JOHN H. HANN COLLECTION AT UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA / COPYRIGHT 2003 JOHN H. HANN
ABUSES OF ACTING GOVERNOR JUAN DE AYALA AND TREASURER JOSEPH PEDROSA AND ABOUT
THE FRENCH AT ST. JOSEPH BAY
Antonio de Benavides to the king, St. Augustine, August 12, 1718. AGI, SD 843, SC, 14 pp.
Note in the wide left margin of p. 1 .
The governor of Florida gives an account to Y.M. about having given fulfillment to four dispatches and two letters
from fray Alonso San Puajo and Don vicente Roja in which they explain to Y.M. that various excesses had been
committed in this Presidio. And after having established that they were correct, he ordered Don Juan de Ayala and
Don Joseph Pedrosa suspended from their employments.
And likewise about the new settlement of Apalache.
As also about the bay of St. Joseph’s being already occupied by the French. And generally about
everything whatsoever that has come to his knowledge that can possibly touch upon or pertain to the Royal Service.
Sire
I am giving account to Y.M. about four dispatches that I received: the first, of the tenth of November of last year, in
which Y.M. orders me not to permit the introduction of foreign goods into the territory of his jurisdiction. And I
will see to it with respect to the aforementioned prohibition with the most special care...... / p. 2......
And with respect to the excesses that Don Vicente Raja and fray Alonso San Jurgo Montenegro advised
Y.M. about of having been committed in this Presidio by sergeant-major Don Juan de Ayala and by Don Joseph
Pedrosa, treasurer, about trading activity and illicit introductions and other abuses in great disservice to Y. M. and
harmful for the Indians, officers, and soldiers. And after having established that they were correct, I ordered their
suspension from their employments on an interim basis for Don Juan de Ayala and Don Joseph Pedrosa until Y.M.
may order that which suits his Royal pleasure, adding to this that the sergeant-major is eighty-five years old and that
Don Joseph Pedrosa has been away from this Presidio in Havana for six months, attending to his own conveniences,
without leaving a lieutenant to attend to the things that come up in this countinqhouse that pertain to the Royal
Service. I have given the command of sergeant-major to Don Francisco Rome s.r, Captain Comandante of this garrison, and the employment as treasurer to the retired captain, Don Joseph Urisa, a very close relative of the
Accountant, Don Francisco Menendez. And while keeping the great improprieties in mind that could arise because of this relationship, nevertheless it has been necessary for me to name him because of their being no other person who could serve in this countinghouse.....
Sire, from the two attached letters from the cavalry captain, Don Joseph Primo de Rivera, dated the twenty- eighth of April and third of August of this year, sent to the sergeant-major Don Juan de Ayala, Y.M. will see the state of the new settlement of the place of San Marcos in the province of Apalache, which I will go to reconnoiter as soon as I have taken some measures in this Castillo that are very necessary. And until I have seen all of it and experienced what these natives are like, I shall not truly be able to inform Y.M. about anything more that what these two letters speak to. For to increase the expenditures of the Royal treasury without utility nor hope of reducing these barbarians to the Catholic Religion would be levity on my part after the fashion of the reports that those who make up this Junta are making to Y.M.
Keeping in mind, Sire, the order that I brought from Y.M., Don Pedro Fullana for constructing a fort of full opposition for the greater protection and security of these provinces, it has appeared very appropriate to me that Don
Bruno Cauallero, Head Engineer for the Presidio of Havana, should come over to reconnoiter that province, with its being certain that, under the shadow of a fortification the Indians will fight (contendran) and the settlements that are made there will be secured. And that these should consist for now of families from Galicia or from the Canary
Islands because of the application to labor that they have / p. 4 with its being possible to benefit from the fertility of that country by the third year. And I do not doubt that with their good correspondence with the Spanish families the friendly intercourse with the Indians will be so much greater. Keeping in mind, Sire, that a great deal of money is necessary for all of this with little or no benefit for the Royal treasury for some years. May Y.M. order that which meets with his Royal pleasure and service. For I have always desired to have occasions in which to sacrifice my life, as I have done in as many as have come up during the last twenty-five years.
I will speak also, Sire, about the letter of Don Joseph Primo de Rivera about the French having occupied the Bay of St. Joseph thirty-five leagues distant from St. Marks. And this report is confirmed by fifteen deserters from the garrison of a wooden redoubt with five cannons which they have built and a warehouse with munitions and provisions and fifty men. And after having examined these fifteen well, who have been in this presidio for forty-
2 four days, they said that the motive for their desertion and that the thirty-five soldiers who remained and the officers feared that the Spaniards would dislodge them from there. That they were awaiting another fifty soldiers as reinforcements. And I do not doubt that they will increase greatly in strength if they are not cast out soon. For their forces will be greater with time. I have given the viceroy of New Spain account about all of this, so that with the knowledge of it, he may take the necessary measures
In the other letter with the plan of the fortification, he says, Sire, that he has already finished it. And on asking the officers of this garrison if the land where he has built the redoubt was good, those who had knowledge of it said about it that it was very sick (emfermo) because of the most of its being / p, 5 ano inundated. And that in the
Junta that was held for this fortification, it was left up to the choice that Don Joseph de Rivera would make. They also say, Sire, there is no good port in all those surrounding areas except for the one of St. Joseph, which is already occupied and that most or all are bars with very little water and only sloops are able to enter up to the said fort and
[only] not loaded very much.
There is also a great lack, Sire, of religious doctrineros. Thus, for the ten Indian villages that there are already reduced in the areas surrounding this Presidio and which are being added to from other additional provinces, there are only five friars for instructing them well in the religion. They are few. And for the settlement of
Apalachee to have a good outcome, it will be very necessary for them to come from those Kingdoms on the first occasion that there is for a vessel going to Havana or directly to this Presidio with the families accompanying these hundred soldiers. And eight hundred rifles (fuziles), three hundred mattocks and plowshares for ploughing for working the lands. A good quantity of powder and rifle balls. Some red and blue cloths, a great deal of firewater and flour. All this, Sire, is necessary in order to obtain the goodwill of the Indians and for Y. M. to be the one most esteemed in the giving of gifts that the French practice along with the English, for which there are utilized by this means the kissing-stones, beaver-cloth, deerskins and of buffalo (dezibora). May God preserve L. C the Royal
Person of Y. M. as Christendom requires. St. Augustine of Florida, 12th of August of 1718.
The Gov. Dn Ant.o de Benavides
[Ten pages of Autos follow.]
John H. Hann
February 25, 2003 and revised and retyped, July 28, 2003
Bureau of Archaeological Research
3
Antonio de Benavides, September 24, 1718
Auto p. 1
...abuses that were committed during the time that Juan de Ayala governed in this Presidio of illicit trades with the
English and heathen and Christian Indians and especially of having given permission to all the soldiers whom Don
Vicente Raja, Governor of Havana, sent with the Captain Don Juan de Ayala, without considering the grave improprieties that could follow from the scant garrisoning of it and that the company alluded to came because of a petition (representacion) that Juan de Ayala made to that government that he had had notice that the English corsair had made arrangement to come to invade this plaza. [The governor then orders the questioning of all the appropriate persons to establish this]. p. 2
Statement by Don Francisco Romero de Luxita, September 24, 1718.
He states that he knows that Governor Don Vicente Raja of Havana told Ayala that he should take care because, in
Providence, corsairs were arming, composed of more than 1,000 men and that they did not know where they would strike and that Romero brought word from St. Jorge [Charles Town] that St. Augustine was their target. That Ayala asked for help from Havana and New Spain and that Raja soon sent as help a captain of infantry, who was Don Juan de Argotee with fifty men. But a short time after he came, he granted them leave for them to go and for others from those of St. Augustine had so that they might go to their houses.
And as to his trade with the English on the pretext of supplying St. Augustine with provisions, some sloops entered. And as to the heathen and Christian Indians who came from St. Jorge and entered here with Blacks and other things such as gold and silver jewelry, he knows that it all went on in the house of Juan de Ayala who traded for them when they brought them. And that since his lordship came, all those Indians with whom he had dealings have come to complain about the sergeant-major and are asking the governor to make Ayala pay them what he owes to them....
[signed] Francisco Romero de Urisa
4 Statement by Don Ignacio Rodriquez Roso
[It is largely in the same vein as the preceding one] and he says that the force from Cuba was in St. Augustine for six or seven months and that the Captain Don Juan de Ayala, who had come with them, died and that he discharged all fifty of them and others and that, while he was governing, more then twenty sloops came under the false pretense of bringing provisions for the soldiers. But that he saw public shops (tiendas publicas) abounding in prohibited goods and that he traded for blacks that he obtained from Indians but that he did not pay the Indians for them.
[Four more soldiers testified in the same vein. They were Adjutant Christoval Nunez de Esquivel, Gaspar de
Santiago, Ensign Joseph Roso and Ensign Juan Luis Mejia.]
/ p. 12
Ensign Juan Solana certifies on September 29, 1718 that the adjutant Grabiel (sic) Alvares, Cavalry Colonel...said that on the occasion that he went to St. / p. 13 Jorge to bring the Englishmen there who sold a sloop in St. Augustine, he carried a letter from Ayala to the English governor telling him of the French presence at St. Joseph’s Bay and that eleven Frenchmen fled to St. Augustine, fleeing the labor there and they testified that in Movila the French were preparing arms with the French-allied Indians to attack the Indians allied with the English, who are the Chiques and
Echalaques.... And at his command / p. 14 I certify how [while] conversing with Captain Bernardo Nieto de Carvajal about the latest news that the Yamasee Cacique Jospo brought, who had come from the places of Apalachecolo. Ase
[Thus ?] the said captain said how the said Graviel Alvares had told him that, if perchance this latest news that the said cacique had brought, proceeded from the letter that the Governor Don Juan de Ayala wrote to the governor of
St. Jorge. And that he had replied to the said adjutant Graviel Alvares that no, because what he had written to the governor of St. Jorge had been to tell him that the French were very close already and that they were settling on the
Bay of St. Joseph and that they were seeking to bring all the Indians over to their side and that Governor Juan de
Ayala had replied to the English governor thanking him for the news he had given to him.
[My following hand-written notes appear to he from a different document. At the top is my note] “32 pp. in all.”
[and then] p. 9 [from Juan de Ayala on Rivera’s trip to Apalache to build the fort.]
5 ...Joseph Primo de Rivera in whom all together we have full confidence to give him a business (negocio) of such great / p. 10 importance (? empeno) ....to erect the building for the garrison....and decided on in the junta inasmuch as the Great General...called Taliscasliche took part in it and the Cacique Adrian Christian of Bacgua ...with his interpreter.
[Its later pages have detailed instructions to Rivera on how to proceed with the building of the fort.]
John H. Hann
July 28, 2003
Bureau of Archaeological Research
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