The First Spanish Period: 1565–1763
Missions, Forts, and Settlements
Florida harbored none of the riches found in Spain’s other American colonies. Still, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who founded St. Augustine, envisioned a profitable enterprise of agriculture, fisheries, naval stores, and ship building. For two centuries, St. Augustine struggled constantly to survive, but its strategic location on the route of Spain’s silver fleets made it worth maintaining.
The Spaniards who settled La Florida after the era of exploration built settlements, missions, and forts. In the process, they changed the way of life of Florida’s Native peoples. The settlements supported the forts, and the forts in turn protected settlers when hostile forces threatened.
St. Augustine depended on the missions to provide Indigenous labor and food. When the mission system collapsed in the early 1700s, Florida changed again.
The Founding of a Colony
Philip II, king of Spain, named Menéndez Captain General of the Fleet of the Indies, governor of Cuba, and adelantado of Florida. As adelantado, he was the king’s direct representative. The royal contract required Menéndez to explore the area, establish towns, and see that Florida’s Indigenous peoples were converted to Christianity. Menéndez landed at a harbor he named St. Augustine because the Spaniards first sighted land on the feast day of Saint Augustine, August 28, 1565.
The Spaniards first occupied the Timucua Indian village of Seloy. Hostilities soon arose between the Timucuans and Spaniards, and the colonists moved to Anastasia Island. They returned to the mainland by 1572, settling on the site of modern St. Augustine. Spain already had established several colonies in the Americas by the time Menéndez arrived in La Florida in 1565.
Santa Elena
In 1566, Menéndez founded a second city, Santa Elena, on today’s Parris Island, South Carolina. Santa Elena struggled through its brief existence. Beset by food shortages, harsh winters, and attacks from Indigenous tribes, the Spaniards abandoned it by 1587.
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés
Pedro Menendez de Aviles / Josef Camaron lo dibo dibo.; Franco. de Paula Marti lo grabo ano., 1791. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
1529 Map of North America, the Caribbean, and South America
Johann Georg Kohl. Map of America, by Diego Ribero, 1529 Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Kohl Collection no. 41 (4)
St. Augustine: A Multicultural Community Takes Shape
In the 1580s, St. Augustine had about 300 inhabitants. The first colonists included few Spanish women, so many soldiers married Indigenous women. The population included Spaniards, Africans, mulattoes, Native peoples, mestizos, and a few other Europeans. Despite this diversity, almost everyone was Catholic. Religion formed a vital part of colonial life politically, socially, and culturally.
St. Augustine’s population included free and enslaved people of African descent. Some of the enslaved people belonged to the Spanish government and labored on public projects. Enslaved individuals also worked for wealthy private citizens and on ranches. Epidemics, overwork, and poor treatment decreased the Indigenous population and led to an increase in the importation and sale of enslaved Africans to fulfill labor needs.
St. Augustine functioned mainly as a military town. Its duties consisted of protecting Spain’s treasure fleets as they sailed home from Veracruz and Havana and aiding shipwrecked sailors. The settlement was home to soldiers, Indigenous people, government officials, enslaved people, and civilian workers.
The town contained a plaza, church, fort, governor’s house, royal warehouse, and private homes and businesses. A large commons around the town provided a place for cattle to graze. Nearby lands held abundant timber.
In 1687, a group of enslaved Africans fled to Florida from English Carolina. They were given sanctuary, and more soon followed. To remain in Florida, the freedom seekers converted to Catholicism and worked on public projects, such as building the Castillo de San Marcos.
Spanish settlement in La Florida centered largely on St. Augustine. Over time, the Spanish presence expanded, as missions and ranches were established in the interior. Pensacola was settled permanently beginning in 1698 but remained little more than a military outpost.
Map of St. Augustine
Map of the town, fort, and entrance to the harbor of St. Augustine and vicinity, Florida, 1595.
Library of Congress Geography and Map Division
Who Were the Colonists of La Florida?
Peninsular: a Spaniard born in Spain
Criollo: a Spaniard born in the Americas
Floridano: a Spaniard born in Florida
Mestizo: a person of Spanish and Native descent
Mulatto: a person of African and European ancestry
Economy
St. Augustine’s economy was supported by a situado, a subsidy that the Spanish government provided. The money from the situado was used for salaries, food, clothing, and weapons. However, it failed to arrive on a regular basis, and residents relied mainly on local food sources. The colony also had a small export market, mostly based on products derived from cattle ranching. Colonies in Central and South America and Mexico were wealthier and possessed natural resources not found in Florida.
Homes in St. Augustine
The earliest houses were built of wattle and daub. Wattle consisted of sticks or vines woven between vertical wooden poles. Daub was the clay that covered the wattle. Better homes were constructed of wooden boards. Homes usually featured thatched roofs of straw or palmetto. By the 1660s, many houses had been constructed of coquina or tabby. Tabby is a mixture of oyster shells, lime, and sand. Coquina is a soft limestone of shells and sand naturally cemented together.
Coquina formation
Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida
Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mosé
About forty families who escaped enslavement in Carolina inhabited Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mosé, a free Black settlement north of St. Augustine. As word of Mosé spread, more enslaved Blacks fled there in search of freedom. The community had its own church and priest, and its own militia.
Francisco Menéndez
Francisco Menéndez was born in Gambia in West Africa. Later captured and sold into slavery, he was enslaved in the English colony of South Carolina. Menéndez and other enslaved Africans joined the Yamassee War in 1715 but were defeated and fled with members of the Yamassee tribe to Spanish Florida. In 1738, Menéndez and other Black migrants received permission from Spanish authorities to establish a village called Fort Mosé, two miles north of St. Augustine. By converting to Catholicism and pledging loyalty to the Spanish crown, they were granted their freedom. When the British attacked Fort Mosé in 1740, Menéndez and his men took part in a daring counterattack that re-captured the fort. Menéndez wrote to the King of Spain requesting reward for his service and the Spanish governor supported those requests. Menéndez later had a series of adventures as a privateer raiding English ships, including being captured and temporarily re-enslaved. He managed to return to Florida and reestablished Fort Mosé in 1752. When Spain ceded Florida to England in 1763, Menéndez, along with his wife and children, went with the Spaniards to Cuba.
Foodways Old and New
Spaniards brought wheat and fruit such as oranges, peaches, and figs to Florida. They grew onions, radishes, and garlic and brought domesticated animals including cattle and hogs. Residents planted fruit trees and tended gardens on their lots. The colonists also consumed local game and seafood such as deer, catfish, mullet, and gopher tortoise, and collected acorns and hickory nuts. Corn, beans, squash, and other native foods soon became vital to their diet. Indigenous communities connected to the mission towns grew corn for St. Augustine.
I saw some grape vines and fig trees in this city, and they produce well. They also produce good melons and watermelons and pumpkins and other vegetables in abundance. They ship onions from here to la Habana even though they are not very large.
-Fray Andrés de San Miguel, 1595
Barrel Well Excavated in St. Augustine
Town lots contained wells, usually lined with barrels stacked one on top of the other to keep the sand from falling into them.
Courtesy of the Florida Museum of Natural History, Historical Archaeology Collections
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