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Spaniards had to clarify Mico versus Mico Mayor

Source: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors #121

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The chief of each Guale town bore the title of mico, a circumstance which, as has been shown, has important bearings in classifying the people in the Muskhogean linguistic group. It appears also that there was a head mico or "mico mayor" for the whole Guale province. In 1596 a chief whom the Spaniards called Don Juan laid claim to the title of head mico of Guale. There is some confusion regarding him, for the text seems to identify him with a Timucua chief. However, this claim elicited from the Spanish Crown a request for an explanation of the term, to which Governor Mendez de Canco replied:
"In regard to your majesty's instructions to report about the pretension of the cacique Don Juan to become head mico, and to explain what that title or dignity is, he informs me himself that the title of head mico means a kind of king of the land, recognized and respected as such by all the caciques in their towns, and whenever he visits one of them, they all turn out to receive him and feast him, and every year they pay him a certain tribute of pearls and other articles made of shells according to the land."

Guale was thus a kind of confederacy with a head chief, more closely centralized in that particular than the Creek confederacy. It does not appear from the Spanish records whether the position of head mico was hereditary or elective, but the latter is indicated.
(Swanton)