Pre-Mission Era Settlements
1526 - 1565
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4. NANIPACANA or YPACANA
The mission was given the Christian name of Santa Cruz de Nanipacana by Luna. This native village of eighty houses, located probably on the Alabama River, was close to the remains of a large earlier settlement, the destruction of which the natives attributed to an earlier visit by Spaniards, undoubtedly the de Soto expedition. Ypacana is probably the Pacani mentioned in 1675 by Bishop Gabriel Diás Vara Calderón, al though the village had moved upriver by then to the Coosa-Talapoosa drainage. Ypacana was mentioned again in 1686 by Marcos Delgado under the name Pagna during Delgado's trek through the Coosa-Talapoosa country. Delgado recorded that the Pagna of that village and of two neighboring villages had come there to escape attacks by the Choctaw.
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REFERENCES Dr. John H. Hann
"Summary Guide to Spanish Florida Missions and Vistas with Churches in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries"
© Copyright. John P. Walsh. April 22, 2002