Dungeness Audio Tour Stop 1

An engraving of Timucuan people and French explorers around a stone monument.

Quick Facts

Amenities

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Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

Over the past millennia, many different people have visited and inhabited Cumberland Island. As you walk the island today, you are joining a long tradition of those who have visited and come to appreciate the natural beauty and abundance of Cumberland Island. Some chose to call the island home.

Sometime around 1000 years ago, Eastern Timucuan people, calling themselves Mocama, arrived on Cumberland Island and lived off the island’s abundance, eating shellfish, game, and edible plants. They called the island Mocama, which is the Timucuan word for “ocean.” Although there are few traces remaining, you are currently standing near the site of a Timucuan village called Tacatacaru. By the late 1580s, the Spanish arrived on the island to missionize Mocama, building a Franciscan mission near Tacatacaru and naming the island San Pedro. La Mision del San Pedro flourished for almost 100 years.

Although the Spanish saw themselves as bringing Christianity and European civilization to the New World, the Timucuans probably saw things slightly differently, with the Spanish serving as military allies against other tribes as well as providing many goods previously unavailable. No archeological traces of the Spanish era have been found, although written accounts tell us much about life on San Pedro.