Sapelo Island

For the past 10 years, the Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP) has been surveying and testing the site of the Mission San Joseph de Sapala on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Over this time we have learned a great deal about the site's Guale Indian and Spanish inhabitants. Among the most interesting contexts investigated is a Spanish structure with a likely military function. Architectural and other features associated with the structure yielded a relatively high frequency of Euroamerican ceramics and porcelain, and the areas in and around the structure have yielded the majority of the site's military hardware. In this paper we investigate the possibility that this structure was occupied by a high-status Spanish officer, perhaps the captain of the island's military garrison.

Beginning in the late 16th century, Franciscan brothers established missions among the Guale and a number of other indigenous groups living along the Georgia coast.  Mission San Joseph de Sapala, located in the Guale town of Sapala on Sapelo Island, was the last of the missions in Guale Province to be abandoned.  Between 1661 and 1684, Sapelo Island served as an aggregation point for mainland and island Guale communities displaced by English-backed Native American slave raids. By the 1680s, refugees from at least four different Guale towns crowded onto Sapelo Island, including much of the population from Santa Catalina de Guale, the former capital of Guale Province.  Ongoing archaeological investigations strongly suggest that the town of Sapala and its mission were located on the island’s north end. This paper summarizes the results of 10 years of archaeological investigations and historical research designed to determine the location, size, and organization of this community and assess the extent and intensity of interaction between the Guale and the small number of Franciscans and Spanish soldiers who occupied this island setting.