2 years, 3 months, 4 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary

Excerpts from The governorship of Spanish Florida, 1700-1763 by John Jay TePaske (1929-2007), a leading scholar of colonial Latin America, Duke University Press, 1964, recounted in Historic City News.

   Sole means of support for Florida came from an annual subsidy which before 1702 was paid from the royal treasury in Mexico City. That situado was variously late or never sent from New Spain (Mexico), and embroiled in politics.

   In 1702 the persistent complaints of the governor of Florida finally brought about a change. Philip V ordered that the annual Florida grant be paid from the sales taxes of Puebla de los Angeles, situated southeast of Mexico City.

   Half of every subsidy had to be in specie. Arrangements were also made to remit annually twenty-five percent in specie over and above the regular subsidy to retire debts owed from past subsidies.

   It did not take long for other abuses to reappear. In 1716 and 1717, a delay of twenty-one months in remitting the subsidy cut the daily ration to less than two pounds of flour - this for soldiers with large families.

   In 1735 Governor Francisco del Moral Sanchez pointed out that merchants in Puebla made a fifty percent profit on all goods shipped to Florida. In 1735 and again in 1736 Governor Moral advocated that the entire subsidy be remitted to Florida in hard money. This would enable him to bargain for supplies more advantageously in Havana, Yucatan, or Vera Cruz.

   On the surface, the proposal appeared sound, but Moral's motives were less than noble. Under his rule Saint Augustine had become a center of illicit trade with the English, an almost unpardonable Spanish colonial offense.

   Governor Manuel de Montiano, who succeeded to the governorship in 1737, shocked the king and the Council of the Indies with the news that the Bishop in Puebla owed his colony 530,140 pesos.

   In 1744 Montiano advocated that the plight of those serving under him could only be alleviated by free trade with English colonies in America. He was, of course, aware of the laws against such a trade, but in his opinion, the only salvation for Florida lay in such a plan.

   To circumvent the religious damage which might result from trade with English heretics, the governor suggested that all exchanges be made on Santa Anastasia Island across the river from Saint Augustine. In this way he could insure the residents of the town against contamination by Protestant sailors.

   In the end, too much depended upon the annual grant from New Spain. The most outstanding fact of all, however, is that the Spaniards were able to maintain their foothold in Florida in the face of these almost insurmountable economic difficulties.

   Perennially short of food and money and without an income from trade, mining, or farming to supplement aid from Cuba and New Spain, the Spanish governor and his soldiers managed to withstand two attacks by superior forces (1702 and 1740) and ultimately to retain their precarious position in Florida. It is a tribute to Spanish enterprise and endurance that the colony survived at all.