Northern Utina

The Fig Springs archaeological site may be the remains of their principal village, Ayacuto, and the later Spanish mission of San Martín de Timucua.

In 1539 Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto passed through the Northern Utina region, where he captured and subsequently executed Aguacaleycuen, who may have been the principal chief at the time.

This was put down by the Spanish, who razed their villages and relocated the populace to a series of new communities along the Camino Real or Royal Road running between the Apalachee Province and St. Augustine.

On the other side of the Suwannee, living between it and the Aucilla River (present-day Madison and Taylor Counties), were another western Timucua group, the Yustaga.

[10] Archaeological evidence suggests that the Northern Utina lived in small community groups, perhaps representing localized chiefdoms, separated from each other by considerable distances.

John E. Worth suggests that these may have been organized into a larger regional chiefdom that was continuous from at least the early days of European contact through the 17th century.

[11] Early European accounts record certain chiefs as paramount over others, while during the 17th-century towns in the Timucua Province were missionized evidently based on their preeminence.

[13] These accounts indicate that the Northern Utina were more populous than any other tribe De Soto had yet encountered, and lived in distinct villages that were subordinate to a chief named Aguacaleycuen.

Subsequently some subordinate chiefs, asserting that Uzachile sought an alliance with De Soto, led the Spanish into an ambush.

Then in 1597, as part of a renewed wave of missionary effort, the Spanish sent the Timucua Christian leader Juan de Junco to the Northern Utina cacique mayor (head chief), probably at the town of Ayacuto at the Figs Springs site.

[22] Under the principal chief of Ayacuto Lúcas Menéndez, the Northern Utina were at the forefront of the Timucua Rebellion of 1656, in which they, together with the Yustaga and Potano, revolted against the Spanish colonial government.

[23] After the Spanish put down the rebellion the Northern Utina were forcibly relocated to a series of new towns along the Camino Real or Royal Road from Apalachee Province to St.

[23] This caused a severe breakdown in the social structure, and the Northern Utina were largely defenseless against raids by the Creek and Yamasee allied to the English colonies to the north.

As a result surviving Northern Utina migrated closer to St. Augustine where they merged with other Timucua peoples, and were removed to Cuba in 1763.