The Indian Pond site is most likely the first location of Santa Cruz de Tarihica. The identification of this site as Tarihica is based primarily on the distances and relative order of missions presented in documentation generated during three distinct visitations. The first is that of Fray Luís Gerónimo de Oré, who in December of 1616 conducted individual visitations at the missions of San Martín, San Juan de Guacara, and Santa Cruz de Tarihica, each of which was said to be eight leagues from the other, in that order. Given the secure locations of San Martín at Fig Springs and San Juan at Baptizing Spring, the Indian Pond site is the only large mission site located in a northwesterly direction from San Juan. Indeed, Fray Oré subsequently plunged northward from Tarihica into the hinterland behind the Okefenokee Swamp on his way to mission Santa Isabel de Urinahica near the forks of the Altamaha River in southern Georgia.
Important supplementary evidence is provided by the 1656 route of Capt. Agustín Pérez de Villa Real and interpreter Estéban Solana on their ill-fated mission to deliver the order that sparked the Timucuan rebellion. Departing from mission San Martín, Perez traveled next to mission Santa Cruz de Tarihica, then to mission Niahica, and finally to the far northern mission of Arapaja (along the present-day Alapaha River) after dispatching Solana westward to San Pedro from Niahica. This evidence clearly locates Santa Cruz in a northerly direction from San Martín, not to the west past San Juan along the lower trail. Finally, the 1655 mission list provides an important clue. The visitor (Fray Pedro Chacón?) traveled from the northern Atlantic coastal missions of Guale and Mocama across the interior to mission Santiago de Oconi in the Okefenokee Swamp before proceeding to visit the northern constellation of missions within the Timucua mission province. The first mission encountered was Santa Cruz, said to be located fifty-four leagues from St. Augustine and thus some twenty-four leagues farther into the western interior than the Oconi mission. This figure is roughly compatible with the travel distance between the Okefenokee and Indian Pond. Perhaps more importantly, the route then proceeded another six leagues to mission San Agustín de Urihica before covering another ten leagues to arrive at the Arapaja mission. This sequence- Tarihica to Urihica to Arapaja- is remarkably similar to that of Agustín Pérez in 1656, who traveled from Tarihica to Niahica to Arapaja, incidentally suggesting equivalency between Urihica and Niahica.
These three sources, dating to 1616, 1655, and 1656, together make Indian Pond the best possible candidate for Santa Cruz. Beyond this evidence, there would seem to be no other viable alternative identification for this large early-seventeenth-century site. The date of Tarihica's relocation after the 1656 rebellion is furthermore confirmed by the apparent absence of late seventeenth-century artifacts at this and other outlying sites in this immediate vicinity.
From: Worth, John W. 1998. Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florica, Volume 2: Resistance and Destruction. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.