During these years things were happening on the southern fringes of Georgia. The old Timucua missions reached northward to minister to the Indians in the region where Statenville and Valdosta now stand. The center of a new movement was Apalache, with San Luis (now Tallahassee) as its focus. Toward this important region in the back country French and English pirates on the Gulf, empty flour barrels at San Agustin, and the demand of the royal fleets for wild turkeys pointed the finger of prophecy. The Apalache Indians had long been asking for missionaries, but for lack of funds and workers the petition could not be answered till 1633. Then the guardian of the head monastery at San Agustin trudged westward and answered the call. Twenty years later there were nine flourishing missions in Apalache, all within a few leagues of the principal mission at San Luis. Some of them drew neophytes from the region that is now southwestern Georgia.