Spanish Florida

Governorate of Florida La Florida (Spanish)
1513–1763
Plus Ultra transl. Further Beyond
Anthem: Marcha Real "Royal March"
Status	Governorate of the Spanish Empire
Capital	San Agustín
Government	Monarchy
History
• Spanish exploration and settlement	1513
• San Miguel de Gualdape establishment and abandonment	1526
• Initial Pensacola establishment, abandonment, and re-establishment at Presidio Santa Maria de Galve	1559–1561
• Fort Caroline establishment as part of French Florida and Spanish sacking	1564–1565
• St. Augustine establishment	1565
• Santa Elena establishment at Charlesfort and abandonment	1566–1587
• Transferred to Britain	10 February 1763
Preceded by Succeeded by Indigenous peoples of Florida East Florida West Florida
Today part of	United States Southern Alabama Florida Southeastern Georgia Southeastern Louisiana Southern Mississippi Southern South Carolina

Spanish Florida (Spanish: La Florida) was the first major European land-claim and attempted settlement-area in northern America during the European Age of Discovery. La Florida formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire during Spanish colonization of the Americas.

While its boundaries were never clearly or formally defined, the territory was initially much larger than the present-day state of

Florida was never more than a backwater region for Spain that came to serve primarily as a strategic buffer between the rest of New Spain and the expanding English colonies to the north. In contrast with the conquistadors of Mexico or of Peru, the Spaniards in La Florida found no gold or silver. Due to disease and, later, raids by colonists of the Province of Carolina (chartered in 1663) and their Native American allies, the native population was not large enough for an encomienda system of forced agricultural labor, so Spain did not establish large plantations in Florida. Large free-range cattle ranches in north-central Florida were the most successful agricultural enterprise and were able to supply both local and Cuban markets. The coastal towns of Pensacola and St. Augustine also provided ports where Spanish ships needing water or supplies could stop and resupply.

Beginning in the 1630s, a series of

Great Britain took possession of Florida as part of the agreements ending the Seven Years' War in 1763, and the Spanish population largely emigrated to Cuba. The new colonial ruler divided the territory into East and West Florida.

Spanish Florida was established in 1513, when Juan Ponce de León claimed peninsular Florida for Spain during the first official European expedition to North America. This claim was enlarged as several explorers (most notably Pánfilo Narváez and Hernando de Soto) landed near Tampa Bay in the mid-1500s and wandered as far north as the Appalachian Mountains and as far west as Texas in largely unsuccessful searches for gold.^[4][5]

On September 8, 1565, Admiral

Spanish control of the Florida peninsula was much facilitated by the collapse of native cultures during the 17th century. Several Native American groups (including the Timucua, Calusa, Tequesta, Apalachee, Tocobaga, and the Ais people) had been long-established residents of Florida, and most resisted Spanish incursions onto their land. However, conflict with Spanish expeditions, raids by the Carolina colonists and their native allies, and (especially) diseases brought from Europe resulted in a drastic decline in the population of all the indigenous peoples of Florida, and large swaths of the peninsula were mostly uninhabited by the early 1700s. During the mid-1700s, small bands of Creek and other Native American refugees began moving south into Spanish Florida after having been forced off their lands by South Carolinan settlements and raids. They were later joined by African-Americans fleeing slavery in nearby colonies. These newcomers – plus perhaps a few surviving descendants of indigenous Florida peoples – eventually coalesced into a new Seminole culture.

The extent of Spanish Florida began to shrink in the 1600s, and the mission system was gradually abandoned due to native depopulation. Between disease, poor management, and ill-timed hurricanes, several Spanish attempts to establish new settlements in La Florida ended in failure. With no gold or silver in the region, Spain regarded Florida (and particularly the heavily fortified town of St. Augustine) primarily as a buffer between its more prosperous colonies to the south and west and several newly established rival European colonies to the north. The establishment of the Province of Carolina by the English in 1639, New Orleans by the French in 1718, and of the Province of Georgia by Great Britain in 1732 limited the boundaries of Florida over Spanish objections. The War of Jenkins' Ear (1739–1748) included a British attack on St. Augustine and a Spanish invasion of Georgia, both of which were repulsed. At the conclusion of the war, the northern boundary of Spanish Florida was set near the current northern border of modern-day Florida.

Great Britain temporarily gained control of Florida beginning in 1763 as a result of the

France sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803. The U.S. claimed that the transaction included West Florida, while Spain insisted that the area was not part of Louisiana and was still Spanish territory. In 1810, the United States intervened in a local uprising in West Florida, and by 1812, the Mobile District was absorbed into the U.S. territory of Mississippi, reducing the borders of Spanish Florida to that of modern Florida.

In the early 1800s, tensions rose along the unguarded border between Spanish Florida and the state of Georgia as settlers skirmished with Seminoles over land and American slave-hunters raided

In 1512, Juan Ponce de León, governor of Puerto Rico, received royal permission to search for land north of Cuba. On March 3, 1513, his expedition departed from Punta Aguada, Puerto Rico, sailing north in three ships.^[20] In late March, he spotted a small island (almost certainly one of the Bahamas) but did not land. On April 2, he spotted the east coast of the Florida peninsula and went ashore the next day at an exact location that has been lost to time.^[21] Assuming that he had found a large island, he claimed the land for Spain and named it La Florida, because it was the season of Pascua Florida ("Flowery Easter") and because much of the vegetation was in bloom.^[22] After briefly exploring the area around their landing site, the expedition returned to their ships and sailed south to map the coast, encountering the Gulf Stream along the way. The expedition followed Florida's coastline all the way around the Florida Keys and north to map a portion of the Southwest Florida coast before returning to Puerto Rico.

Ponce de León did not have substantial documented interactions with Native Americans during his voyage. However, the peoples he met (likely the Timucua, Tequesta, and Calusa) were mostly hostile at first contact and knew a few Castilian words, lending credence to the idea that they had already been visited by Spanish raiders.^{[8]: 106–110}

Popular legend has it that Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he discovered Florida. However, the first mention of Ponce de León allegedly searching for water to cure his aging (he was only 40) came after his death, more than twenty years after his voyage of discovery, and the first that placed the Fountain of Youth in Florida was thirty years after that. It is much more likely that Ponce de León, like other Spanish conquistadors in the Americas, was looking for gold, land to colonize and rule for Spain, and Indians to convert to Christianity or enslave.^[23][9]

Other Spanish voyages to Florida quickly followed Ponce de León's return. Sometime in the period from 1514 to 1516, Pedro de Salazar led an officially sanctioned raid which enslaved as many as 500 Indians along the Atlantic coast of the present-day southeastern United States.^[24] Diego Miruelo mapped what was probably Tampa Bay in 1516, Francisco Hernández de Cordova mapped most of Florida's Gulf coast to the Mississippi River in 1517, and Alonso Álvarez de Pineda sailed and mapped the central and western Gulf coast to the Yucatán Peninsula in 1519.

In 1521, Ponce de León sailed from Cuba with 200 men in two ships to establish a colony on the southwest coast of the Florida peninsula, probably near Charlotte Harbor. However, attacks by the native Calusa drove the colonists away in July 1521. During the skirmish, Ponce de León was wounded in his thigh^[25] and later died of his injuries upon the expedition's return to Havana.^[26]

In 1521, Pedro de Quejo and Francisco Gordillo enslaved 60 Indians at

Spanish colonization of the Americas
History
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People
Christopher Columbus Alonso de Ojeda Diego de Almagro Pedro de Alvarado Bernal Díaz del Castillo Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada Sebastián de Belalcázar Francisco Vázquez de Coronado Hernán Cortés Luis de Carvajal y Cueva Bartolomé de las Casas Hernán Pérez de Quesada Juan Ponce de León Francisco de Montejo Pánfilo de Narváez Juan de Oñate Francisco de Orellana Pedro de Portocarrero Francisco Pizarro Hernando de Soto Pedro de Valdivia Nikolaus Federmann Inés de Suárez Pedro de Candia Juan Pardo Tristán de Luna y Arellano Vasco Núñez de Balboa Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca Amerigo Vespucci Juan de la Cosa
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Encomienda Indian auxiliaries Spanish missions in the Americas
v t e

Narváez expedition

In 1527,

Intending to find Tampa Bay, Narváez marched close to the coast, through what turned out to be a largely uninhabited territory. The expedition was forced to subsist on the rations they had brought with them until they reached the Withlacoochee River, where they finally encountered Indians. Seizing hostages, the expedition reached the Indians' village, where they found corn. Further north they were met by a chief who led them to his village on the far side of the Suwannee River. The chief, Dulchanchellin, tried to enlist the Spanish as allies against his enemies, the Apalachee.

Seizing Indians as guides, the Spaniards traveled northwest towards the Apalachee territory. Milanich suggests that the guides led the Spanish on a circuitous route through the roughest country they could find. In any case, the expedition did not find the larger Apalachee towns. By the time the expedition reached Aute, a town near the Gulf Coast, it had been under attack by Indian archers for many days. Plagued by illness, short rations, and hostile Indians, Narváez decided to sail to Mexico rather than attempt an overland march. Two hundred and forty-two men set sail on five crude rafts. All the rafts were wrecked on the Texas coast. After eight years, four survivors, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, reached New Spain (Mexico).

Hernando de Soto had been one of Francisco Pizarro's chief lieutenants in the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, and had returned to Spain a very wealthy man. He was appointed Adelantado of Florida and governor of Cuba and assembled a large expedition to 'conquer' Florida. On May 30, 1539, de Soto and his companions landed in Tampa Bay, where they found Juan Ortiz, who had been captured by the local Indians a decade earlier when he was sent ashore from a ship searching for Narváez. Ortiz passed on the Indian reports of riches, including gold, to be found in Apalachee, and de Soto set off with 550 soldiers, 200 horses, and a few priests and friars. De Soto's expedition lived off the land as it marched. De Soto followed a route further inland than that of Narváez's expedition, but the Indians remembered the earlier disruptions caused by the Spanish and were wary when not outright hostile. De Soto seized Indians to serve as guides and porters.

The expedition reached Apalachee in October and settled into the chief Apalachee town of Anhaica for the winter, where they found large quantities of stored food, but little gold or other riches. In the spring de Soto set out to the northeast, crossing what is now Georgia and South Carolina into North Carolina, then turned westward, crossed the Great Smoky Mountains into Tennessee, then marched south into Georgia. Turning westward again, the expedition crossed Alabama. They lost all of their baggage in a fight with Indians near Choctaw Bluff on the Alabama River, and spent the winter in Mississippi. In May 1541, the expedition crossed the Mississippi River and wandered through present-day Arkansas, Missouri and possibly Kansas before spending the winter in Oklahoma. In 1542, the expedition headed back to the Mississippi River, where de Soto died. Three hundred and ten survivors returned from the expedition in 1543.

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Although the Spanish had lost hope of finding gold and other riches in Florida, it was seen as vital to the defense of their colonies and territories in Mexico and the Caribbean. In 1559,

The establishment of permanent settlements and fortifications in Florida by

At the same time, in response to French activities, King Philip II of Spain appointed Pedro Menéndez de Avilés Adelantado of Florida, with a commission to drive non-Spanish adventurers from all of the land from Newfoundland to St. Joseph Bay (on the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico).^[29] Menéndez de Avilés reached Florida at the same time as Ribault in 1565, and established a base at San Agustín (St. Augustine in English), the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the continental United States.^[30] Menéndez de Avilés quickly set out to attack Fort Caroline, traveling overland from St. Augustine. At the same time, Ribault sailed from Fort Caroline, intending to attack St. Augustine from the sea. The French fleet, however, was pushed out to sea and decimated by a squall. Meanwhile, the Spanish overwhelmed the lightly defended Fort Caroline, sparing only the women and children.^{[28]: 200–202 [31]} Some 25 men were able to escape. When the Spanish returned south and found the French shipwreck survivors, Menéndez de Avilés ordered all of the Huguenots executed.^[31]: 94 The location became known as Matanzas.^[28]: 202

The 1565 marriage in St. Augustine between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville, and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian conquistador, was the first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in what is now the continental United States.^[32]

Following the expulsion of the French, the Spanish renamed Fort Caroline

In 1586, English privateer Francis Drake plundered and burned St. Augustine, including a fortification that was under construction, while returning from raiding Santo Domingo and Cartagena in the Caribbean.^{[37]: 429 [38]} His raids exposed Spain's inability to properly defend her settlements.^[38]

The

The extension of the mission system also provided a military strategic advantage from British troops arriving from the North.[37]^: 311 During the hundred-plus year span of missionary expansion, disease from the Europeans had a significant impact on the natives, along with the rising power of the French and British.^[41] During the Queen Anne's War, the British destroyed most of the missions.^[41] By 1706, the missionaries abandoned their mission outposts and returned to St. Augustine.

Spanish Governor Pedro de Ibarra worked at establishing peace with the native cultures to the South of St. Augustine. An account is recorded of his meeting with great Indian caciques (chiefs).^[42] Ybarra (Ibarra) in 1605 sent Álvaro Mexía, a cartographer, on a mission further South to meet and develop diplomatic ties with the Ais Indian nation, and to make a map of the region. His mission was successful.

In February 1647, the Apalachee revolted.

The economy of Spanish Florida diversified during the 17th century, with cattle ranching playing a major role.^[44] Throughout the 17th century, colonists from the Carolina and Virginia colonies gradually pushed the frontier of Spanish Florida south. In the early 18th century, French settlements along the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast encroached on the western borders of the Spanish claim.

Starting in 1680, Carolina colonists and their Native American allies repeatedly attacked Spanish mission villages and St. Augustine, burning missions and killing or kidnapping the Indian population. In 1702,

At the end of the 17th century and early in the 18th century, the Spanish attempted to block French expansion from Louisiana along the Gulf coast towards Florida. In 1696, they founded the Presidio Santa Maria de Galve on Pensacola Bay near the present-day site of Fort Barrancas at Naval Air Station Pensacola, followed by the foundation of the Presidio Bahía San José de Valladares on St. Joseph Bay in 1701. These presidios were under the direct authority of the Viceroy of New Spain rather than the governor of Spanish Florida in St. Augustine. The French captured Bahía San José de Valladares in 1718, and Santa Maria de Galve in 1719. After losing Santa Maria de Galve, the Spanish established the Presidio Bahía San José de Nueva Asturias on St. Joseph Point in 1719, as well as a fort at the mouth of the Apalachicola River. Spain regained the Pensacola Bay area from the French in 1722 and established the Presidio Isla Santa Rosa Punta de Siguenza on Santa Rosa Island, abandoning the Bahía San José site. After Isla Santa Rosa Punta de Siguenza was destroyed by a hurricane in 1752, the Spanish relocated to the Presidio San Miguel de Panzacola, which developed into the city of Pensacola. In 1718, the Spanish founded the Presidio San Marcos de Apalachee at the existing port of San Marcos, under the authority of the governor in St. Augustine. This presidio developed into the town of St. Marks.^[45]

Some Spanish men married or had unions with Pensacola, Creek, or

In 1763, Spain traded Florida to Great Britain in exchange for control of Havana, Cuba, and Manila in the Philippines, which had been captured by the British during the Seven Years' War. As Britain had defeated France in the war, it took over all of French Louisiana east of the Mississippi River, except for New Orleans. Finding this new territory too vast to govern as a single unit, Britain divided the southernmost areas into two territories separated by the Apalachicola River: East Florida (the peninsula) and West Florida (the panhandle).

The Spanish officials, soldiers and settlers departed following the signing of the treaty, with the entirety of St Augustine emigrating to Cuba.^[48]

The British soon began an aggressive recruiting policy to attract colonists to the area, offering free land and backing for export-oriented businesses. In 1767, the British moved the northern boundary of West Florida to a line extending from the mouth of the Yazoo River east to the Chattahoochee River (32° 28′ north latitude),^{[49]p 2} consisting of approximately the lower third of the present states of Mississippi and Alabama, including the valuable Natchez District.^[50]

During this time,

Britain retained control over East Florida during the American Revolutionary War, but the Spanish, by that time allied with the French who were at war with Britain, recaptured most of West Florida. At the end of the war the Peace of Paris (1783) treaties (between the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Spain) ceded all of East and West Florida to Spanish control, though without specifying the boundaries.

Spain gained possession of West Florida and regained East Florida from Britain in the Peace of Paris of 1783, and continued the British practice of governing the Floridas as separate territories: West Florida and East Florida. When Spain acquired West Florida in 1783, the eastern British boundary was the Apalachicola River, but Spain moved it eastward to the Suwannee River in 1785.^[51][52] The purpose was to transfer San Marcos and the district of Apalachee from East Florida to West Florida.^[53][54]

After American independence, the lack of specified boundaries led to a border dispute with the newly formed United States, known as the

After American independence, Spain claimed far more land than the old British West Florida, including the east side of the Mississippi River north to the Ohio and Tennessee rivers.[57] This expanded claim was based on Spain's successful military operations against the British in the region during the war. Spain occupied or built several forts north of the old British West Florida border, including Fort Confederación, Fort Nogales (at present-day Vicksburg), and Fort San Fernando (at present-day Memphis).^[58][59] Spain tried to settle the dispute quickly, but the U.S. delayed, knowing that time was on its side.^[57] By Pinckney's Treaty of 1795 with the United States, Spain recognized the 31st parallel as the border, ending the first West Florida Controversy. Andrew Ellicott surveyed this parallel in 1797, as the border between the United States and Spanish territories. In 1798, Ellicott reported to the government that four American generals were receiving pensions from Spain, including General James Wilkinson.

Spain, beset with independence movements in its other colonies, could not settle or adequately govern Florida by the turn of the 19th century, with real control limited to the immediate vicinity of St. Augustine, Pensacola, and a few small towns and forts scattered across the north of the territory.^[60] Tension and hostility between Seminoles and American settlers living in neighboring Georgia and over the Florida border grew steadily.^[61]

Though Spain officially ended its policy of welcoming people fleeing from slavery in other colonies and countries in 1790, a steady stream of such people continued to cross the unguarded border from the United States and either settled near Seminole villages or established their own small settlements.^[62]American slaveholders sought to reclaim who they considered their property and organized increasingly frequent raiding parties that entered Spanish territory to attack Seminole villages and capture anyone who might be a refugee from slavery. British agents working in Florida provided arms and other assistance to the Seminoles, resulting in counter-raids across the border that sometimes required intervention by the US military.^[63]

Several local insurrections and

Following secret orders issued at the end of March 1814, Captain Woodbine of the Royal Marines made contact with Indians. After a meeting of various elders held aboard HMS Orpheus (1809) on May 20, weapons and other gifts were provided by the British. Woodbine was appointed as British Agent to the Creek Nations.^[65] He was advised to respect the Spanish, and to communicate this to the Creeks.^[a] A declaration from the Chiefs of the Creek Nation to Cochrane alluded to this.^[67]

Upon receiving reports that Manrique had allowed the British to land on Spanish soil to arm natives at war with the United States, and had not intervened, Jackson's letter to Manrique dated July 12 warned of "disagreeable consequences" if this intelligence was true.^[68][69]

The subsequent arrival in August 1814 of

A consequence of this was that General Jackson initiated an embargo on foodstuffs being sent to Pensacola. Whilst this impacted the local population, where provisions were in short supply, the intention was to hamper British use of the town as a base of operations and logistical hub.[76] Whilst the embargo is believed to have been lifted, the gulf coast was now a war zone, as the British commenced their campaign against New Orleans. Jackson's reply to Manrique of December 23, 1814 suggests that there were food shortages that month.^[77] The newly appointed commander of the Pensacola garrison, Francisco San Maxent, made a formal complaint to Manrique on December 31 that his men have no rations, and with due respect asks him what he should communicate to his officers.

Nicolls participated in an unsuccessful land and naval attack on Fort Bowyer on September 15. In the fighting, Nicolls was wounded severely three times, and he lost the use of his right eye for life.^[78] The taking of Pensacola in November by an American force under Andrew Jackson forced Nicolls to retreat to the Apalachicola River with freed and escaped slaves from Pensacola. There, Nicolls regrouped at Prospect Bluff, and rallied Indians and refugee ex-slaves living free in Florida, recruiting the latter into his detached unit of the Corps of Colonial Marines.^[71] Upon leaving Pensacola on November 9, Nicolls took with him a large proportion of the Spanish garrison, 363 soldiers, who did not return to Pensacola until 1815.^[d][e][81]

The detachment of fugitive slaves in Florida, which had grown to about 400 men,^[f][g][h] was paid off and disbanded when the British post was evacuated at the end of the war. A small number of men went to Bermuda with the British as part of a refugee group, rejoining the main body of Colonial Marines.^[i] Others from the Florida unit remained in settlements around the Fort which had become a symbol of slave insurrection. Southern plantation owners considered the presence of a group of armed fugitive slaves, even in a remote and sparsely-populated area of Spanish Florida, an unacceptable danger.^[85]

In 1817, a confused attack by a motley force of American and Scottish adventurers, Latin American revolutionaries, and pirates from Texas on

• Martín de Argüelles (1566–1630), First white child (criollo) known to have been born in what is now the contiguous United States. His birthplace was St. Augustine, Florida.
• Luis Cáncer, Dominican priest
• Juan de Ayala y Escobar, governor of Spanish Florida (1716–1718) and a resident of that province.
• Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, Spanish shipwreck survivor who lived among the Native Americans of Florida for 17 years.
• Floridano who served as the first delegate from the Florida Territory. He was also the first Hispanic American to serve in the United States Congress and a member of the Whig Party
  (1822–1823)
• Pedro Benedit Horruytiner, interim co-governor of Spanish Florida (1646–1648) and governor of Spanish Florida (1651–1654). A resident of that province, his house and library are still preserved in Saint Augustine.
• Francisco Menéndez Márquez, interim co-governor of Spanish Florida (1646–1648), and the founder of the largest cattle ranching enterprise in Florida.
• Tomás Menéndez Márquez (1643–1706), official in the government of Spanish Florida, and owner, with his brothers, of the largest ranch in Spanish Florida.
• Nicolás Ponce de León II, acting governor of Spanish Florida (1663 – 1664, and 1673 – 1675) who was a native of Saint Augustine.
• Eligio de la Puente (1724–1781), Floridano who held various public offices in St. Augustine, Florida and in Havana, Cuba during the 18th century.
• Agustín V. Zamorano (1798–1842), Floridano who served as governor of Alta California (1832–1833).

• European colonization of the Americas
• Floridanos
• Spanish Indians
• History of Florida
• List of colonial governors of Florida
• Society in the Spanish Colonial Americas
• Spanish Texas

Notes