The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 175

Book Reviews

overweening pride in material accomplishment on the one hand
and of one-eyed muckraking on the other.
JOE B. FRANTZ
The University of Texas
Here They Once Stood: The Tragic End of the Apalachee Mis-
sions. By Mark F. Boyd, Hale G. Smith, and John W. Griffin.
Gainesville, Florida (University of Florida Press), 1951. Pp.
xvii+189. 12 plates.
Here They Once Stood is a compact volume which deals with
the Franciscan missions of western Florida during their era of
decay and destruction (ca. 1693-17o8). Though combining his-
torical and archaeological methods, it is not a blended narrative
based upon the results of these two approaches but a loosely-
co-ordinated composite of the contributions of the authors.
Forty-three annotated documents, all but two being English
translations from the original Spanish, and a brief introduction
comprise Section I, the major portion of the work from the
standpoint of page allotment. While these documents shed much
light on the status of the missions of Apalachee, Spanish treat-
ment of the Indians, and the social complex of the area at the
close of the seventeenth century, they principally describe the
inability of the Spanish presidio-mission system to cope with the
aggressive military encroachments of the English and their Indian
allies from the direction of Carolina. Sections II and III are brief
descriptive essays on the archaeological excavations at the located
sites of Mission San Francisco de Oconee and the blockhouse and
settlement at San Luis, both of which are in the vicinity of pres-
ent Tallahassee. A supplementary appendix presents a detailed
classification of the sherds and artifacts of all types recovered at
the two sites. The portions of the study devoted to analysis of the
ceramic artifacts would be understandable only to a technician,
but the excellent photographic plates lend pictorial meaning to
a general reader.
Here They Once Stood no doubt contains materials of much
value-historical, archaeological, ethnological, ceramic; but such
a medley also indicates the incongruity and lack of organization

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