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The Failure of Spanish Florida

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Charles W. Arnade
Charles W. Arnade*
Affiliation:
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
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Extract

Hispanic Florida was characterized by one truth: it was a failure, from whatever angle you look at its history. Spain's efforts in Florida were unsuccessful. She pursued a policy of bankruptcy with regard to that land. In 1763 she readily turned Florida over to the English to get back Havana. Today's Cuban capital was worth the whole of Florida. When she came back in 1783 new ideas could not stem the tide of failure of Spain's first period and a half century later she again gave up Florida, this time to the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , January 1960 , pp. 271 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1960

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References

1 The Jesuit period can be studied in detail in the excellent source, Zubillaga, Félix S.J., Monumenta Antiqua Floridae (1566–1512) (Rome, 1946), 799 pp.Google Scholar

2 This revolt has been studied thoroughly by Lanning and Geiger supplemented recently by a new study, Omavecherría, Ignacio, Mártires Franciscanos de Georgia (Madrid, 1956).Google Scholar

3 The story of Florida investigation of 1602 is available in Arnade, Charles W., Florida on Trial, 1593–1603 (Coral Gables, Fla., 1959).Google Scholar The crucial document of this investigation is “Información de orden de S. M. sobre el estado general de las provincias de la Florida y si conviene o no desmantelar el fuerte de San Agustín,” St. Augustine, 1602, 170 folios, AGI 86–5–24. Available in the Stetson Collection, University of Florida.

4 The documentary basis for the conclusions of this article are based on reading about one-half of the documents of the Stetson Collection, located since 1953 at the University of Florida, containing about 110,000 sheets of photocopies from the AGI. See Arnade, Charles W., “Florida History in Spanish Archives,” Florida Historical Quarterly, 34 (1955), 36–50 Google Scholar; cf. Patrick, Rembert W., “The Collection of Historical Material in Florida,” Papers. The Jacksonville Historical Society, 1 (1947), 1–15.Google Scholar A fairly detailed catalog, describing each document of the Stetson Collection is being prepared by the St. Augustine Historical Society. The unedited cards covering the first Spanish period (1512–1763) are finished.

5 Arnade, Charles W., “Spanish Florida in 1643, as Seen by Its Governor,” Florida Historical Quarterly, 34 (1955), 172–176.Google Scholar

6 See Boyd, Mark, et al., Here They Once Stood (Gainesville, 1951), pp. 1–104.Google Scholar

7 Governor Francisco de Ledesma to the Crown, Havana, Sept. 30, 1673, 3 folios, in Stetson Collection, AGI 58–2–2.

8 Royal Officials (Francisco de Florencia and Juan de Pueyo) to the King, St. Augustine, August 13, 1706, in Boyd, Mark F., editor, “Documents. Further Considerations of the Apalachee Missions,” The Americas, 9 (1953), 479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Excavations on Upper Matecumbe Key, Florida (New Haven, 1949), 104 pp.

10 Service, Elman R., “Indian-European Relations in Colonial Latin America,” American Anthropologist, 57 (1935), 413.Google Scholar

11 “The Encomienda in Paraguay,” Hispanic American Historical Review, XXXI (1951), 230.

12 Wagley, Charles, and Harris, Marvin, “A Typology of Latin American Subcultures,” American Anthropologist, 57 (1955), 428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Service, loc. cit., p. 416.

14 Ibid. Cf. also Service’s excellent study, Spanish-Guaraní Relations in Early Colonial Paraguay (Ann Arbor: Anthropological Papers. Museum of Anthropology. University of Michigan. No. 9, 1954), 106 pp.

15 Tannenbaum, Frank, “Discussion of Acculturation Studies in Latin America: Some Needs and Problems,” American Anthropologist, 45 (1943), 205–206 Google Scholar; Fried, Morton, “Land Tenure, Geography and Ecology in Contacts of Cultures,” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2 (1952), 391–412 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foster, George M., “The Significance to Anthropological Studies of the Places of Origin of Spanish Emigrants to the New World,” in Tax, Sol, editor, Acculturation in the Americas (Chicago, 1952), pp. 292–298 Google Scholar; Wagley and Harris, see supra, n. 12; Steward, Julian, “Acculturation Studies in Latin America,” American Anthropologist, 45 (1943), 198–204,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Levels of Sociocultural Integration: An Operational Concept,” Southwest Journal of Anthropology, VII (1951), 374–390; Tax, Sol, “The Indigenous Foundation of Culture. An Anthropological Approach,” Civilizations (Institut International Des Civilisations Différentes), 5 (1955), 499–508 Google Scholar; Zavala, Silvia A., New Viewpoints on the Spanish Colonization of America (London, 1943),CrossRefGoogle Scholar passim; Fals-Borda, Orlando, El hombre y la tierra en Boyacá (Bogotá, 1957), p. 49 Google Scholar; Diffie, Bailey C., Latin American Civilization (Harris-burg, 1947),Google Scholar chap, 4.

15 Bolton, Herbert, “The Missions as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish Colonies,” American Historical Review, 23 (1917–1918), 44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 43.

18 See Hinkley, Nancy E., “The Administration of Don Pablo de Hita Salazar, Governor of Spanish Florida, 1675–1680,” master’s thesis, University of Florida, 1956,Google Scholar chap. 4.

19 Tratado definitivo de Paz … (Madrid: Imprenta Real de la Gaceta, 1763), 318 pp.

20 Cattle and food production in the Tallahassee (San Luis) and Gainesville (Aláchua) areas remains one of the most unexplored topics of Spanish Florida history. A careful reading of the documents reveals that the production of food in Spanish Florida was much more important than is thought. This author, helped by a modest grant from the St. Augustine Historical Society, began in the summer of 1959 to gather material for a small monograph about this subject. It must be stated that the cattle and food information is widely dispersed in documents bearing little relation to the subject, therefore slowing any research.

21 Besides the standard sources such as Crane, Bolton and Boyd, see the studies of Corry, John Pitts, Indian Affairs in Georgia, 1732–1756 (Philadelphia, 1936), 197 pp.Google Scholar; Show, Helen Louise, British Administration of the Southern Indians, 1756–1783 (Lancaster, Pa., 1931), 205 pp.Google Scholar; Alden, John Richard, John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier (Ann Arbor, 1944), 384 pp.Google Scholar; Johnson, James Guyton, “The Colonial Southeast, 1732–1763; An International Contest for Territorial and Economic Control,” University of Colorado Studies, 19, no. 3 (1932), pp. 163–225.Google Scholar

22 Dr. John TePaske of Ohio State University in a paper entitled “The Governors of Florida and Church Problems, 1700–1763: The Spanish Creole,” delivered at the Southern Historical Association meeting of 1958 in Nashville, Tenn., has sketched a little known episode. It deals with a serious rivalry that assumed grave proportions in 1735 between peninsular and creole priests. See also TePaske, John, “The Governorship of Spanish Florida, 1700–1763,” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1958,Google Scholar chap. 6.

23 See ibid., chap. 5, and TePaske, John, “Economic Problems of Florida Governors, 1700–1763,” Florida Historical Quarterly, 37 (1958), 42–52.Google Scholar

24 Service, , American Anthropologist, loc. cit., p. 423.Google Scholar

25 Cf. Bolton, Herbert E., Arredondo’s Historical Proof of Spain’s Title to Georgia (Berkeley, 1925), pp. 1–110.Google Scholar