Apalachee massacre

Apalachee massacre
Part of Queen Anne's War
A depiction of the raids at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park
Date January 1704 Location Apalachee Province, Spanish Florida Result English-Muscogee victory
Belligerents
Carolina Muscogee	Spain Apalachee
Commanders and leaders
James Moore Sr.	Angel de Miranda Juan Ruíz de Mexía (POW)
Strength
50 English colonists 1,000 Indian warriors	30 Spanish cavalry 400 Indian warriors
Casualties and losses
18 killed, wounded or missing (English) 15 killed, wounded or missing (Muscogee)[1]	4 killed 8 captured (Spanish)[1] 200 killed or captured (Apalachee)[2]

The Apalachee massacre was a series of raids by English colonists from the Province of Carolina and their Muscogee allies against a largely peaceful Apalachee population in northern Spanish Florida which took place in January 1704 during Queen Anne's War. Against limited Spanish and Apalachee resistance, a network of Catholic missions was destroyed by the raiders; most of their population were either killed, captured, fled to larger Spanish and French outposts, or voluntarily joined the English.

The only major event of former governor of Carolina James Moore Sr.'s expedition was the Battle of Ayubale, which marked the only large-scale resistance to the raids by the Spanish and Apalachee. Significant numbers of the Apalachee, unhappy with the conditions they lived in under in the Spanish missions, simply abandoned their towns and joined Moore's expedition. They were resettled near the Savannah and Ocmulgee Rivers, where living conditions proved to be only slightly better.

Moore's expedition was preceded and followed by other raids targeting Spanish Florida which was principally conducted by English-allied Muscogee. The cumulative effect of these raids, conducted between 1702 and 1709, was the depopulation of Spanish Florida beyond the immediate confines of the colonial settlements of Saint Augustine and Pensacola and the rapid decline of the colony's Indian population.