[3] The Spanish heard of outside people moving into Apalachicola Province in the 1670s, including the Muscogee-speaking town of Coweta.
Later the same year the bishop of Cuba produced a list of potential targets for missions, which included Coweta ("Cueta" to the Spanish) in the northern part of Apalachee Province.
Possibly in response to the English encroachment, the Spanish began courting the Apalachicolas, inviting them to move their towns closer to Apalachee Province so that missions could be established in them.
At least part of the town of Sabacola moved in 1674 to a spot just south of the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, where they established a new town that the Spanish called "Sabacola el Menor", and which became the site of the mission of La Encarnation a la Santa Cruz.
Fearing attacks from the Chisca in western Florida, who were at war with the Apalachee, the residents of Sabacola el Menor moved north up the Chattahoochee River some time around 1677.
[7] In 1679, Florida governor Pablo de Hita y Salazar ordered missionaries to convert the "pagans" of Apalachicola Province.
Governor Juan Márquez Cabrera offered to pardon the murderers if the Apalachicola Province chiefs went to St. Augustine to "render obeisance" to the king.
It described the Savannah River Apalachicola as living in two villages and having a population of 214 people: 64 men, 71 women, 42 boys, and 37 girls.
As did most of the native towns trading with the Province of Carolina, the Apalachicola sold captives to Carolinian slave traders.
The site was strategically important enough that the Carolinians built a fort there after the town of Palachacola (Apalachicola) had moved back to the Chattahoochee River.
Diego Pena was sent by the governor of Spanish Florida in 1716 to improve relations with the towns on the Chattahoochee River.
Men from the town of Apalachicola continued to raid into South Carolina, including Port Royal, for many years after 1715.
They kept some captives from South Carolina, including two young girls who were ransomed to the Spanish, who in turn kept and raised them.
Quilate, head warrior of the town of Apalachicola, was part of a delegation of "Creeks" that met with Governor James Oglethorpe of Georgia in Savannah in 1733.
Hawkins found Apalachicola on the west bank of the Chattahoochee River 1.5 miles (2.4 km) below Auhegee Creek, and about 15 minutes below the town of Hitchiti.