Early in 1748 the Uchizes made their way to Saint Augustine to negotiate the alliance with Montiano. During their visit a 16-year-old Uchize boy fell ill and ultimately requested baptism. To oblige his visitors, the governor quickly arranged a baptismal ceremony and honored the young Indian by serving as his godfather. Unfortunately, the boy died after his baptism, which many of the Indians believed caused his death. The misfortune might have erupted into a major incident, but Montiano acted to take advantage of what had occurred by arranging an impressive funeral service for the young Indian. He assembled all the Indians of the Saint Augustine area into a funeral cortege and walked beside the coffin during the funeral procession in a great personal show of grief. Then, not long after the funeral, to dispel the Indians’ fear of baptism, the curate baptized the daughter of one of the Uchize chiefs with Montiano again serving as godfather. During the rites the curate admonished the girl’s father about the evils which would befall his daughter if she, as a Christian, returned to a pagan life among the infidels in her own village. In his most persuasive tones the curate preached the advantages of removing Uchize villages from the banks of the Chattahoochee to the banks of the Saint John’s west of Saint Augustine, where the Indians could “live and die like Christians.” In another attempt to woo the Uchizes, Montiano granted Chiquile a captaincy in the Spanish army. (Tepaske GSF)