The Oconi or Ocone were a Timucua people that spoke a dialect of the Timucua language . They lived in a chiefdom on the margin of or in the Okefenokee Swamp in southeastern Georgia . The Oconi first appeared in Spanish records in 1602, but a mission was not established until at least a decade later, with the first record of a mission in 1630. The Spanish twice attempted to relocate the Oconi people to other missions, in 1645 and 1655. The Oconi disappeared from Spanish records after 1655.
27-466: The Oconi chiefdom was described as being a two-day journey from the mission of San Pedro de Mocama on Cumberland Island (on the Georgia coast). As that distance does not fit in with the sequence of other missions along the Georgia coast, it has been assumed that Oconi was inland to the west of San Pedro. Later mentions of Oconi describe it as being on an island, or as "between two lakes". This, together with
54-569: A catechism in Spanish and Timucuan that was printed in 1612. The Tacatacuru were severely affected by disease and warfare through the 17th century. Mission San Pedro de Mocama was abandoned in 1660. Pressure from other tribes led the Tacatacuru to abandon Cumberland Island by 1675. Nombre de Dios (mission) Mission Nombre de Dios is a Catholic mission founded in 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida , on
81-518: A lot of work to harvest and process. Harvesting required using levers to pry the roots out of mudholes, while processing required grinding the roots into flour and repeatedly rinsing the flour with water. Ache has been identified as Zamia integrifolia (the koonti of the Seminoles ) by some authors, but Hann notes that Zamia grows in dry, sandy soil, not in water. Oconi was first mentioned in Spanish records in 1602, when Oconi's chief requested that
108-406: A mission, but little is known of its history and some of what has been written about it is open to question. The mission's foundation has been said to be as early as 1585, which seems unlikely. Another source links this mission with San Pedro de Mocama, and dates its foundation to the arrival of Fray Lopez in 1587. The history that is completely established by documentation is that at the start of
135-454: A missionary be assigned to his chiefdom. Crosses were erected by the inhabitants of Oconi and neighboring towns. The people of Oconi and neighboring chiefdoms on the mainland made frequent visits to the mission at San Pedro de Mocama, where they had relatives and friends. The mission of Santiago de Oconi was founded before 1630, possibly between 1613 and 1616. In 1645, the governor of Spanish Florida , Benito Ruiz de Salazar Vallecilla , ordered
162-617: A resident friar. The Great Cross was dedicated by Archbishop Casimiro Morcillo of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid during the diocesan Eucharistic Congress of October 1966 at the direction of Archbishop Joseph P. Hurley to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Mission Nombre de Dios. It is made of stainless steel and towers 208 feet above the Matanzas marshes. The Mission Nombre de Dios Museum features
189-465: A stratum containing St. Johns culture ceramics. This suggests that the original inhabitants of the area were replaced by people from southeastern Georgia, consistent with the move ordered by Salazar. Another indicator of a change is that "Salamototo" replaced "Helaca" as the name of the place sometime between 1655 and 1675. Santiago de Oconi still had a resident missionary in 1655. That year, the new governor of Spanish Florida, Diego de Rebolledo , ordered
216-532: The Guale revolt of 1597 , San Pedro y San Pablo de Puturibato was a mission on the northern end of Cumberland Island with Fray Pedro de Chozas as its friar. The Tacatacuru were part of a Timucua group known as the Mocama . The Mocama spoke a dialect of Timucuan also known as Mocama and lived in the coastal areas of southern Georgia and northern Florida . Mission San Pedro was built at the south end of Cumberland Island, near
243-640: The Jesuits and later the Franciscans ministered to the resident Spanish colonists, and made some efforts to evangelize the local Mocama and Agua Dulce peoples near St. Augustine. They were particularly successful in the Mocama village known as Nombre de Dios, converting the chief and her daughter. In 1587, at the beginning of the Franciscans' first major missionization push, a mission was founded at Nombre de Dios, served by
270-534: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops elevated the shrine to national shrine status. It was scheduled to receive a canonical coronation on October 10, 2020, later rescheduled to the same date in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic . Mission Nombre de Dios's grounds include archaeological excavations, a historic cemetery, Marian Shrines to Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Our Lady of Guadalupe ,
297-532: The 400th anniversary of the mission's founding. It is made of coquina and has a large stained glass window depicting a representation of the Holy Spirit. It also features a replica of the Our Lady of La Leche statue. The church is used for adoration , weddings, funerals, and Mass on special occasions. It is "dedicated to prayers that God would spare the world from atomic warfare." The devotion to Our Lady of La Leche
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#1732844644842324-537: The British siege of St. Augustine and was rebuilt in 1875 by Bishop Augustin Verot , though it later suffered damage from a hurricane. The current ivy-covered chapel, which seats about 30 people, was built in 1914 and is a replica of previous chapels built of coquina . The shrine is a popular religious pilgrimage site, with many visitors seeking blessings and intercessions for successful pregnancy and delivery. In October 2019,
351-554: The Oconi dialect of the Timucua language. Francisco Pareja , a Franciscan friar who wrote a grammar and dictionary of the Timucua language, listed about 10 dialects of Timucua, including Oconi. Pareja mentioned only one difference in vocabulary between the Maritime or Mocama dialect he spoke and the Oconi dialect. Pareja described the Oconi, Potano , Cascangue , and Ibi people as all speaking
378-514: The U.S. and the 1155 document from Avilés, Spain are also in the museum, along with paintings by artist by JoAnn Crisp-Ellert and a diorama of the first parish Mass. The museum opened in 2010 and does not charge an admission fee. The Prince of Peace Votive Church was constructed in 1965 and is situated at the San Marco Avenue entrance to the Nombre de Dios Mission grounds. It was built to celebrate
405-407: The chaplain of the expedition, celebrated the first Thanksgiving Mass on the grounds. The formal Franciscan mission was founded at the landing point in 1587, perhaps the first mission in what would become the continental United States . The mission served nearby villages of the Mocama , a Timucua group, and was at the center of an important chiefdom in the late 16th and 17th century. First
432-571: The distance from San Pedro de Mocama, has been interpreted to mean that Oconi was on the margin of or in the Okefenokee Swamp. Little is known of the native population of southeastern Georgia in prehistory. Archaeological study of the region has been limited and the ceramic chronology is not well established, but the area as a whole appears to have been a "transitory zone" between the Savannah and St. Johns cultural regions. The people of Oconi spoke
459-625: The main village of the Tacatacuru. By 1595 some of the Tacatacuru−Mocama living near the mission were fluent in Spanish. Some had learned to read and write in a combination of Spanish, Latin, and the system of writing the Timucua language devised by Father Francisco Pareja , who worked at the San Juan del Puerto mission, located at the mouth of the St. Johns River at present-day Fort George Island . He wrote
486-555: The mid-17th century. It was built to serve the Tacatacuru , a Mocama Timucua people. San Pedro de Mocama was part of the missions system of Spanish Florida , a territory of New Spain . It was built c.1580 to serve the Tacatacuru peoples, a chiefdom of the Timucua . San Pedro was one of the earliest and most prominent missions of Spanish Florida, and its church was as big as the colonial one in St. Augustine . Together with Mission San Juan del Puerto on Fort George Island (in
513-471: The mouth of the St. Johns River , Florida), it was one of the principal missions of what the Spanish came to know as the Mocama Province. San Pedro de Mocama, protected by an associated fort, was for a time at the northern extent of Spanish power, serving as a bulwark against the Guale people to the north. Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Puturibato was built on Cumberland Island. It was at least briefly
540-535: The original casket of the founder of St. Augustine, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, though his remains are located in Avilés, Spain . The museum's exhibits also include vestments and chalices from the Diocese of St. Augustine's archives, artifacts found during the archaeological excavations of the mission grounds, and coquina that was part of the original foundation of the chapel. Reproductions of the oldest written European documents in
567-560: The relocation of people from Oconi was intended to bolster the population of the mission so that the ferry service could be maintained. Spanish records do not record the outcome of Salazar's order, but excavation of the Rollestown site in East Palatka, Florida , the presumed site of the San Diego mission, revealed a stratum containing ceramics comparable to those of southeastern Georgia overlying
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#1732844644842594-414: The relocation of the inhabitants of Santiago de Oconi and nearby villages to Nombre de Dios , a mission adjacent to St. Augustine, which had a much reduced population. The people to be moved were described as fugitives from the mission at San Pedro de Mocama. The Oconi chief requested a delay in the move to allow the people to harvest their crops. Instead, the chief was imprisoned and troops were sent to burn
621-511: The relocation of the people living at the "Laguna de Oconi" to the mission of San Diego de Helaca (also "Elaca" or "Laca") on the St. Johns River . Salazar stated that fugitives from Timucua Province ( Northern Utina ) and "other places" had gathered at Oconi to avoid work. The San Diego de Helaca mission supported a ferry service across the St. Johns River, an important link on the trail connecting St. Augustine with Apalachee Province and other western missions. The mission had lost population, and
648-505: The same language. As was typical of the eastern Timucua , the Oconi were more oriented to exploiting the resources of wetlands rather than practicing agriculture. Some of the Oconi were full-time hunter-fisher-gatherers . The Oconi did not raise sufficient maize to last them throughout the year, and depended on wild roots for starch when their maize was used up. One such root was ache , an otherwise unidentified starchy root that grew in water. Described as similar to cassava , ache required
675-399: The village and force the people to move. The people of Oconi fled to the woods or returned to San Pedro de Mocama. There is no further record of Oconi in Spanish records. San Pedro de Mocama Mission San Pedro de Mocama was a Spanish colonial Franciscan mission on Cumberland Island , on the coast of the present-day U.S. state of Georgia , from the late 16th century through
702-516: The west side of Matanzas Bay . It is part of the Diocese of St. Augustine and is likely the oldest extant mission in the continental United States . The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche , the oldest shrine in that region, is located on the mission grounds. The mission traces its origins to September 8, 1565, when Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed with a band of settlers to found St. Augustine . Fr Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, OFM,
729-678: Was brought over from Spain in the late 1500s, and the mission grounds served as the site of the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche , the first Marian shrine in the United States. The centerpiece of the shrine is a statue of the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus, which is a replica of the Our Lady of La Leche statue placed in a cathedral in Spain by Phillip III . The original chapel was destroyed in 1728 during
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