New database contains history of Florida’s Spanish missions

Researchers, educators, students and the curious can explore the history of Florida’s Spanish missions via a new online database launched Wednesday.

The Comparative Mission Archaeology Portal includes digitized artifacts, image galleries, personal narratives and details of excavation sites. The Florida Museum has played a prominent role in Spanish mission research since the 1950s and is a current leader internationally in collection digitization.

“Without the missions, St. Augustine and Spanish Florida could never have existed as long as they did,” said Gifford Waters, historical archaeology collection manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “They were truly some of the most important institutions in Spanish Florida from the 16th century to 1763, when Spain ceded Florida to the British.”

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the database includes information from three North Florida sites: Baptizing Spring in Suwannee County, the site of the Mission San Juan de Guacara; Fig Springs in Columbia County, once home to the Mission San MartÍn de Timucua; and Fox Pond in Alachua County, the former site of the Mission San Francisco de Potano.