Northern Utina
Encyclopedia
The Northern Utina, also known as the Timucua or simply Utina, were a Timucua
Timucua
The Timucua were a Native American people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The various groups of Timucua spoke several dialects of the...

 tribe of northern Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. They lived north of the Santa Fe River and east of the Suwanee River, and spoke a dialect of the Timucuan language known as "Timucua proper". They appear to have been closely associated with the Yustaga
Yustaga
Yustaga may refer to:*The Yustaga people, a branch of the Timucua that lived in northern Florida in the 16th and 17th centuries*USS Yustaga , a fleet tug laid down for the United States Navy in 1945, but converted into a submarine rescue vessel prior to completion and commissioned as USS Skylark ...

 tribe, who lived on the other side of the Suwanee. The Northern Utina represented one of the most powerful tribal units in the region in the 16th and 17th centuries, and may have been organized as a loose chiefdom
Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a political economy that organizes regional populations through a hierarchy of the chief.In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band...

 or confederation of smaller chiefdoms. The Fig Springs archaeological site
Fig Springs mission site
The Fig Springs mission site is an archaeological site in Ichetucknee Springs State Park, in Columbia County, Florida. It has been identified as the site of a Spanish mission to the Timucua people of the region, dating to the first half of the 17th century...

 may be the remains of their principal village, Ayacuto, and the later Spanish mission of San Martín de Timucua.

The Northern Utina had sporadic contact with the Europeans beginning in the first half of the 16th century. In 1539 Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 conquistador
Conquistador
Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...

 Hernando de Soto passed through the Northern Utina region, where he captured and subsequently executed Aguacaleycuen, who may have been the principal chief at the time. Later French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 sources note a powerful chief in the area named Onatheaqua, who may have been a successor to Aguacaleycuen. After several decades of resistance the Northern Utina became part of the Spanish mission system in Florida
Spanish missions in Florida
Beginning in the second half of the 16th century, the Kingdom of Spain established a number of missions throughout la Florida in order to convert the Indians to Christianity, to facilitate control of the area, and to prevent its colonization by other countries, in particular, England and France...

 in 1597. Their territory was organized as the Timucua Province, and San Martín de Timucua and three other missions were established between 1608 and 1616. The profile of the Northern Utina increased considerably as smaller peripheral provinces were incorporated into the Timucua Province, which eventually included all of northern Florida between approximately the Aucilla
Aucilla River
The Aucilla River rises close to Thomasville, Georgia, USA, and passes through the Big Bend region of Florida, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Apalachee Bay. The river is long and has a drainage basin of . The Wacissa River is a tributary...

 and St. Johns River
St. Johns River
The St. Johns River is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant for commercial and recreational use. At long, it winds through or borders twelve counties, three of which are the state's largest. The drop in elevation from the headwaters to the mouth is less than ;...

s.

However, the tribe experienced significant demographic decline during the same period due to disease and other factors. They took the forefront in the Timucua Rebellion of 1665. This was put down by the Spanish, who razed their villages and relocated the populace to a series of new communities along the Camino Real or Royal Road running between the Apalachee Province
Apalachee Province
Apalachee Province was the area in the Panhandle of the present-day U.S. state of Florida inhabited by the Native American peoples known as the Apalachee at the time of European contact. The southernmost extent of the Mississippian culture, the Apalachee lived in what is now Leon County, Wakulla...

 and St. Augustine
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine is a city in the northeast section of Florida and the county seat of St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United...

. In this reduced position the Northern Utina were largely powerless against raids by northern tribes allied with the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 settlers such as the Creek
Creek people
The Muscogee , also known as the Creek or Creeks, are a Native American people traditionally from the southeastern United States. Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. The modern Muscogee live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida...

 and Yamasee
Yamasee
The Yamasee were a multiethnic confederation of Native Americans that lived in the coastal region of present-day northern coastal Georgia near the Savannah River and later in northeastern Florida.-History:...

, and suffered further from epidemics. They eventually moved closer to St. Augustine and mingled with other Timucua groups, losing their independent identity.

Name

The name "Northern Utina" for these people is entirely a scholarly convention; it was never used by the people themselves or by their Spanish or Indian contemporaries. It is unclear what the people themselves called themselves, if they had a general name for themselves at all. The Spanish in the 17th century knew them as the Timucua and referred to the region in which they lived as the Timucua Province. Their dialect was known as Timucua (now usually called "Timucua proper"). Over time smaller provinces were joined into the Timucua Province, and the name "Timucua" was applied to an increasingly wide area of northern Florida.

In the 20th century, when the name Timucua came to designate all the groups who spoke the Timucuan language, scholars began to substitute the term Utina for what the Spanish had known as the Timucua Province. Utina
Utina
The Utina, also known as the Agua Dulce or Agua Fresca tribe, were a Timucua chiefdom in northern Florida during the 16th century. The name given to them by their enemies, Thimogona, may be the origin of the word Timucua, now applied to the whole group of related tribes who lived in northern...

originally designated a different tribe who lived along the middle St. Johns River
St. Johns River
The St. Johns River is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant for commercial and recreational use. At long, it winds through or borders twelve counties, three of which are the state's largest. The drop in elevation from the headwaters to the mouth is less than ;...

 in the 16th century; these people were known as the Agua Dulce (Freshwater) to the Spanish in the 17th century. The 16th-century Utina were not particularly closely related to the people of the Timucua Province, but they were known to their enemies as Thimogona, which may be the origin of the name "Timucua". At any rate modern usage of the term "Utina" has caused confusion between the 16th-century Utina chiefdom and the "Timucua proper"; as such scholars Jerald Milanich and Ken Johnson have suggested classing the two groups as eastern Utina and Northern Utina, respectively.

Area

The Northern Utina lived in a region spreading roughly from the Suwanee River in the west to the St. Johns River
St. Johns River
The St. Johns River is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant for commercial and recreational use. At long, it winds through or borders twelve counties, three of which are the state's largest. The drop in elevation from the headwaters to the mouth is less than ;...

 in the east, and from the Santa Fe River northward into southern Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

. However, the main centers of the population were in the eastern Suwanee River valley. On the other side of that river, living between the Suwanee and Aucilla River
Aucilla River
The Aucilla River rises close to Thomasville, Georgia, USA, and passes through the Big Bend region of Florida, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Apalachee Bay. The river is long and has a drainage basin of . The Wacissa River is a tributary...

s (present-day Madison
Madison County, Florida
Madison County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 18,733. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 19,902. Its county seat is Madison, Florida. Madison County is one of Florida's five dry counties....

 and Taylor Counties
Taylor County, Florida
Taylor County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 19,256. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county was 19,622 . Its county seat is Perry, Florida.- History :Taylor County was created in 1856...

), were another western Timucua group, the Yustaga
Yustaga
Yustaga may refer to:*The Yustaga people, a branch of the Timucua that lived in northern Florida in the 16th and 17th centuries*USS Yustaga , a fleet tug laid down for the United States Navy in 1945, but converted into a submarine rescue vessel prior to completion and commissioned as USS Skylark ...

. The Yustaga were closely related to the Northern Utina, but appear to have spoken a different dialect, perhaps Potano. Beyond the Yustaga were the non-Timucuan Apalachee
Apalachee
The Apalachee are a Native American people who historically lived in the Florida Panhandle, and now live primarily in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Their historical territory was known to the Spanish colonists as the Apalachee Province...

, who lived throughout most of the Florida Panhandle
Florida Panhandle
The Florida Panhandle, an informal, unofficial term for the northwestern part of Florida, is a strip of land roughly 200 miles long and 50 to 100 miles wide , lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia also on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is...

. To the south and southeast of the Northern Utina, on the other side of the Santa Fe River, were the Potano
Potano
The Potano tribe lived in north-central Florida at the time of first European contact. Their territory included what is now Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. This territory corresponds to that of the Alachua culture, which preceded the...

, a Timucua tribe. Other Timucua speakers lived to the north in Georgia, including the Arapaha. Far to the east were the eastern Timucua groups, including the Saturiwa
Saturiwa
The Saturiwa were a Timucua chiefdom centered around the mouth of the St. Johns River in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. They were the largest and best attested chiefdom of the Timucua subgroup known as the Mocama, who spoke the Mocama dialect of Timucuan and lived in the coastal areas...

 and the (eastern) Utina.

Early history and European contact

The area has been inhabited for thousands of years. In the first millennium AD the region's inhabitants participated in the Weedon Island culture, which spread across much of western Florida and beyond. From about 900 a derivative culture emerged in the Suwanee Valley area, known as the Suwanee Valley culture. This culture was common to all the Suwanee Valley peoples (the Northern Utina and the Yustaga), and as a Weedon Island derivative was closely related to the Alachua culture
Alachua culture
The Alachua culture is defined as a Late Woodland Southeast period archaeological culture in north-central Florida, dating from around AD700 to 1700. It is found in an area roughly corresponding to present-day Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County...

 of the Potano
Potano
The Potano tribe lived in north-central Florida at the time of first European contact. Their territory included what is now Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. This territory corresponds to that of the Alachua culture, which preceded the...

. It is particularly distinguished by ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

s.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Northern Utina lived in small community groups, perhaps representing localized chiefdom
Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a political economy that organizes regional populations through a hierarchy of the chief.In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band...

s, separated from each other by considerable distances. John E. Worth suggests that these may have been organized into a larger regional chiefdom that was continuous from at least the early days of European contact through the 17th century. Early European accounts record certain chiefs as paramount over others, while during the 17th century towns in the Timucua Province were missionized evidently based on their preeminence. This may be evidence of a continuous regional chiefdom, but Worth notes it must have been much looser than more integrated Timucua chiefdoms such as the eastern Utina
Utina
The Utina, also known as the Agua Dulce or Agua Fresca tribe, were a Timucua chiefdom in northern Florida during the 16th century. The name given to them by their enemies, Thimogona, may be the origin of the word Timucua, now applied to the whole group of related tribes who lived in northern...

, the Saturiwa
Saturiwa
The Saturiwa were a Timucua chiefdom centered around the mouth of the St. Johns River in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. They were the largest and best attested chiefdom of the Timucua subgroup known as the Mocama, who spoke the Mocama dialect of Timucuan and lived in the coastal areas...

, or the Potano
Potano
The Potano tribe lived in north-central Florida at the time of first European contact. Their territory included what is now Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. This territory corresponds to that of the Alachua culture, which preceded the...

. Large-scale monuments such as platform mound
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...

s, often signs of integrated regional chiefdoms, have not been found in Northern Utina territory, and ceramic dating may vary from community to community, suggesting disunity.

The Northern Utina probably encountered the survivors of the Narváez expedition
Narváez expedition
The Narváez expedition was a Spanish attempt during the years 1527–1528 to colonize Spanish Florida. It was led by Pánfilo de Narváez, who was to rule as adelantado....

 in 1528, but the earliest definite historical record of them is in the accounts of Hernando de Soto's expedition, which passed through their territory in 1539. These accounts indicate that the Northern Utina were more populous than any other tribe De Soto had yet encountered, and lived in distinct villages that were subordinate to a chief named Aguacaleycuen. Aguacaleycuen's main village was located on the Ichetucknee River
Ichetucknee River
The Ichetucknee River is a spring-fed, pristine river in North Central Florida. The entire of the river average wide, deep and most of the 6 miles lie within the boundaries of the Ichetucknee Springs State Park while the rest is to the south of US Highway 27...

, perhaps at the Fig Springs archaeological site. Aguacaleycuen was allied with (and possibly related to) another chief on the other side of the Suwanee River, Uzachile, whose chiefdom may correspond with the later Yustaga
Yustaga
Yustaga may refer to:*The Yustaga people, a branch of the Timucua that lived in northern Florida in the 16th and 17th centuries*USS Yustaga , a fleet tug laid down for the United States Navy in 1945, but converted into a submarine rescue vessel prior to completion and commissioned as USS Skylark ...

 chiefdom. Upon reaching Aguacaleycuen's village De Soto captured the chief, as was his custom, intending to release him once his party had safely reached Uzachile. Subsequently some subordinate chiefs, asserting that Uzachile sought an alliance with De Soto, led the Spanish into an ambush. After a battle, De Soto executed Aguacaleycuen and other hostages and moved into Uzachile's territory, which he found already evacuated.

In 1564 the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 settlers of Fort Caroline
Fort Caroline
Fort Caroline was the first French colony in the present-day United States. Established in what is now Jacksonville, Florida, on June 22, 1564, under the leadership of René Goulaine de Laudonnière, it was intended as a refuge for the Huguenots. It lasted one year before being obliterated by the...

 heard of a powerful chief in this area named Onatheaqua. Though details are limited, this Onatheaqua may have ruled the Northern Utina chiefdom led earlier by Aguacaleycuen. The French understood his chiefdom to be near that of Chief Houstaqua, whose name is probably a variant of "Yustaga", and to the east of the Apalachee
Apalachee
The Apalachee are a Native American people who historically lived in the Florida Panhandle, and now live primarily in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Their historical territory was known to the Spanish colonists as the Apalachee Province...

. However, they believed he lived near high mountains (the Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...

, which early Europeans believed extended to Apalachee territory). Onatheaqua was said to be very wealthy and to have controlled access to the mountains and the strange and valuable things located there.

Mission era

The Northern Utina received a number of Spanish emissaries following the 1565 establishment of St. Augustine
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine is a city in the northeast section of Florida and the county seat of St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United...

, but they consistently rejected all Spanish overtures for several decades. Then in 1597, as part of a renewed wave of missionary effort, the Spanish sent the Timucua Christian leader Juan de Junco to the Northern Utina cacique mayor (head chief), probably at the town of Ayacuto at the Figs Springs site. Alone among the other missionaries sent out that year, Juan was successful, and convinced the chief to send emissaries to St. Augustine to negotiate peace. The Northern Utina rendered obedience to the Spanish crown, and the Spanish dispatched a friar to the main village of Ayacuto, where the important Mission San Martín de Timucua was established in 1608. Over the next eight years at least three more missions were established in Northern Utina territory: Santa Fé de Toloca, Santa Cruz de Tarihica, and San Juan de Guacara.

The profile of the Northern Utina increased substantially as smaller provinces were merged into Timucua Province, and San Martín became the principal mission and town for an increasingly wide area. However, they suffered considerable demographic decline from the epidemics that spread through Florida through the 17th century. Under the principal chief of Ayacuto Lúcas Menéndez, the Northern Utina were at the forefront of the Timucua Rebellion of 1665, in which they, together with the Yustaga
Yustaga
Yustaga may refer to:*The Yustaga people, a branch of the Timucua that lived in northern Florida in the 16th and 17th centuries*USS Yustaga , a fleet tug laid down for the United States Navy in 1945, but converted into a submarine rescue vessel prior to completion and commissioned as USS Skylark ...

 and Potano
Potano
The Potano tribe lived in north-central Florida at the time of first European contact. Their territory included what is now Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. This territory corresponds to that of the Alachua culture, which preceded the...

, revolted against the Spanish colonial government. After the Spanish put down the rebellion the Northern Utina were forcibly relocated to a series of new towns along the Camino Real or Royal Road from Apalachee Province
Apalachee Province
Apalachee Province was the area in the Panhandle of the present-day U.S. state of Florida inhabited by the Native American peoples known as the Apalachee at the time of European contact. The southernmost extent of the Mississippian culture, the Apalachee lived in what is now Leon County, Wakulla...

 to St. Augustine. This caused a severe breakdown in the social structure, and the Northern Utina were largely defenseless against raids by the Creek
Creek people
The Muscogee , also known as the Creek or Creeks, are a Native American people traditionally from the southeastern United States. Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. The modern Muscogee live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida...

 and Yamasee
Yamasee
The Yamasee were a multiethnic confederation of Native Americans that lived in the coastal region of present-day northern coastal Georgia near the Savannah River and later in northeastern Florida.-History:...

 allied to the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 colonies to the north. As a result surviving Northern Utina migrated closer to St. Augustine where they merged with other Timucua peoples, and were removed to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

in 1763.
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