Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Side one: Between 1560 and 1700, more than 100 Spanish missions were established between St. Augustine and Tallahassee. These missions were used to convert the Indians to Christianity and to employ their labor to support Spanish settlement. In 1633, Spanish Florida’s Apalachee Province, situated roughly between the Aucilla and Ochlockonee rivers, received its first full-time resident Spanish missionaries. Mission San Damián de Escambé, also known as Cupaica, was located in this vicinity. Among the earliest Spanish missions to the Apalachee Indians, San Damián was also the westernmost mission in Apalachee Province. It was established in 1639 within the Apalachee village of Cupaica after its chief was baptized at St. Augustine. San Damián was a large settlement, growing from 900 people in 1675, to 2,000 residents by 1689. Side Two: By 1700, the colonial rivalry between Spain and England had greatly intensified. In 1704, Colonel James Moore, of South Carolina, led a force of English raiders and allied Creek Indians to destroy the Spanish missions located across northern Florida. In late June of that year, they destroyed San Damián. Most of its villagers survived by seeking refuge in the fort at Mission San Luis de Talimali, which was “within cannon shot” of San Damián. Apalachee Indians from both missions San Luis and San Damián emigrated to Pensacola and Mobile. In 1968, a state archaeologist, B. Calvin Jones, identified the archaeological remains of San Damián near this marker. The site was purchased by the State of Florida in 1972. Mission San Luis, located nearby, is a National Historic Landmark, and is open to the public.