The Guale Indians that lived on the Georgia coast were generally described as peaceful and accommodating toward Spanish missionaries, who established missions to Christianize the Native Americans. However, not all the Indians appreciated the Spaniards’ attempts to change their customs and periodically hostilities would flare up into rebellion. One Indian bitterly complained that the missionaries “take from us women, leaving us only one and that in perpetuity, prohibiting us from changing her; they obstruct our dances, banquets, feasts, fires and wars, so that by failing to use them we lose the ancient valor and dexterity inherited from our ancestors; they persecute our old people, calling them witches; even our labor disturbs them, since they want to command us to avoid it on some days, and be prepared to execute all that they say, although they are not satisfied; they always reprimand us, injure us, oppress us, call us bad Christians, and deprive us of all happiness, which our ancestors enjoyed.”
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