The Presidios of Spanish Florida
Back to: Places of Spanish Florida
See also: Missions of Spanish Florida/ Chronology of Spanish Florida
And see: Colonial-Era Spanish Military / Spanish Soldiers
Throughout its first incarnation as a permanent colony during the First Spanish Period (1565-1763), Spanish Florida was first and foremost a military outpost, directly financed by the Spanish Crown in order to maintain a foothold on the Florida peninsula as protection for the fleets returning to Spain from the Havana rendezvous point. Far from being a productive colonial enterprise, the Florida colony was a money sink for Spain, never producing profits in excess of its regular annual stipend, but it was nonetheless maintained for nearly two full centuries by garrisoned settlements known as presidios. Surrounded by indigenous chiefdoms with tens of thousands of Native American inhabitants, most of the nearest of which were ultimately assimilated into mission provinces that served as a pool of labor and staple foods, Florida's presidios were central to Spain's colonial enterprise in southeastern North America.
For the first 133 years of its existence, St. Augustine was the principal presidio of the entire Florida colony (though the name presidio didn't come into common usage for the colony until the beginning of the 17th century). However, St. Augustine was accompanied by a short-lived twin settlement at Santa Elena on the lower South Carolina coast for just 21 years between 1566 and 1587. These port communities were supplied principally through Havana and secondarily from Spain and New Spain. After the abandonment of Santa Elena in 1587, the two infantry companies originally garrisoning these presidial settlements were subsequently both headquartered together in St. Augustine, and a third infantry company was added a century later in 1687, along with the addition of a cavalry company in 1706 (formalized in 1714).
Once the threat of French intrusion materialized in the Gulf of Mexico after 1682, an entirely new presidio was established as an out-guard far to the west in Pensacola Bay in 1698, administered and supplied directly from New Spain via the port of Veracruz. This second presidio was ultimately situated in four successive, distinct locations as a response to both human and natural threats (Native and French aggression along with hurricanes), and like St. Augustine, was garrisoned by two infantry companies, joined by a cavalry company authorized in 1756 and established in 1759. Importantly, none of the Pensacola presidios were technically referred to by the name "Florida" until the British formally combined the two in 1763, after which the Spanish subsequently maintained these designations during the Second Spanish Period (1781/1783-1821)
Among a number of secondary military outposts established across eastern Florida during these two centuries (including a very short-lived outpost of Pensacola at St. Joseph Bay c. 1701-1702), the 1718 establishment of a fully garrisoned fort at the port of San Marcos de Apalache (modern St. Marks south of Tallahassee) effectively created a third presidial settlement for the last 45 years of the First Spanish Period, even though it was staffed and administered as an outpost of St. Augustine (though commonly supplied from Havana).
Of all these presidial settlements, St. Augustine made the most substantial progress toward becoming a more "normal" colonial city, with substantial nonmilitary population and social and economic activity. Santa Elena would likely have evolved in the same direction had it not been abandoned in favor of St. Augustine in 1587. The Pensacola presidios retained their predominantly military character through most of their history, although the number of nonmilitary settlers did grow over time, particularly after the 1756 relocation to the final site of San Miguel on the mainland of Pensacola Bay. San Marcos de Apalache, however, remained strictly a garrisoned fort throughout its existence.
East Florida
What was later designated as "East Florida" by British colonial authorities after 1763 actually was Spanish Florida between 1565 and 1698, and it remained the presidio of San Agustín de la Florida, or sometimes simply Florida, even while a de facto western Florida presidio existed concurrently at a series of four successive locations between 1698 and 1763 (see West Florida below). Within the region of eastern Spanish Florida, San Agustín (St. Augustine) was the sole garrisoned port settlement between 1587 and 1718, but two additional coastal garrisons (Santa Elena and San Marcos) also coexisted with St. Augustine both before and after that period, as described below.
San Agustín / Santa Elena / San Marcos
San Agustín de la Florida (1565-present)
While actually the fourth formal settlement attempted by the Spanish on the coast of southeastern North America (see the Settlement page for details on the 1521 Ponce de León expedition, the 1526 Lúcas Vázquez de Ayllón expedition, and the 1559 Tristán de Luna expedition that all preceded St. Augustine), San Agustín de la Florida was the first successful and ultimately permanent colonial port town established by Spain in the entire United States. It was initially established at the location now known as the Fountain of Youth archaeological site in 1565, then subsequently transferred across the harbor in 1566 to an as-yet undiscovered bay-side location near the northern end of Anastasia Island, and finally back to a new location just south of the Fountain of Youth in 1572, where it remains today as modern-day downtown St. Augustine.
More information on St. Augustine's history and archaeology can be found on the external site here.
Santa Elena (1566-1587)
The coastal port settlement of Santa Elena was established by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1566, the year after he founded St. Augustine, representing the fulfilment of the primary goal originally assigned to Tristán de Luna y Arellano just 7 years earlier. Santa Elena was inhabited for ten years before a widespread uprising by local Native Americans in the provinces of Orista and Guale led to the settlement's destruction by fire in 1576. After the uprising was pacified and peaceful relations re-established, the settlement was rebuilt in 1577 and continued to be occupied until 1587, when it was abandoned as part of the plan to consolidate the two Florida settlements into just one at St. Augustine.
More information on Santa Elena's history and archaeology can be found on the external site here.
San Marcos de Apalache (1679-1682, 1718-1769)
Though only an outpost to presidio San Agustín, this small port began to be used regularly for maritime traffic between the Apalachee mission province and Havana and St. Augustine as early as 1637, but it wasn't until 1679 that a stockaded fort was constructed here, then burned in a short-lived pirate raid in 1681. After the abandonment of the entire Apalachee province following its destruction by Creek and English raiders in 1704, the fort was re-established as a more isolated garrison in 1718 to facilitate Spanish interaction and trade with the Lower Creeks in modern Georgia and Alabama, who had rebelled against the English during the 1715 Yamasee War. Beginning in the 1730s, construction on a much larger stone fort was initiated, but this project was never completed, leaving only one bastion and some interior structures constructed. San Marcos remained as the only military outpost between St. Augustine and Pensacola through Spanish withdrawal in 1764, but was abandoned by occupying British forces in 1769.
West Florida
While the official designation of "West Florida" was only bestowed by the British after they took over in 1763 (and maintained by the Spanish after their formal return in 1783), the Spanish military presence here was always focused on Pensacola Bay, save for a brief interval between 1719 and 1722 when French forces captured (twice), burned, and then briefly occupied the Santa María presidio. Apart from its remote western location with respect to the original colony of Florida, which had only spread as far west as the Apalachee province and the port at San Marcos (both near present-day Tallahassee), what distinguished the West Florida presidios is that they were administered and supplied directly from New Spain, unlike St. Augustine and its satellites in East Florida, which were far more directly connected to Havana and Spain itself than to New Spain (though all of its cash stipend and much of its supply also came from New Spain).
More information on Pensacola's colonial history and archaeology can be found on the external site here.
Santa María / San Joseph / Santa Rosa / San Miguel
Santa María de Galve (1698-1719)
Presidio Santa María de Galve was established as a bulwark against French colonial expansion into Spanish Florida from the west, which first became likely after the 1682 entry of Robert Cavalier Sieur de La Salle into the Gulf of Mexico through the mouth of the Mississippi River, and especially after his abortive attempt to establish a settlement on the Texas coast between 1685 and 1688. Surviving a period of prolonged beseigement by English-allied Creek Indians during the years before the 1715 Yamasee War, Santa María was ultimately conquered by French forces from Mobile twice during 1719, and burned to the ground.
Bahia de San Joseph (1719-1722)
Although this bay had been the location of a small, short-lived outpost (vijia) subordinate to Santa María de Galve during 1701 and 1702, it was later reoccupied as the second formal site of the Pensacola garrison itself. During the interval between the 1719 French destruction of Santa María and the re-establishment of the Pensacola Bay presidio at a new location on Santa Rosa Island in 1722-1723, Spanish forces transferred the entire presidio settlement to St. Joseph Bay not far west of the recently-established San Marcos.
Isla de Santa Rosa, Punta de Sigüenza (1722-1756)
After peace was restored between France and Spain, French representatives delivered the site of old Santa María de Galve to the Spanish, and a new presidio was established across the bay near the western end of Santa Rosa Island, which would provide a water barrier to any future attacks from the mainland. The garrison was relocated, and the San Joseph presidio was dismantled and transferred over the course of several months between late 1722 and 1723. The new presidio, named Isla de Santa Rosa, Punta de Sigüenza, remained in this location for more than three decades, weathering a series of hurricanes in its exposed island location until a pair of devastating storms nearly annihilated the settlement in 1752.
San Miguel de Panzacola ([1740/1754] 1756-present)
The presidio of San Miguel de Panzacola (initially also known as San Miguel de las Amarillas) was officially designated as the replacement for the previous presidio of Isla de Santa Rosa in 1756, but the location on which it was established had actually been occupied by a small number of Spanish soldiers guarding a mainland warehouse since 1740, augmented by hundreds of soldiers and their families who had already been granted permission to start moving there in 1754 from the island site of Santa Rosa after the 1752 hurricanes. Though it was the last of three presidio locations on Pensacola Bay, San Miguel de Panzacola actually represented the final and permanent European colonial settlement at what is still known today as downtown Pensacola.