They lived in the St. Johns River watershed north of Lake George, and spoke a dialect of the Timucua language also known as Agua Dulce.

In the 1560s, Agua Dulce villages were organized into the chiefdom of Utina, one of the region's most powerful and prominent forces in the early days of European colonization in Florida.

Utina had dealings with the French colony of Fort Caroline, and later allied with the Spanish of St. Augustine, who established several missions in its territory.

Additionally, a group of Christianized Agua Dulce migrated east towards St. Augustine, and became known as the Tocoy, but this small chiefdom disappeared by 1616.

The Acuera, who spoke a different dialect but appear to have been part of the Utina confederacy in the days of French settlement, also broke away and established their own chiefdom.

[7] However, as this area is well north of the distribution of late prehistoric archaeological sites, which are concentrated between about Palatka and Lake George, it is possible that the Utina had gained control of this northern stretch relatively recently.

[9] French sources record that the Acuera, another Timucua tribe on the Oklawaha River farther south and who spoke a different dialect, were also part of the Utina chiefdom, as were groups on the east side of the St.

[10] Down the St. Johns to the north, in an area stretching roughly from what is now downtown Jacksonville to the mouth of the river, were another enemy chiefdom, the Saturiwa.

[10] Up the river south of Lake George were the Mayaca, who were culturally similar to the Utina but did not speak the Timucua language and were more closely aligned with the Ais of the Atlantic coast.

At some point after the 8th century, Mississippian culture models, common throughout what is now the eastern United States, began to proliferate in Florida, and Mississippian-style chiefdoms emerged.

[13] The Agua Dulce built burial mounds and left large shell middens, among the largest found in the United States.

[14] The Acuera, one of the peoples noted by the French as part of Chief Utina's alliance, encountered the conquistador Hernando de Soto's expedition in 1539.

[8] However, extensive contact with Europeans did not occur until 1564, when the French Huguenots from the recently established Fort Caroline in present-day Jacksonville first visited the area.

The French noted that at this time all the villages along the middle St. Johns, as well as some farther into the interior such as those of the Acuera, were part of a chiefdom ruled by a young leader named Utina.

The French had forged a treaty of friendship with Chief Saturiwa, in whose territory their fort stood, but governor René Goulaine de Laudonnière still sought the favor of the powerful Utina.

However, when French stores were running low in the spring of 1565, Utina exploited their situation to coerce Laudonnière into sending more military aid.

[18] The core part of the chiefdom remained inhabited, but the declining population appears to have withdrawn south, with the administrative center shifting to the village of Antonico.

[23] By 1616, the administrative center of the Agua Dulce had shifted south again, to Enacape (perhaps the Mount Royal site near Lake George).

[27] In 1656, the Franciscans withdrew their friars from the entire province and established the mission town of Salamototo, which drew Indians from across the upper St. Johns.

[31] Shortly after the foundation of St. Augustine, the chief of Tocoy, Pedro Márquez, moved to a new village closer to the Spanish settlement, known as San Sebastián.

His son and successor Gaspar Márquez later noted that his father and mother had been "some of the first Christians baptized in these provinces", and had requested missionaries and built churches in San Sebastián.

[31][32] The relocation to San Sebastián and the alignment with the Spanish evidently elevated the profile of the Chiefs of Tocoy, who had probably been marginal in the Utina chiefdom, and facilitated the break.

[34] The area was merged with Agua Dulce Province, and any survivors may have relocated to Mission Nombre de Dios north of St.

[36] Because of its strategic location as a river crossing on the St. Johns, the Spanish relocated other Timucua to a new mission, San Diego de Helaca, in the former Tocoy area.

[39] The Acuera did not experience demographic decline nearly as quickly as the Agua Dulce or Tocoy chiefdoms, perhaps partially because of their remote location in the Florida interior and their less frequent contact with the Europeans.