In 1717 a Spanish officer reports Apalachee dispersed in west Florida, near their former country. A part of them removed, however, to Pensacola, probably to be near their congeners at Mobile. Their chief, or their principal chief, was a certain Juan Marcos, and Barcia says that in 1718— "He began to form a town of Apalachee Indians, the people of his own nation, in the place which they call the Rio de los Chiscas, 5 leagues from Santa Maria de Galve [Pensacola], which was named Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, and San Luis; for its peopling he sent the Apalache Indians who were in Santa Maria de Galve with the same rations that they had in the presidio; there came together in it more than a hundred persons; the number was increased every day; with many of the Apalache subject to Movila, who abandoned their lands and came to the new town, causing the post great expense, because, as they did not have crops, it was necessary to give them daily rations of maize until the following year when they could gather fruits: Juan Marcos assured his governor that others would come who were waiting to harvest their crops to return to the authority of the king, from which the French had drawn them. . . . Friar Joseph del Castillo, one of the chaplains of the post, counseled Don Juan Pedro that he should ask the Provincial of Santa Elena for two curates who understood the language of Apalache well in order to teach the Indians in the new town of la Soledad."1 (Swanton)