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Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida: Don Juan and the Guale Uprising of 1597. By J. Michael Francis and Kathleen M. Kole, with a contribution by David Hurst Thomas. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History. (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 201 1. Pp. 154. Paper, $25.00, ISSN 0065-9452.)
The authors have located a group of Spanish La Florida documents that have not been well studied and present them here. But that is the smallest part of this multilayered story. During the first quarter century of Spanish presence in that far-flung province, peace was fragile - Native Americans and Spaniards lived in an uneasy truce. In addition, the politics of sixteenthcentury Spanish life made the stakes high for ambitious men in bureaucratic, military, and religious arenas.
In parallel, Indians played their own power games - among themselves and with the Spaniards. The Spanish became involved in an internecine power struggle among Indian leaders when a few Guale traditionalists saw an opportunity...