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Guale was a historic Native American chiefdom of Mississippian culture peoples located along the coast of present-day Georgia and the Sea Islands. Spanish Florida established its Roman Catholic missionary system in the chiefdom in the late 16th century.
During the late 17th century and early 18th century, Guale society was shattered by extensive epidemics of new infectious diseases and attacks by other tribes. Some of the surviving remnants migrated to the mission areas of Spanish Florida, while others remained near the Georgia coast. Joining with other survivors, they became known as the Yamasee, an ethnically mixed group that emerged in a process of ethnogenesis. The Guale are believed to have been a Mississippian culture group that had a chiefdom along what is now the Georgia coast in the early period of Spanish exploration.
Historical references note that the Jesuit Brother Domingo Agustín Váez recorded Guale grammar in 1569, but the documents have not been found.
The prehistoric people were organized into chiefdoms. They built Mississippian-type platform mounds, major earthworks requiring the organized labor of many people, and using highly skilled soil and engineering knowledge. They used the mounds for ceremonial, religious and burial purposes.Saunders (2000), The Guale Indians of the Lower Atlantic Coast, p. 30
When the Spanish later established themselves in St. Augustine in Spanish Florida, they also contacted the Guale. They soon tried to bring them into their mission system. The Guale territory became one of the four primary mission provinces of Spanish Florida; the Timucua Province, Mocama, and Apalachee Provinces, also named after the resident tribes of the territories, were the others.
The boundaries of the Spanish Guale Province corresponded to the people's territory along the Atlantic coast and Sea Islands, north of the Altamaha River and south of the Savannah River. It included Ossabaw Island, St. Catherine's, Sapelo Island, Tybee, and Wassaw Island islands, among others. By the mid-17th century, the Spanish had established six Catholic missions in Guale territory, including Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Tolomato and Santa Catalina de Guale. Their largest settlements were probably on St. Catherine's Island.
Guale was the least stable of the four major mission provinces. The first Guale rebellion, often labeled Juanillo's Revolt, began on October 4, 1597. During the rebellion five spanish Franciscans were killed: Pedro de Corpa, Blas de Rodríguez, Miguel de Añón, Antonio de Badajoz and Francisco de Veráscola who are considered martyrs by the Catholic Church. The Guale rebelled again 1645, nearly shaking off the missions. They kept up a clandestine trade with French people privateers, which provided them with alternate sources of goods.Oatis (2004), A Colonial Complex, p. 24
The Guale Indians were forced to work under the Europeans in ways they never had had to before. It was labor-intensive. Spencer Larsen and Christopher Ruff concluded this based on their analysis of the second moments of area on humerus and femur bones. This is an engineering approach used to show the strength of the bone. They found that there was an increased strength of the bones due to higher repetitive usage, supporting the original statement.
In 1675 the Spanish first used the term Yamasee to refer to the newcomer refugees. They thought them similar to the La Tama. In Guale Province, some of the Yamasee joined the existing missions, while others settled on the periphery.
The La Tama Yamasee, Guale, and other refugees scattered in the southeast. Some relocated to new missions in Spanish Florida, but most rejected Spanish authority. They felt Spain had been unable to protect them and resented their failure to provide firearms. The Indians of Guale Province moved mostly to the Apalachee or Apalachicola regions.Oatis (2004), A Colonial Complex, pp. 25–26
Spanish forces destroyed Stuarts Town. In the old Guale Province, they strongly resisted counterattacks by South Carolina. Nonetheless, the alliance between the Yamasee and colonial South Carolina grew stronger in reaction. The "Yamasee" who migrated in 1685 to the Port Royal area were rebuilding the old La Tama chiefdom, but they also included numerous Guale, as well as other Indians of mostly Muskogean stock.
The Yamasee lived in South Carolina until they were defeated in the Yamasee War of 1715, after which survivors were widely dispersed and the people disintegrated as a polity. But while they lasted, the Yamasee exhibited multi-ethnic qualities. Their towns were described by European colonists as being Upper Yamasee or Lower Yamasee towns. The Lower Towns were populated mainly by La Tama Indians and included Altamaha (after the chief who lived there), Ocute, and Chechesee (Ichisi).
The Guale were the majority in the Upper Towns, although other ethnicities were incorporated as well. Upper Yamasee Towns with mostly Guale populations likely included Pocotaligo, Pocosabo, and Huspah. Other Upper Towns, such as Tulafina, Sadketche (Salkehatchie), and Tomatley, were probably mixed, with Guale, La Tama, and others. It is possible that the La Tama had spent time in missions and become somewhat Christianized. They may have sought out the similarly missionized Guale., National Register Multiple Property Submission, Dr. Chester B. DePratter.
In 1702, when Carolina Governor James Moore led an invasion into Spanish Florida, his men destroyed the few "refugee missions" in Guale. By 1733, the Guale were so few in number that they showed no resistance to James Oglethorpe's establishment of the Province of Georgia.
A similar missionary province called Mocama (named for a Timucuan chiefdom) was situated just south of Guale, on the coast between the Altamaha River and St. Johns River in Florida.
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