Later that same year [1699], the Calusas of South Florida rejected a mission of five Franciscan friars who had made their approach from Cuba. When the Calusas discovered that conversion would not bring them the kind of gifts they had been led to expect, they stripped the missionaries of their clothing, food, and ornaments and abandoned them on Matecumbe Key. In the provinces of "Old Christians" the mission-building process had gone into reverse, with churches and convents forsaken and falling into decay. (Bushnell SS)