Timucua

The Timucua Indians, consisting of 25 distinct groups, inhabited present-day north-central and northeast Florida and south-central Georgia at the time of conquest.

Before Europeans arrived the Timucua formed continually shifting alliances and chiefdoms. The eastern Timucuas, living in northeast Florida, cultivated beans, gourds, corn (maize), marsh elder, squash, sunflower, and tobacco. Minimal hunting and gathering supplemented this subsistence. The western Timucua, in north-central Florida and south-central Georgia, did not depend upon horticulture as much as the eastern groups and thus spent more time hunting and gathering. Scholars know a significant amount of information about the Timucua culture from the writings of Rene de Laudonniere and the drawings of Jacques Le Moyne, two colonists in the French attempt to establish a base in Florida at the mouth of the St. Johns River.

The Spanish entradas of Panfilo de Narvaez and Hernando de Soto encountered the Timucua in Florida in 1528 and 1539, respectively. By the late 16th century Franciscans began missionizing the Timucua, and these missions developed large farms and ranches with Timucua labor. Modern-day northeast and north-central Florida then became known as the Timucua province. In the early 17th century pandemics (see disease) began to hit the region in successive waves and reduced the population by approximately 80 percent in 100 years. Eventually, other Native groups such as the Guale and Apalache migrated, under the direction of the Spanish, to populate the Timucua mission province. Over time the Timucua ceased to exist as an ethnic or cultural identity.

Further reading: John H. Hann, A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions (University Press of Florida, 1996); Jerald T. Milanich, The Timucua (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996);-, Laboring in the Fields of the Lord: Span

Ish Missions and Southeastern Indians (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999); John E. Worth, The Timucua Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida, vol. 1, Assimilation,

(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998);-, The

Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida, vol. 2, Resistance and Destruction (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998).

—Dixie Ray Haggard

Tlacacla (Tlacaelel) (1398-?) administrator

Tlacacla served as cihuacoatl under the Aztec great speakers ITZCOATL and Moctezuma I Ilhuicamina (r. 1440-69) and probably was the driving force behind a number of early reforms of Aztec society and government.

Tlacacla’s office of cihuacoatl (“woman snake,” an aspect of the great mother goddess) made him a secondary ruler in Tenochtitlan, in charge of internal affairs, commanding the army, directing sacrifices, and serving as senior counselor to the great speaker. The cihuacoatl could survive changes in administrations with his power intact. Tlacacla himself served through the reigns of two of Itzcoatl’s successors, including Motecuhzoma I Ilhuicamina, “the elder,” himself Tlacacla’s brother. Chronicles report his accomplishments as including the reorganization of civil and religious offices, development of the Aztec educational system (see AzTECs), and the structuring of a strict class system.

The truth of Tlacacla’s life and power is difficult to discern because the sources disagree on crucial details. For example, one source treats him as an entirely fictitious character, while another proposes an equally unlikely career beginning with Itzcoatl (r. 1427-40) and ending during the reign of Ahuitzotl (r. 1486-1502). We do know that Tlacacla was the name of the cihuacoatl during Motecuhzoma II’s reign and that he served until at least 1503. What seems most likely, under the circumstances, is that the Tlacacla who was active during Itzcoatl’s reign was the founder of a political dynasty that passed from father to son and that his successors may have had or adopted their patriarch’s name.

Many sources portray the first Tlacacla as the power behind the throne, the real ruler during the administrations of Itzcoatl and Motecuhzoma I. He also seems to have been the principal force behind the early diplomacy between Azcapotzalco and Tenochtitlan as well as the later wars between the two powers. He may have also instituted the FLOWERY WARS with other peoples of the region.

Further reading: Geoffrey W. Conrad and Arthur A. Demarest, Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Nigel Davies, The Aztec Empire: The Toltec Resurgence (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987).

—Marie A. Kelleher