Visiting Mission San Luis

UWF field school students at the Apalachee council house.

For the second year in a row, Colonial Frontiers students traveled to the reconstructed Mission San Luis (1656-1704) in the Apalachee homeland in present-day Tallahassee, Florida.  Accompanied by students from UWF's Arcadia Mill field school, the combined group toured the mission and learned from living history reenactors and tourguides. 

Exterior view of the San Luis stockade wall.

Interior view of a corner in the San Luis stockade.

Although San Luis dates well over half a century before Mission Escambe in Escambia County, and was gargantuan in size compared to tiny Escambe, the public site provided students with a tangible point of reference for our excavations in Molino.  Of particular interest was the reconstructed stockade at San Luis, which may provide a model for what the stockade at Escambe looked like (especially at the corner which we recently discovered).

The pictures below capture some of the moments from the guided tour, and also show some views of reconstructed mission life from just a few decades before the descendants of these very same San Luis Apalachee may have been living at Mission Escambe.

Students learn about the council house.

A Franciscan reenactor explains the mission church.

Inside a reconstructed Spanish house.

Students enjoying a demonstration of blacksmithing.

A view of the convento (left) and church (right).

Sleeping quarters for a Franciscan friar.

An office at the mission convento, or friary.

A kitchen table laden with containers full of nuts.

Storage containers in the fort barracks.