Mocama
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Mocama was a Native American chiefdom that became part of Spanish Florida's missionary system in the late 16th century. The Mocama spoke a Timucuan language. The chiefdom disintegrated in the 17th century, after which the word "Mocama" was generally used to refer to the land where the chiefdom had been. The province of Mocama was situated along the Atlantic coast and Sea Islands, south of the Altamaha River and north of St. Johns River, and including St. Simons Island, Cumberland Island, and Amelia Island, among others. Cumberland Island seems to have been where the largest settlements were, although St. Simons Island and Amelia Island were important settlement areas as well.
Between 1675 and 1680, the Westo tribe, backed by the English colonies of South Carolina and Virginia, along with attacks by English-supported pirates, destroyed the Spanish mission system in Mocama. The few "refugee missions" that continued to exist were destroyed during South Carolina's 1702 invasion of Spanish Florida. Mocama became too depopulated and helpless to resist the establishment of the colony of Georgia by James Oglethorpe in 1733.
A similar missionary province called Guale (also named for a chiefdom) was situated just north of Mocama, on the coast between the Altamaha River and the Savannah River. Its history is similar to Mocama, and its fate the same.
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