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Timucua

The Timucua were a Native American people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The various groups of Timucua spoke several dialects of the Timucua language. At the time of European contact, the territory occupied by speakers of Timucuan dialects occupied about , and was home to between 50,000 and 200,000 Timucuans. It stretched from the Altamaha River and Cumberland Island in present-day Georgia as far south as Lake George in central Florida, and from the Atlantic Ocean west to the Aucilla River in the Florida Panhandle, though it reached the Gulf of Mexico at no more than a couple of points.

The name "Timucua" (from Thimogona) came from the exonym used by the Saturiwa (of what is now Jacksonville) to refer to the Utina, another group to the west of the St. Johns River. The Spanish came to use the term more broadly for other peoples in the area. Eventually it became the common term for all peoples who spoke what is known as the Timucuan language.

While alliances and confederacies arose between the chiefdoms from time to time, the Timucua were never organized into a single political unit. The various groups of Timucua speakers practiced several different cultural traditions. The people suffered severely from the introduction of Eurasian infectious diseases, to which they had no immunity. By 1595, their population was estimated to have been reduced from 200,000 to 50,000 and thirteen chiefdoms remained. By 1700, the population of the tribe had been reduced to 1000. Warfare against them by the English colonists and native allies completed their extinction as a tribe soon after the turn of the 19th century.

Timucua (disambiguation)

The Timucua were a Native American people of northern Florida and southeastern Georgia.

Timucua may also refer to:

  • Timucua language, the language spoken by the Timucua people
  • Northern Utina, also known as the Timucua, a particular Timucua chiefdom
  • Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, wetland preserve and archaeological site near Jacksonville, Florida

Usage examples of "timucua".

Augustine when Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles invited the Timucua Indians to dinner.

What really happened on that autumn evening in 1565 when the Spaniards and the Timucua broke bread?

And old Otter told everyone who would listen that once, long ago, a great band of white men had come up from the south, from the Timucua country, and destroyed the finest towns of the Maskogis, taking many away for slaves and killing the others.

Santo on the western coast, later came to march his men among the Timucua, demanding tribute and allegiance.