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 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 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 a mission, but little is known of its history and some of what has been written about it is open to question.[1]
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 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.[2] Mission San Pedro was built at the south end of Cumberland Island, near 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 Puetro mission, located at the mouth of the St. Johns River at present-day Fort George Island. He wrote 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.