Acuera

Acuera was a Timucua town and chiefdom in the lake country of the upper Ocklawaha River. Its people made chalky pottery tempered with freshwater sponge spicules, sometimes decorating vessels with checked impressions. Their settlements belonged to a landscape of lakes, woodlands and cultivated fields, and their dialect gave the Franciscan Francisco Pareja a name for one of the varieties of the Timucua language.

In 1539 men from Hernando de Soto's expedition entered Acuera in search of maize and met resistance. A woman who ruled the town visited Spanish St. Augustine in 1597; Acuera people also traded deerskins, chestnuts and pottery there. By the seventeenth century Spanish missions had been established among them, including Santa Lucía de Acuera. Even after the upheaval of the Timucua rebellion in 1656 and the withdrawal of missionaries, some Acuera remained in their homeland and continued their own religious practices.

The later city of Orlando lies here.