Pensacola people
Encyclopedia
The Pensacola were a Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 people who lived in the western part of what is now 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...

 from the time of first contact with Europeans until early in the 18th century. They spoke a Muskogean language
Muskogean languages
Muskogean is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States. Though there is an ongoing debate concerning their interrelationships, the Muskogean languages are generally divided into two branches, Eastern Muskogean and Western Muskogean...

. They are the source of the name of Pensacola Bay
Pensacola Bay
Pensacola Bay is a bay located in the northwestern part of Florida, United States, known as the Florida Panhandle.The bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, is located in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County, adjacent to the city of Pensacola, Florida, and is about 13 miles long and 2.5 miles ...

 and the city of Pensacola
Pensacola
Pensacola is a city in the western part of the U.S. state of Florida.Pensacola may also refer to:* Pensacola people, a group of Native Americans* A number of places in the Florida:** Pensacola Bay** Pensacola Regional Airport...

. They lived in the area until the mid-18th century, but were thereafter assimilated into other groups.

Pensacola culture

The historical Pensacola people lived in part of a region that archaeologists call the Pensacola culture
Archaeological culture
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of artifacts from a specific time and place, which are thought to constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between the artifacts is based on archaeologists' understanding and interpretation and...

 area, which extended along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from Choctawhatchee Bay
Choctawhatchee Bay
Choctawhatchee Bay is a bay in the Emerald Coast region of the Florida Panhandle. The bay, located within Okaloosa and Walton counties, has a surface area of 129 mi2...

 into what is now Louisiana. The Pensacola culture developed out of the Fort Walton culture
Fort Walton Culture
Fort Walton Culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in southeastern North America, from approximately 1100~1550 CE....

 around 1200 and continued into the period of European colonization of the Gulf coast. (The Fort Walton culture continued to exist in 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 east of the Pensacola area into the period of European colonization.) The people of the Pensacola culture relied more on the use of coastal resources than on agriculture, and, unlike the Fort Walton culture, the Pensacola culture was not a true Mississippian culture
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....

.

Early contacts

The Pensacolas' first contact with Europeans may have been with 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. Cabeza de Vaca reported that the Indians they encountered in the vicinity of what is now Pensacola Bay
Pensacola Bay
Pensacola Bay is a bay located in the northwestern part of Florida, United States, known as the Florida Panhandle.The bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, is located in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County, adjacent to the city of Pensacola, Florida, and is about 13 miles long and 2.5 miles ...

 were of "large stature and well formed," and lived in permanent houses. The cacique wore a robe of what de Vaca called "civet-marten", "the best [skins], I think, that can be found." After initially appearing to be friendly, the Indians attacked the Spaniards without warning during the night.

In 1539 Diego Maldonado, exploring the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico under orders from Hernando de Soto, found Pensacola Bay (which the Spanish called the Bay of Achuse, Achusi, Ochuse or Ochus). Maldonado found a village on the bay, where he seized one or two of the inhabitants, along with a "good blanket of sables." De Soto ordered Maldonado to meet him at the Bay of Achuse the next summer with supplies for his expedition. Maldonado returned three years in succession, but de Soto never appeared.

In 1559 Tristán de Luna y Arellano
Tristán de Luna y Arellano
Tristán de Luna y Arellano was a Spanish Conquistador of the 16th century. Born in Borobia, Spain, he came to New Spain in about 1530, and was sent on an expedition to conquer Florida in 1559...

 led an expedition to establish the short-lived Spanish colony of Ochuse on Pensacola Bay, then known as the Bay of Ichuse (also spelled Ychuse).. The Spanish had planned to rely on the Indians for food supplies, but found the area almost deserted, with only a few Indians in fishing camps around the bay.

Panzacola

The first record of the name "Pensacola" appeared in the 17th century, as Panzacola. Panzacola (or Pansacola) appears in 1657 as the name of a village associated with the mission of San Juan De Aspalaga
San Juan De Aspalaga
San Juan De Aspalaga was a Spanish Franciscan mission built in the early 17th century in the Florida Panhandle, near the present-day town of Wacissa, Florida. It was part of Spain's effort to colonize the region, and convert the Timucuan and Apalachee Indians to Christianity...

 in 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...

 (Pansacola was a common surname among the Apalachee). In 1685 the Spanish became concerned over reports that the French were trying to establish a colony on the Gulf coast. Over the next few years the Spanish searched for the rumored French colony, and for a site for a Spanish colony to protect their interests in the area. The name Panzacola first appeared in association with Pensacola Bay when Juan Jordan de Reina entered Pensacola Bay in 1686, where he found Indians who called themselves and the bay Panzacola. That same year a letter reported that Panzacola could be reached by canoe by travelling west from San Marcos de Apalachee
San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park
San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park is a Florida State Park and historic site located in Wakulla County, Florida. It is located in St. Marks, off S.R. 363. The address is 148 Old Fort Road. On November 13, 1966, it was designated a National Historic Landmark and added to the U.S...

, and places it twelve leagues from the "Indians of Mobile
Mabila
The town of Mabila was a small fortress town known to Chief Tuskaloosa in 1540, in a region of present-day central Alabama. The exact location has been debated for centuries...

".A date of 1606 has been attributed to the letter, but Hahn:426 asserts that the correct date is 1686. Panzacola meant "long-haired people" or "hair people" in the Pensacola language, which was closely related to the Choctaw language
Choctaw language
The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native American Choctaw people of the southeastern United States, is a member of the Muskogean family...

.

Another expedition in 1688 found large, prosperous villages of "gentle and docile" Indians. In 1693 two expeditions, one from Vera Cruz in New Spain
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...

 and another from Apalachee, found the area around Pensacola Bay nearly deserted, supposedly due to the Pensacolas being wiped out in a war with the Mobiles. The Spanish did find two small bands of Chacatos (who were closely related to the Pensacolas) in the area of Pensacola Bay that year. Swanton states that the Pensacolas had not been killed, but had moved inland and to the west.

Final years

A Spanish colony was established at Pensacola Bay in 1698, given the name Pensacola
Pensacola
Pensacola is a city in the western part of the U.S. state of Florida.Pensacola may also refer to:* Pensacola people, a group of Native Americans* A number of places in the Florida:** Pensacola Bay** Pensacola Regional Airport...

. The governor of Pensacola, anxious to have Indians living in the area to help provision and defend the new colony, met with a few Pensacolas and Chacatos, and urged them to move their villages closer to Pensacola. However, by 1707 the only Indians living near the Spanish fort were called Ocatazes by the Spanish. In 1725 or 1726 a village of Pensacolas and Biloxis on the Pearl River was reported to have no more than forty men. In 1764 a village of Pensacolas, Biloxis, Chacatos, Capinans, Washas, Cawashas, and Pascagoula
Pascagoula
The Pasacagoula were an indigenous group living in coastal Mississippi on the Pascagoula River....

s had 261 men. After 1764 most of the Pensacolas are believed to have been assimilated into the Choctaws, but some may have gone to Louisiana with the Biloxi and merged into the Tunica-Biloxi
Tunica-Biloxi
The modern Tunica-Biloxi tribe live in Mississippi and east central Louisiana. The modern tribe is composed of descendants of Tunica, Biloxi , Ofo , Avoyel , and Muskogean Choctaw. They speak mostly English and French...

, or been assimilated by 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...

 bands that moved into the area.

Other "Pensacola Indians"

From time to time various groups of Indians moved to the vicinity of the Spanish fort at Pensacola and are sometimes referred to as "Pensacola Indians". In 1704, 800 refugees from the Apalachee massacre
Apalachee Massacre
The Apalachee massacre was a series of brutal raids by English colonists from the Province of Carolina and their Indian allies against a largely pacific population of Apalachee Indians in northern Spanish Florida that took place during Queen Anne's War in 1704...

 reached Pensacola. The governor of Pensacola tried to persuade them to stay at Pensacola, but most them moved on to French Mobile
Old Mobile Site
The Old Mobile Site was the location of the French settlement La Mobile and the associated Fort Louis de La Louisiane, in the French colony of New France in North America, from 1702 until 1712. The site is located in Le Moyne, Alabama, on the Mobile River in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta...

. Some Apalachees moved back to Pensacola, and then onward to near San Marcos de Apalachee. By 1763 there were about 40 families of Apalachees living at Pensacola. In that year the Spanish evacuated more than 200 Yemassees and ApalacheesThe Apalachees and Yemassees evacuated to Vera Cruz in 1763 are sometimes called "Pensacola Indians". Cf. Robert Leonard Gold. (1965) The settlement of the Pensacola Indians in New Spain, 1763-1770. to Vera Cruz before they turned Florida over to the British.
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