Laboring in the fields of the Lord
Subtitle: Spanish missions and Southeastern Indians
By: Jerald T. Milanich.
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Washington
Language: eng
Number of pages: 210
Subjects: Catholic Church -- Missions -- Southern States -- History.; Indians of North America -- Missions -- Southern States.; Indians of North America -- Southern States -- History -- Sources.; Indians, Treatment of -- Southern States -- History.; Florida -- History -- Spanish colony, 1565-1763.; Spain -- Colonies -- America -- Administration.
Description: "One of the great secrets of American history, more than 150 Spanish mission churches once dotted the landscape between modern Miami and the Chesapeake Bay. Built between the 1560s and 1760s, the missions were concentrated in what is now northern Florida and southern Georgia, but until recently their existence - and their influence on the region's native groups - has remained virtually undetected. Their wood and thatch buildings burned or rotted away, and sweeping epidemics gradually wiped out the entire populations of the Timucua, Guale, and Apalachee Indians." "Drawing upon archaeological and historical research conducted during the last twenty years, archaeologist Jerald T. Milanich contends that the southeastern mission system, conceived as a way to save souls while converting a potentially hostile population into an essential labor force, was central to the Spanish colonial enterprise."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-204) and index.