Extinct Tribes: the Saturiwa

When the French under Captain Jean Ribault landed near the mouth of what is now the St. John's River to scout out a possible location for an outpost in 1562, and later returned under Rene Goulaine de Laudonniere to begin construction of Fort Caroline, which we discussed yesterday, they had interested observers.  A Timucua leader named Saturiwa and his people were at first willing to help and to allow the French unprecedented access to their villages and ceremonies.  This allowed Jacques le Moyne, an artist traveling with both expeditions, a chance to record some of the earliest European impressions of Natives.

Saturiwa, know one knows for certain if this was his personal name or a title, had his main village located near the mouth of the St. John's River, not too far from the site of Fort Caroline.  He was paramount chief over thirty other villages, making him a powerful ruler at the time.  Some of those villages may have been headed by members of Saturiwa's family, as their headmen are referred to as his brothers.  The name of one of his sons is given as Athore in the French accounts.  He welcomed Ribault's men in 1562 and, in 1564, when Laudonniere's party returned to Florida, Saturiwa showed him a monument Ribault had erected. 

Saturiwa noticed the weapons and armor used by the French and hoped they could be useful allies in his wars with a neighboring tribe or band of Timucua called the Utima.  When Laudonniere spurned his offer to ally with him in this war, the mood of Saturiwa and his people changed.  They had offered food and hospitality.  Some payback was expected.  As the settlers at Fort Caroline ran low on provisions and faced a raid by a Spanish coastal patrol, they could not count on Saturiwa's people for help.  That is, except for one man who defected to the tribe, and was later captured by the Spanish.  The Spanish under Pedro Menendez de Aviles allied with the Utima and fought several battles with Saturiwa and his men.  When a French relief force under Dominique de Gougue arrived in 1566 to avenge the Spanish massacre of the Fort Caroline garrison, Saturiwa readily joined with him, putting a temporary end to Spanish occupation at the mouth of the St. John's River.

By the 1570's, the Spanish returned in larger numbers, consistently allying with the Utima and other bands of Timucua against Saturiwa and his men.  It is not known how or when he died, but it took several years for the tribe or band named for Saturiwa to become reconciled to the Spanish.  They did not count on a more pernicious enemy, though, European illnesses to which they had no immunity.  The Saturiwa soon disappear from the historical record, with no opportunity to learn more about them and the intriguing leader who'd been among the first to welcome Europeans to North America and learn a bitter lesson about doing so.