guale ended up disappearing from the historical record and would never again reappear. For a long time, the mission’s location remained a mystery and indeed most Americans, if you were to ask them, would probably not even know of the existence of a Mission Santa Catalina in the Southeast. However, as the years passed by, traces of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale would slowly end up being found by American archaeologists.

Replica of the Mission Santa Catalina seal found on the Mission Santa Catalina de Guale Amelia Island site depicting the martyr St. Catherine of Alexandria - taken at the Amelia Island Museum of History.

Historical Marker memorializing the 180 Catholic Guale found at Harrison Creek - taken at the Harrison Cemetery on Amelia Island. © Christian G. Martinez, 2025.

The stone marking the final resting place at Harrison Cemetery of the 180 Catholic Guale found at the former Mission Santa Catalina de Guale at Harrison Creek. © Christian G. Martinez, 2025.

The 1980s saw the rediscovery of two of Mission Santa Catalina’s sites. In 1981, Professor David Hurst Thomas, who I had the pleasure of meeting when I visited the site of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale on St. Catherine’s Island, rediscovered the mission’s St. Catherine’s Island location including its former church, friary, kitchen as well as numerous artifacts such as Jesuit finger rings, crosses, medallions, a figure of baby Jesus, a rosary, figurines from the stations of the cross, several glass beads, and more. Two mission wells as well as the graves of more than 400 Christianized Guale buried underneath the church were also found. Just four years later in 1985, archaeologists also ended up discovering Mission Santa Catalina’s Amelia Island site at Harrison Creek on a property owned by George and Dorothy Dorion where 180 Guale burials were found as well as ruins of the clay and daub mission church, wattle-and-daub kitchen and friary as well as numerous artifacts including a seal depicting St. Catherine of Alexandria, olive jar sherds, wrought nails, spikes and even a charred doorsill from the friary were found. The Guale burials found at Harrison Creek were later re-interred in the Harrison Family Cemetery on Amelia Island where they remain to this day. As to the St. Catherine’s Island location, the site is, like I said, off-limits to visitors but the former site of the church is today marked by a set of palm trees marking the exact spot where the church once stood. The mission’s Amelia Island location at Harrison Creek is also inaccessible to the public as the area has since been developed as a part of the Amelia Island Plantation. I visited St. Catherine’s Island on May 16, 2024 with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Savannah and boy it was an amazing site. On February 1, 2025, my wife and I visited the Amelia Island Museum of History where we saw the charred doorsill from the mission friary on display in the museum as well as a replica of the St. Catherine of Alexandria seal that was found at the mission site on Amelia Island. On March 2, 2025, I was also given the opportunity to visit the Harrison Cemetery to see the graves of the re-interred 180 Catholic Guale found at Mission Santa Catalina's Amelia Island location. I would like to express my many thanks once again to Ms. Mary Long for that opportunity.

For further reading, I recommend the following which were also used as sources for the above:

Francis, J.M. and Kole, K.M. (2011, Aug. 3) Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida: Don Juan and the Guale Uprising of 1597. American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Papers. Number 95. American Museum of Natural History.

Worth, J.E. (1995, May 18). The Struggle for the Georgia Coast - An Eighteenth-Century Spanish Retrospective on Guale and Mocama. American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Papers. Number 75. University of Georgia Press.

Milanich, J.T. (2006) Laboring in the Fields of the Lord: Spanish Missions and Southeastern Indians. University Press of Florida.

Lanning, J.T. (1935). The Spanish Missions of Georgia. The University of North Carolina Press.

McEwan, B. (1993). The Spanish Missions of La Florida. University Press of Florida.

Geiger, M., O.F.M, Ph.D. (1940). Biographical Dictionary of the Franciscans in Spanish Florida and Cuba (1528-1841). St. Anthony Guild Press.

Geiger, M., O.F.M., Ph.D. (1936, July). The Martyrs of Florida (1513-1616) by Luis Gerónimo de Oré - Translated, with Biographical Introduction and Notes by. Franciscan Studies. No. 18. Joseph F. Wagner, Inc. Publishing. New York City.

Arbesú, D. (2017). Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Conquest of Florida by Gonzalo Solís de Merás: A New Manuscript. University Press of Florida.