Warfare from 1701 to 1704 devastated the Apalachee, and they abandoned their homelands by 1704, fleeing north to the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama.

[6] At the time of Hernando de Soto's visit in 1539 and 1540, the Apalachee capital was Anhaica (present-day Tallahassee, Florida).

They were organized around earthwork mounds built over decades for ceremonial, religious and burial purposes.

Villages and towns were often situated by lakes, as the Native people hunted fish and used the water for domestic needs and transport.

[7] They hunted deer, black bears, rabbits, opossums, squirrels, geese, wild turkeys, and mountain lions.

[7] The Apalachee were part of an expansive trade network that extended from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes, and westward to what is now Oklahoma.

The Apalachee acquired copper artifacts, sheets of mica, greenstone, and galena from distant locations through this trade.

The Apalachee probably paid for such imports with shells, pearls, shark teeth, preserved fish and sea turtle meat, salt, and cassina leaves and twigs (used to make the black drink).

(When Hernando de Soto seized the Apalachee town of Anhaico in 1539, he found enough stored food to feed his 600 men and 220 horses for five months.)

The men painted their bodies with red ochre and placed feathers in their hair when they prepared for battle.

Other missionaries (and the visiting Bishop of Cuba) had complained about the game, but most of the Spanish (including, initially, Father Pavia) liked it (and, most likely, the associated gambling).

Challenging a team to a game, erecting goalposts and players' benches, and other aspects were governed by strict ceremonial protocols.

Their reputation was such that when tribes in southern Florida first encountered the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition, they said the riches which the Spanish sought could be found in Apalachee country.

Eleven years later the Hernando de Soto expedition reached the main Apalachee town of Anhaica, somewhere in the area of present-day Tallahassee, Florida, probably near Lake Miccosukee.

In 1539, Hernando de Soto landed on the west coast of the peninsula of Florida with a large contingent of men and horses to search for gold.

Historians have not determined if the Native people meant the mountains of northern Georgia, an actual source of gold, or valuable copper artifacts which the Apalachee acquired through trade.

When the de Soto expedition entered the Apalachee domain, the Spanish soldiers were described as "lancing every Indian encountered on both sides of the road.

"[20] In the spring of 1540, de Soto and his men left the Apalachee domain and headed north into what is now the state of Georgia.

[20] About 1600, the Spanish Franciscan priests founded a successful mission among the Apalachee, adding several settlements over the next century.

Apalachee acceptance of the priests may have related to social stresses, as they had lost population to infectious diseases brought by the Europeans.

In February 1647, the Apalachee revolted against the Spanish near a mission named San Antonio de Bacuqua in present-day Leon County, Florida.

Following the revolt, Apalachee men were forced to work on public projects in St. Augustine or on Spanish-owned ranches.

In early 1704, Carolina Militia Colonel James Moore of led 50 colonists and 1,000 Apalachicolas and other Creeks in a series of raids on Spanish missions in Florida.

When rumors of a third raid reached the Spanish in San Luis de Talimali, they decided to abandon the province.

Later, some Apalachees moved on to the Red River in present-day Louisiana, while others returned to the Pensacola area, to a village called Nuestra Señora de la Soledad y San Luís.

Many Apalachees from the village of Ivitachuco moved to a site called Abosaya near a fortified Spanish ranch in what is today Alachua County, Florida.

The Red River band in Louisiana integrated with other Indian groups, and many eventually went west with the Muscogee.

[citation needed] When Florida was transferred to Britain in 1763, several Apalachee families from mission San Joseph de Escambe, then living adjacent to the Spanish presidio of Pensacola in a community consisting of 120 Apalachee and Yamasee Indians, were moved to Veracruz, Mexico.

[28] In the late 18th century, some remnant Apalachees who had converted to Christianity merged with the Lower Creeks and neighboring tribes into the Seminoles.