Spanish Missions, Raids, Sieges, and International Wars

The Spanish goal was to persuade the native people to accept Catholicism. That way the natives could have allegiance to the king of Spain. However, there was a royal contract that was given to Florida's founder, Menéndez de Avilés, which included the. obligation to bring clergymen to instruct the native people in the faith of Christianity. Florida had what we call the mission era. It started in 1567 and ended in 1705. The mission era lasted 138 years. The system in which the king allowed certain colonists to recruit natives for forced labor, which would be 45 days out of the year, was called repartimiento. There were about 11 Indian people in about 80 mission centers. The oldest mission in Florida was Mission Nombre de Dios. It was located in St. Augustine. The mission was to bring the Christian faith to the native people. St. Augustine has turned the mission center into a museum, but sadly it is permanently closed. There was a British colony that was a threat to the missions, it was the Carolina colony. Because of this colony, the Spanish started building stone Castillo at St. Augustine. The Carolina colony teamed up with the local natives to attack the Apalachees’ natives. In 1668, a captain named Robert Searles led 100 murderous buccaneers on a midnight raid through St. Augustine. They kidnapped women and children for ransom. From the rise in violence, the Spanish got funds to create a stone fort to protect St. Augustine. The construction of the fort began in 1672 and finished in 1695. This fort is called Castillo de San Marcos. In 1702, Governor Moore led an army of 1,200 men against the Spaniards in St. Augustine. The Governor of the Spaniards had moved people and food into the fort and sent soldiers to round up cattle and walk them through the streets. This scared the British soldiers and they went into hiding. The Spanish relief force arrived and trapped the Carolina ships, they forced Moore to end the siege. In 1715, the Carolina colony was attacked by Native Americans. It was led by Yamassee warriors. Between 1723 and 1728, the English waged war on the Yamassee, destroying their villages. In 1727, an epidemic hit St. Augustine and claimed the lives of about 500 Yamassee. More lives were claimed from a raid on Mission Nombre de Dios in 1728. The weakness of Spain’s defense in Florida was evident in 1739. Britain declared war on Spain, which we now call the War of Jenkin’s Ear. By 1742, this war had evolved into a wider conflict, known as the War of Austrian Succession. in 1742, the Spanish landed 400 men from Florida and 1,300 from Cuba, through unfamiliar and swampy terrain, the Spanish soldiers were ambushed and had mass casualties, this became known as the Battle of Bloody Marsh. The population of Florida was slowly rising during the peaceful years, following 1748. During the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), Havana was captured by English troops. In 1763, Florida was exchanged for Cuba, in the Treaty of Paris. Englishmen started to arrive in 1763, they called themselves the Seminoles.