Spanish Florida Document Transcriptions

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Over the decades I have been conducting documentary research regarding Spanish Florida, I have accumulated a substantial collection of microfilm and other imagery of primary source manuscripts, many of which I have fully or partially transcribed in the original Spanish, and some of which I have also translated into English. Though I have published two full books of translations along with a number of other shorter translations (see list of published translations below), in my own research I tend to work directly from transcriptions in the original Spanish, usually also accompanied by imagery of the original handwritten document when available. Since so many of the most important primary source documents relating to Spanish Florida are available only in either manuscript form (accessible best to those with training in paleography) or in English translations (which are comparatively few and far between, and which are always filtered through the translator's mind), I have decided to begin uploading my transcriptions and transcription extracts (and some translations, when available) to this web page in order to make them accessible to a broader audience.

The list of document pages below will grow over time as I am able. I have grouped them into thematic categories, with links to the actual documents, as well as information about what is actually available (Spanish transcriptions and/or English translations, partial extracts or full documents).

On separate pages I have also assembled links to Digitized Expedition Accounts for all the early colonial expeditions to Florida and the rest of the Southeastern U.S., as well as a collection of Digitized Post-1763 Historical Books relating to colonial Florida.

Separately (and with an increasing number of transcriptions), I have also added direct links to a number of digitized original documents relating to Spanish Florida, focusing initially on Digitized Historical Maps and Geographic Descriptions of Spanish Florida, but also including a range of Digitized Post-Colonial Maps of Spanish Florida.

Missions / Military / Legal / Miscellaneous / Multiple


Missions

Mission Lists, Visitations, and Censuses

Document

Span

Eng part full
1604 Visitation x   x  
1606 Visitation x   x  
1655 Mission List x     x
1657 Visitation x   x  
1675 Mission List: Soldiers x     x
1675 Mission List: Bishop x   x  
1677-1678 Visitation x   x  
1679-1680 Mission List x   x  
1681 Census x [x]   x
1685 Visitation x   x  
1694-1695 Visitation x   x  
1697 Mission List x     x
1698 Visitation x   x  
1701 Visitation x   x  
1711 Census x     x
1717 Census x   x  
1726 Visitation x     x
1728 Census x     x
1736 Census x   x  
1736 Census (Men at Arms) x     x
1738 Census x     x
1739 Census x     x
1752 Census x     x
1759 Census x     x

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Mission Church Inventories (includes presidial churches administered by Franciscans in Florida)

Document

Span

Eng part full
1681 Inventory of Mission Churches in Florida x     x
1704 Inventory of Mission Churches in Apalachee x     x
1722 Inventory of Church at Presidio San Joseph x   x  
1731 Inventory of Church at Presidio Isla de Santa Rosa x   x  

Military Rosters

St. Augustine

Document

Span

Eng part full
1565-1566 Ration List (includes "old soldiers" in both San Agustín and Santa Elena) x     x
1578 Muster (includes Santa Elena as well, 2 musters for each) x     x
1587 Roster x     x
1671 Roster x     x
1702 Roster x     x
1712 Roster x     x
1740 Roster   x   x

Pensacola: San Miguel de Panzacola

Document

Span

Eng part full
1760, Oct. 10 Muster x     x
1761, Jan. 10 Muster x     x
1761, Feb. 10 Muster x     x
1763, Sept. 13 Evacuation List x x   x

Pensacola: Second Spanish Period

Document

Span

Eng part full
1795, Dec. 31 Roster of Officers, Regiment of Luisiana x     x
1796, Dec. 31 Roster of Officers, Regiment of Luisiana x     x
1798, Jan. 20 Muster, 3rd Battalion (Pensacola), Regiment of Louisiana x   x  
1798, Feb. 5 Muster, 3rd Battalion (Pensacola), Regiment of Louisiana x   x  
1798, Mar. 5 Muster, 3rd Battalion (Pensacola), Regiment of Louisiana x   x  

San Marcos de Apalache

Document

Span

Eng part full
1763 Roster x     x

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Legal Proceedings

Testimony

Document

Span

Eng part full
1654 Testimony regarding the 1647 Apalachee Revolt x     x
1761 Investigation regarding Mission Escambe x     x

Inventories

Document

Span

Eng part full
1651 Inventory of Asile Hacienda x x   x

Financial Accounts

Document

Span

Eng part full
1683 Florida Situado Account Summary x   x  

Miscellaneous Documents

Reports

Document

Span

Eng part full
1675 Bishop's Letter x   x  
1707 Report by the Florida Franciscans x x   x
1759 Solana Report on the Current State of Florida x     x

Geographic Descriptions and Map Legends (links to these and many additional maps at Digitized Historical Maps and Geographic Descriptions of Spanish Florida)

Document

Span

Eng part full
1602 Descriptions of the Atlantic Coast between St. Augustine and Santa Elena x   x  
1630 Testimony re: Florida Geography and Ethnology   x   x
1756 Agustín López de la Cámara Alta Map of Pensacola Bay x x   x
1763 Diego Ortíz Parrilla and Felipe Feringan Cortés Map of Pensacola x x   x
1768 Juan Joseph Eligio de la Puente Map of Pensacola Bay x x   x
1781 Francisco de Navas Map of Pensacola x     x
1792 Map of Pensacola and Forts San Bernardo and San Miguel x x   x
1813 Map of Pensacola by Vicente Sebastián Pintado x     x

Expedition Diaries

Document

Span

Eng part full
1699 Tampa Bay Expedition Diary x     x

Gubernatorial Orders

Document

Span

Eng part full
1614 Order regarding the Cacique of Carlos x     x

Peace Treaties

Document

Span

Eng part full
1758 Peace Treaty x x   x
1761 Peace Treaty x x   x

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Multiple Documents

Document

Span

Eng part full
Luna Expedition Documents x x x  
Mission San Joseph de Escambe Documents   x x  

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Published Translations

Worth, John E.

1993 Relation of the Island of Florida, by Luys Hernandez de Biedma. In The De Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539-1543, ed. by L.A. Clayton, V.J. Knight, Jr., and E.C. Moore, pp. 221-46. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

1993 Account of the Northern Conquest and Discovery of Hernando de Soto, by Rodrigo Rangel. In The De Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539-1543, ed. by L.A. Clayton, V.J. Knight, Jr., and E.C. Moore, pp. 247-306. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

1995 Fontaneda Revisited: Five Descriptions of Sixteenth-Century Florida. Florida Historical Quarterly 73(3): 339-52. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30150454

1995 The Struggle for the Georgia Coast: An Eighteenth-Century Spanish Retrospective on Guale and Mocama. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Number 75. University of Georgia Press, Athens (ISBN: 978-0820317458). http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/270.

1998 Appendix to The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida, Volume II: Resistance and Destruction (ISBN: 978-0813015750). University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

2007 The Struggle for the Georgia Coast. Reprint of 1995 edition with expanded preface. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa (ISBN: 978-0817354114).

2014 Discovering Florida: First-Contact Narratives of Spanish Expeditions along the Lower Gulf Coast. University Press of Florida, Gainesville (ISBN: 978-0813049885).

2015 Recollections of the Juan Pardo Expeditions: The Domingo De León Account. In The Limits of Empire: Colonialism and Household Practice at the Berry Site, 1566-1568, ed. by Robin A. Beck, Christopher B. Rodning, and David G. Moore, pp. 58-80. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

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