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Life in Mid-Eighteenth Century St. Augustine on the Eve of Evacuation

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Life in Mid-Eighteenth Century St. Augustine on the Eve of Evacuation Between Two Empires: Life in Mid-Eighteenth Century St. Augustine on the Eve of Evacuation by T.E. Bryant A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Liberal Arts in Florida Studies College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida St. Petersburg Major Professor: Dr. J. Michael Francis, Ph.D. Adrian O’Connor, Ph.D. Erica Heinsen-Roach, Ph.D. Date of Approval: June 19. 2017 Keywords: 1764 Evacuation, Florida, Spanish Empire, Diversity, Property Ownership Copyright © 2017, T.E. Bryant Acknowledgments Writing a thesis is an arduous journey and many people have supported me along the way. First and foremost I want to thank my primary advisor, Dr. J. Michael Francis. Dr. Francis’ constant support and mentorship enabled me to thrive at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. I hope that my future students will respect me as much as I respect Dr. Francis. I would also like to thank Dr. Adrian O’Connor and Dr. Erica Heinsen-Roach for their support and advice. They were more than willing to join my thesis committee and their help has been invaluable. William and Hazel Hough’s love of Florida history is truly amazing, as is their passion in aiding aspiring historians. Their support allowed me to spend three summers studying in the Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain. Graduate school is difficult and it takes a community of friends and colleagues to succeed. In no particular order, I want to thank Jeffery Arnold, Gabby Pillucere, Rachel Sanderson, Kate Godfrey, Maria Wilhelmy, Clinton Hough, Robert Landry, Ayla Hatadis, Pieter Craig, Jackie Inman, Leah Hart, and Hannah Tweet for their friendship and support. The USFSP’s faculty and staff cannot be given enough credit for their hard work. Specifically, I want to thank Dr. Raymond Arsenault, Dr. Christopher Meindl, Daun Fletcher, Veronica Matthews, and Sudsy Tschiderer for their help and encouragement. The staff at the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library, the Archive of the Indies, the Archive of the Naval Museum of Madrid, and the St. Augustine Historical Society were crucial to the completion of this thesis. Lastly, and certainly the most important, I want to thank my family. My parents, Julie and Jill, have always supported me through the ups and downs of life. Their unconditional love allows me to pursue my dream with abandon. My brother and sister, Jason and Katie, are my constant cheerleaders. My family makes my defeats endurable and my successes even sweeter. This thesis is a tribute to their support. i Table of Contents List of Tables ii List of Figures iii Abstract v Introduction 1 Chapter Two: Abandoning the Last Bastion 11 Chapter Three: The People of St. Augustine 45 Chapter Four: Where They Lived 69 Epilogue 97 Works Cited 102 Reference Bibliography 111 Appendices 117 Appendix 1: Maps of St. Augustine 118 Appendix 2: Additional Tables 121 ii List of Tables Table 4.1: Property Owners on the Crown’s Payroll 82 Table 4.2: Military, Church, and City Administrators Who Owned Coquina Stone Buildings in 1764 83 Table 4.3: Manuela Díaz’s and Juan de Landa’s House Appraisal 92 Table A1: St. Augustine’s Evacuation Vessels 1763-1764 121 Table A2: Domingo Cardoso’s Slave Family 126 Table A3: Women Property Owners in 1764 127 Table A4: Fifty-three Canary Islander Militiamen as of 1764 132 Table A5: St. Augustine’s Black Militia Members in 1764 134 Table A6: Compañía de Fucileros de Montaña de América (1764) 137 Table A7: Military Regiments, Royal Administration, and Church Officials Evacuating St. Augustine in 1763-1764 139 Table A8: Confirmed St. Augustine Black Property Owners in 1764 140 Table A9: Unconfirmed St. Augustine Black Property Owners in 1764 141 Table A10: The 1764 Evacuation Committee 144 iii List of Figures Figure 2.1: Article VII of the Treaty of Madrid (1670) 15 Figure 2.2: Early Carolina, 1565-1733 16 Figure 2.3: James Oglethorpe's invasion of St. Augustine according to British mapmakers in 1740 18 Figure 2.4: Article XIX of the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau in French and English 23 Figure 2.5: Bernard Gordon’s baptismal entry 36 Figure 2.6: The number of British transactions according to Puente’s receipts from June to July, 1764 41 Figure 2.7: British investment in pesos 42 Figure 3.1: Summary table from the royal 1764 census 47 Figure 3.2: Black births 1735-1763 52 Figure 3.3: Fugitive Carolinian baptisms 52 Figure 3.4: Black baptisms 1735-1763 54 Figure 3.5: Baptized blacks previous place of origin: 1735-1763 55 Figure 3.6: Canary Islanders evacuees 60 Figure 3.7: Canary Islander fields surrounding St. Augustine by 1763 62 Figure 3.8: 1764 royal census 65 Figure 4.1: St. Augustine’s plaza mayor in 1764 and the buildings surrounding it 71 iv List of Figures Continued Figure 4.2: St. Augustine’s surrounding countryside in 1763 73 Figure 4.3: Building Composition Comparison 80 Figure 4.4: Confirmed black property owners 86 Figure 4.5: Don Juan Pescador’s house 94 Map 1: Don Juan Joseph Elixio de la Puente 1764 Property Map 118 Map 2: Pablo Castello 1763 Map 119 Map 3: 1769 don Juan Joseph Eligio de la Puente Map 120 v Abstract St. Augustine’s 1763-64 evacuation was a ten-month event that ended Spain’s two hundred year rule in Florida. A careful review of Spanish records produced during the evacuation reveals that mid-eighteenth century St. Augustine was a cosmopolitan city, where immigration was a key component to social mobility. St. Augustine’s role as Spain’s bastion against the expanding British North American colonies meant that the city was a key piece in British and Spanish imperial maneuvering. Both St. Augustine’s strategic location and military function allowed diversity to flourish in the city. St. Augustine’s diverse community adapted to the constant immigration by developing intricate kinship networks that allowed both newcomers and Florida-born criollos to elevate and secure their social standing. St. Augustine’s residents used religious and legal institutions to express their agency by transforming physical spaces into safe spaces that protected them from Crown authority. In short, St. Augustine was a diverse, dynamic, city with tight connections to the Atlantic world; an idea that challenges traditional narratives that depict the city as an impoverished and isolated military outpost. 1 Introduction “His Catholic Majesty cedes and guaranties…to His Britannick Majesty, all that Spain possesses on the Continent of North America, to the East, or to the South East, of the River Mississippi.” - 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau1 When the galleon Our Lady of Sorrow departed from St. Augustine, Florida, on January 21, 1764, it carried the settlement’s last remaining Spanish residents into Cuban exile. Another seven ships had departed earlier that day with the same mission, but the Sorrow’s passengers included the town’s governor, don Melchor Feliú.2 With his departure, Spain’s two hundred-year presence in Florida came to an abrupt end.3 Spanish Florida was a casualty of the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau, a treaty designed to remedy the damages France, England, and Spain inflicted upon each other during the Seven Years War. In the treaty, the British agreed to return Havana, a city they had captured three months prior to the treaty’s ratification, to Spanish rule. In exchange, the British demanded sovereignty over Spain's colonial possessions south and southeast of the 1 “Preliminary articles of peace between His Britannick Majesty, the Most Christian King and the Catholick King signed at Fontainebleau, the 3d day of November, 1762,” (London: Printed by E. Owen and T. Harrison ..., 1762), 15. 2 “Razon de las familias blancas y morenas que a pedimento piedad y quenta del Yll(mo) Señor don Pedro Augustin Morel y Santa Cruz, Dignissimo obispo de esta Ysla, se transportaron del presidio de San Augustin de la Florida a esta ciudad en los Barcos que abajo se expresaran con declaración de sus capitanes día en que partieron de aquella barra y numero de personas que trajo cada uno y son a saver” Archivo General de Indias [hereafter AGI], Seville, Spain. Santo Domingo 2660, fol. 43. 3 To put Spain’s possession of Florida into perspective, as of the date of this study, the United States of America’s ownership of Florida is still shorter than the First Spanish Period. 2 Mississippi River, that is, all of Spanish Florida. The Spanish were eager to regain their most prized possession in the Caribbean and therefore agreed to the terms. Fortunately, for the residents of St. Augustine, the British gave them a choice. The city’s inhabitants could remain or they could choose exile. Under the terms of the treaty, the British guaranteed that those who remained could continue to practice Catholicism. Those who chose to abandon St. Augustine were granted eighteen months following the treaty’s ratification to leave the city.4 Most of St. Augustine’s residents chose exile. In early 1764, the Spanish Crown commissioned a detailed census, including a map of all properties and property owners at the time of abandonment. The census reveals that 3,096 people evacuated Florida.5 St. Augustine was virtually empty. The ensuing evacuation of St. Augustine lasted about ten months and produced a wealth of information about the city and its inhabitants. The 1764 evacuation is treated as a defining event in the history of Spanish Florida, as indeed it punctuated the end of the First Spanish Period.6 In St. Augustine’s historiography, it is used as a gateway to understand what St.
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