Barrientos was a Salamanca University professor. Since he had not been in Florida, he relied on memorials, letters, decrees, and narratives.

The availability of such material on the founding of St. Augustine and their English translations has made this event one of the best known in Florida history. It's the result of work by several generations of students.

Excerpts from the Solis biography were printed for the first time in 1723, but 152 years passed before they were translated. The publication of the complete Solis manuscript followed the excerpts 170 years later, and the complete translation, another thirty.

Father Lopez's narrative, the source next published, came out 142 years after the excerpts, but fortunately was translated within ten years. Only one year intervened between publication of the Menendez letter in Spanish and in English. The translation, however, had been finished twenty-four years earlier.

The rest of Spanish Florida history could be as well known as the founding of St. Augustine were it not for the language barrier. The need, interest, and motivation are present, but inadequate linguistic knowledge often prevents direct investigation in the best Spanish sources.

The rich vein of data in the University of Florida's Stetson Collection and North Carolina's Spanish Records Collection waits to be tapped. At the same time, English translations are few and far between, and the lapse between availability of source material and workable translation is excessively long.

All this retards the growth of reasonably definite knowledge of an earlier phase of history, and it is Florida's pitiful loss.