Spanish Florida, 1513-1763

Spanish Florida - Home

From the 16th through 18th centuries, Florida was a remote colonial outpost on the northern frontier of Spain's expansive New World empire. In stark contrast to many of its Spanish colonial neighbors to the south and west, Spanish Florida survived only with an annual monetary stipend from the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and never resulted in a net profit for the Spanish crown. Florida was ultimately maintained primarily for its strategic value in protecting the New World fleets during their annual return from Havana to Spain, and as such, Florida's Spanish residents (mostly garrisoned soldiers and their families) came to be substantially reliant upon labor and food from the indigenous chiefdoms that were eventually assimilated within this evolving colonial society. The success or failure of Spanish Florida was tied intimately to the fate of its predominantly Native American inhabitants, and the sociopolitical and economic system that developed over the course of the colony's two and a half century history represents a remarkable example of a new, multi-ethnic colonial society within an increasingly global world system on the edge of the modern era.

Chronology of Colonial Spanish FloridaWith respect to Native American relations, Spain's colonial strategy in the New World focused more on assimilation and labor than exclusion and commerce, and hence Spanish Florida formed a marked contrast to concurrent British colonial endeavors farther to the north, particularly as regards the direct and explicit incorporation of functioning Native American societies into the political, economic, social, and even religious fabric of the new colonial society.  At its zenith in the mid-17th century, Florida's colonial system was fundamentally based on the multi-regional integration of large Native American populations extending from the lower Atlantic coastline to the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, all under the administration of a single colonial port city at St. Augustine.  The multi-ethnic population of greater Spanish Florida was at that time no more than 5% Spanish, with the remaining population almost wholly dominated by Native Americans distributed in a multiplicity of local and regional provinces, still governed by hereditary native leaders who filled the role of mid-level administrators within a broader Spanish paramountcy.  Corn production and exchange played a primary role in the economic infrastructure of Spanish Florida, with literally hundreds of thousands of pounds being grown annually both in the mission provinces and in fields surrounding St. Augustine.  An extensive web of land and and water transportation routes linked human and natural resources into a functioning colonial society, the scale and complexity of which had never before been witnessed in the same region.  Despite the fact that this system grew and collapsed within the space of less than two centuries, when viewed in anthropological perspective, Spanish Florida can nonetheless serve as an instructive case-study of the evolution and decline of colonial systems in general.

These pages provide an introduction to Spanish Florida, and will continue to be expanded over time with additional information and resources.  The links here and above lead to topical pages and associated sub-pages with information about Chronology, Places, People, and Culture, as well as a Bibliography of Spanish Florida, and a growing archive of Spanish transcripts and some English translations of important primary source documents listed on my Documents page.

For researchers and students of Spanish Florida history, I am in the process of developing a Research Aids page that will include many resources that I have accumulated and inventoried over the years.