University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2015 Persons, Houses, and Material Possessions: Second Spanish Period St. Augustine Society Daniel Velasquez University of Central Florida Part of the Public History Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Velasquez, Daniel, "Persons, Houses, and Material Possessions: Second Spanish Period St. Augustine Society" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 1256. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1256 PERSONS, HOUSES, AND MATERIAL POSSESSIONS: SECOND SPANISH PERIOD ST. AUGUSTINE SOCIETY by DANIEL VELÁSQUEZ B.A. Harriett Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University, 2012 A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Summer Term 2015 Major Professor: Anne Lindsay ABSTRACT St. Augustine in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was a prosperous, multi-ethnic community that boasted trade connections throughout the Atlantic world. Shipping records demonstrate that St. Augustine had access to a wide variety of goods, giving residents choices in what they purchased, and allowing them to utilize their material possessions to display and reinforce their status. Likewise, their choice of residential design and location allowed them to make statements in regards to their place in the social order. St. Augustine was a unique city in the Spanish Empire; the realities of frontier living meant that inter-ethnic connection were common and often necessary for survival and social advancement. Inhabitants enjoyed a high degree of social mobility based on wealth rather than ethnicity or place of origin. Through entrepreneurship and hard work, many St. Augustinians took advantage of the city’s newfound prosperity and fluid social structure to better their economic and societal position. In sum, St. Augustine in the Second Spanish Period (1783-1821) was not a city in decay as the traditional historiography holds; rather, it was a vibrant community characterized by a frontier cosmopolitanism where genteel aspirations and local realities mixed to define the social order. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER TWO .......................................................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER THREE ...................................................................................................................... 66 APPENDIX A: TIMELINE OF MAJOR EVENTS ..................................................................... 89 APPENDIX B: 1793 CENSUS OF ST. AUGUSTINE TRANSCRIPTION ............................... 92 APPENDIX C: LIBRARY INVENTORIES TRANSCRIPTION AND TRANSLATION ....... 122 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 131 Primary Sources ...................................................................................................................... 131 Secondary Sources .................................................................................................................. 131 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Map of St. Augustine in 1788. ...................................................................................... 13 Figure 2: Basilica Cathedral of St. Augustine .............................................................................. 48 Figure 3: Interior of the St. Augustine Cathedral ......................................................................... 49 Figure 4: Drawing of the Saint Francis Barracks .......................................................................... 50 Figure 5: Part of the Plan and Elevation of the British Pile of Barracks ...................................... 52 Figure 6: Drawing of a View of the Government House .............................................................. 54 Figure 7: Restored Ximenez-Fatio House..................................................................................... 61 Figure 8: "The Oldest House" ....................................................................................................... 75 iv INTRODUCTION “One man must be enough to set fire to all at one run,” wrote engineer Manuel de Hita in his recommendations for new construction in St. Augustine in 1807.1 He urged that masons should only erect new buildings adjacent to the road, to enable one person to swiftly burn down any structures that might otherwise provide artillery cover to an invading force. Throughout St. Augustine’s existence as a Spanish town, it faced a constant threat of invasion from the north, first by the British colonies and later by the United States. Despite living under uncertain conditions, the people of St. Augustine created a flourishing society during the last decades of Spanish rule. As trade with American and Caribbean ports expanded in the Second Spanish Period (1783-1821), the city was able to grow beyond the financial limits of the royal support payments, or situado.2 Furthermore, Florida’s previous tenure as a British colony and immigration during the Second Spanish Period resulted in a high degree of urban ethnic diversity. These factors combined to make St. Augustine wealthier and more economically stable in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries than ever before under Spanish rule. As both a relatively busy port city and a fringe settlement in the Spanish borderlands, this study contends that life in St. Augustine is best explained by understanding this dichotomy. It is important to illuminate St. Augustine’s Second Spanish Period society in order to dispel the notion prevalent in the historiography that, in essence, describes the city as a sleepy town in decay. That interpretation of this period in Florida’s history developed between the 1 Manuel de Hita to Governor Enrique White, April 1, 1807, East Florida Papers, Reel 162, St. Augustine Historical Society and Research Library, St. Augustine, FL (hereinafter SAHS). 2 The situado would continue to be important as the main influx of money into Spanish Florida; however, St. Augustinians often circumvented its irregularity during the Second Spanish Period as the colony’s economy became increasingly more diverse. See James Gregory Cusick, “Across the Border Commodity Flow and Merchants in Spanish St. Augustine,” Florida Historical Quarterly 69, no. 3 (January 1991): 277-99; and Amy Turner Bushnell, Situado and Sabana: Spain's System for the Presidio and Mission Provinces of Florida (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994). 1 1940s and 1960s as part of the Consensus history trend that tended to emphasize and celebrate American exceptionalism at the expense of other stories in America’s diverse past.3 Historians of the period viewed Florida’s Spanish past merely as a staging ground for the eventual American takeover. St. Augustinians, however, were not a dormant people awaiting the liberating forces of Andrew Jackson in 1821. This study demonstrates that St. Augustinians were in fact a shrewd and industrious people who took their destinies into their own hands. As the capital of East Florida, a land physically and demographically wedged between an old, monarchical empire and a young, democratic nation, St. Augustine was a unique city that featured trade and cultural connections throughout the Atlantic world. In order to paint a more complete picture of life in this settlement, this study provides a vantage point on the social order of the city by illuminating the characteristics that defined the diverse community that developed between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. St. Augustine’s society became increasingly complex during this time, as the new economic prosperity and multiethnic population in Spanish Florida had important social ramifications. Although traditional ethnic and racial factors still held sway, wealth gradually developed as the most decisive element of both social division and social mobility.4 Consequently, entrepreneurship and business savvy were significant factors that determined a person’s potential for advancement. 3 See Charles Loch Mowat, East Florida as a British Province (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1943, reprint, 1964); Robert L. Gold, “The Settlement of East Florida Spaniards in Cuba, 1763-1766,” Florida Historical Quarterly 42 (January 1964), 222; Wilbur H. Siebert, “The Departure of the Spaniards and Other Groups from East Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly 19 (October 1940), 146; and the more recent synthesis, still a commonly used reference for Florida History, Charlton W. Tebeau and William Marina, A History of Florida (Coral