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Volume XXX October, 1951 Number 2 CONTENTS Fort Pupo: A Spanish Frontier Outpost John M. Goggin Confederate Finance: A Documentary Study of a Proposal of David L. Yulee Arthur W. Thompson France to the Rescue: An Episode of the Florida Border, 1797 Richard K. Murdoch Book reviews: Chesnut, “A Diary from Dixie” Charles S. Davis Goggin, “Florida’s Indians” Regional and Local Historical Societies The Florida Historical Society Directors’ meeting New members W. T. Cash Contributors to this number of the Quarterly SUBSCRIPTION FOUR DOLLARS SINGLE COPIES ONE DOLLAR (Copyright, 1951, by the Florida Historical Society. Reentered as second class matter November 21, 1947, at the Post Office at Tallahassee, Florida. under the Act of August 24, 1912.) Office of publication, Tallahassee, Florida Published quarterly by THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Gainesville, Florida FORT PUPO: A SPANISH FRONTIER OUTPOST by JOHN M. GOGGIN From the viewpoint of anthropological analysis one of the most interesting aspects of the study of man is what happens when two cultures meet. When is there an integration of elements, and when an overwhelming of one culture by the other? Precisely what happened when the Spanish and Indians came together has been a fascinating subject of study by many archaeologists in Florida in recent years. It was exactly this problem which turned us from our study of the missions where Spanish priests and Indians came together to a consideration of the similar meeting of Spanish soldiers and Indians. Fort Pupo, being a small outpost, has been examined with the hope of shedding some light on this problem. Our historical and archeo- logical study, although limited, gives us information on this problem and also archeological evidence which parallels the historical accounts for the region. 1 The remains of Fort Pupo (Cl 10) are situated on the west bank of the St. Johns River about three miles south of Green Cove Springs, Clay County, Florida. 2 This is on the west side near the end of Bayard Point, a major promontory extending into the river opposite Picolata. At the present time the area is relatively unoccupied; a small fishing camp about a half mile south is the only nearby habitation. The site and surrounding 1. This is a contribution from the research program of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Florida, made possible by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc. (formerly The Viking Fund, Inc.) The Quarterly thanks the Foundation also for the cost of publication of the plates in this paper. We are grateful to John P. Hall, Green Cove Springs, owner of the site, for permission to make our excavations. This paper was facilitated in its preparation by the use of class reports on the site prepared by Eugene Miles (MS) and Donald Kokomoor (MS). The contour map of the site was prepared by Mr. Miles. The aid of the many students who participated in the excavations is gratefully acknowledged. 2. Cl 10 is the site number in the joint archeological site survey of the University of Florida and Florida State University. 140 FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY area are covered with a beautiful thick hammock of oak, mag- nolia, and other typical trees of the region. A visitor here for the first time is surprised at the magnitude of the small fort. Apparently, it once sat some distance back from the river but recent shore erosion has cut into the bank and even washed away part of the original structure. What was once a square earthwork is now a nested series of U-shaped moats and embankments opening into the river. The heavy covering of leaves and humus effectively hides any artifact trace of man, and only careful search along the eroded river bank reveals broken bits of Indian, Spanish, and English pottery. Nevertheless, as our excavations finally revealed, there are plentiful archeological data present to tell the story of man’s occupation here. Utilizing various Spanish and English 18th century maps, Eugene Miles attempted to locate Fort Pupo, using strictly historical source material. 3 In this he was quite successful because the location is very clearly depicted on several maps. Actually this was not a “discovery” in the sense of being something new that was not known before, since the fort has been mentioned by various writers since the time of John Bartram (Bartram, 1942. See Bibliography for all references to sources.) and its location is fairly accurately given in The Florida Guide (Federal Writers Project, 1940: 352). Nevertheless, it was a good field of problem and rediscovery working from early source materials. A series of small test excavations, made by Mr. Miles, around the earthwork produced mixed Spanish and Indian material substantiating the belief that the earthwork was really of Spanish construction and undoubtedly Fort Pupo. In the following summer the University of Florida Archeo- logical Field School visited the site, excavating a 5 by 15 foot 3. Mr. Miles’s work was carried out as part of a student research prob- lem at the University of Florida under the direction of the author in the spring of 1950 (Miles, MS). FORT PUPO: 141 trench, finding interesting material yielding valuable data. A preliminary analysis was prepared by Donald Kokomoor (MS). After the initial study, fruitful possibilities of more intensive work appeared so attractive that another series of excavations was made by the writer and a group of students on a week-end in April, 1951. This time a total of 12 five-foot squares was excavated to an average depth of 30 inches. Between our two periods of excavation, Mr. W. M. Jones, an amateur historian of Jacksonville, did some limited digging at the site, finding several large iron objects by means of an electronic metal locator. He has generously turned his material over to us for use in this study. The present paper represents a historical introduction to the site and a summary of the archeological findings. 4 A detailed and complete report on the latter will be included in a manu- script on the late archeology of the region that is now in prepara- tion (Goggin, MS). The summary presented here will spare the general reader many technical details necessary in the final report on the archeological aspect. HISTORY Spain’s Defense Problems Spain occupied Florida primarily for two important reasons: first to protect her shipping route through the Straits of Florida, 4. The writer is grateful to Mr. Albert C. Manucy of the National Park Service who aided by reading the historical section of the manuscript and in advising on the use of military terms. He also brought to my attention the Sanford Mace material at the University of Georgia. We are grateful to that institution and Mr. Wymberly W. De Renne, for sending photographs of the Mace drawings and transcripts of manuscript material from the Phillipps Collection to the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida. Special recognition is due Mrs. Margaret Davis Cate of Sea Island, Georgia, a long- time student of General Oglethorpe. It was through her interest that the manuscript material in the Phillipps Collection was first brought to Manucy’s attention, and thus to mine. She later very generously allowed me access to her full file of notes on General Oglethorpe in Florida. 142 FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY and second to bring Christianity to the numerous Indian inhabi- tants. For the first hundred years of settlement both aims were accomplished in a fairly successful fashion, although the colony was always poverty-stricken and many times was only barely existing. St. Augustine was established in 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles and thereafter was the seat of Spanish power in the colony. With the quick elimination of the Huguenots on the St. Johns, Florida’s entire defense program during its first hundred years was oriented toward hostility from the sea. Missionaries moved northwards along the coast, then westward reaching Potano (present Alachua County) by 1606, and moving into the Tallahassee region after 1633. In general this penetration was peaceful; often the priests traveled and lived alone, isolated from other Spaniards except for occasional contact with passing military patrols and less common visits with fellow priests and religious superiors. Indian troubles flared out in hostilities on a few occasions with some loss of life, but the revolts were quickly put down and apparently represented no major military problem to the administration. This seaward orientation of defenses was rudely by-passed in 1670 when the English settled at Charleston in Carolina. Even before this they had initiated contacts with Indians to the west, and the combination of English and Indians on the exposed northern frontier posed a serious threat on the Spanish flank. One response to this threat was the building of the first stone fort at St. Augustine, the present Castillo de San Marcos; a second, the construction of Fort San Marcos in the Apalachee Country, south of present Tallahassee; and a third, the main- tenance of a small outpost in Guale, on the Georgia coast, not far from the Carolinas themselves. Some time in the period shortly after 1700 there were also built two outposts opposite each other on the St. Johns River, Forts San Francisco de Pupo, FORT PUPO: 143 and Picolata. 5 They controlled the ferry crossing on the main east-west road across the province, and blocked possible enemy movement by water up the St. Johns. 6 Spanish apprehensions concerning the English were well founded, for the latter immediately formed alliances, based on trade, with the Creek Indians to the west. These they armed and encouraged to raid Indians and Spanish to the south.

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