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Measles epidemic killed over 10,000 Indians in Florida
Source: The Menendez Marquez Cattle Barony at La Chua and the Determinants of Economic Expansion in Seventeenth-Century Florida #163
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War and famine were followed by a measles epidemic, the peste or sarampion. Governor Alonso de Aranguiz y Cotes (1659 1663) claimed that before he arrived the disease had already killed 10,000 Indians. (Guale chiefs, October 16, 1657; Governor Aranguiz y Cotes, November 1, 1659.) Florida was demoralized by death. Juan FernAndez de Florencia, whose parents had been murdered eight years earlier in the Apalache rebellion, was sent into Timucua to return the survivors to essential communications points: San Juan de GuacAra, San Martin, San Francisco, and Santa Fe. (Juan Fernandez de Florencia, July 31, 1670; Claudio de Florencia et al., May 7, 1707; Po BeltrAn Santa Cruz, November 20, 1655.) In once populous and well-kept Potano, villages were abandoned and wild grass covered the maize fields. If Potano was to be occupied at all, it would have to be by ranchers. (Bushnell MM)
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