THE OLDEST CITY'S HISTORY

First Spanish period: 1565 to 1763

The first Spanish period lasted almost 200 years.

Pre-Castillo years: 1565 to 1668.

On August 25, 1565, the same day that Juan Ribault arrived at Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St. Johns river (details)

the San Pelayo, flag ship of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Adelantado Governor and Captain General of Florida,

with four other ships and some six hundred people, including twenty-six women and their children,

dropped anchor in front of the small Indian village of Seloy. (details)(summary)

A few days later, on September 8, he set foot on land to take possession of Florida in name of the Spanish King,

renaming Seloy as Saint Augustine after his patron saint, the bishop of Hippo in Africa. (video)

The occasion was duly marked by Florida's first Catholic mass (details)led by chaplain Franciso Lopez.

The local Saturiba indians participated in the celebration, kneeling before the cross, kissing hands and enjoying

(or maybe not) the Spanish hardtack (details) (video)

Ribault planned to attack the new town by sea and sailed south in four ships.

At the same time Menendez and five hundred fighting men marched forty miles north and captured Fort Caroline,

renaming it San Mateo.

Unfortunately for the Huguenots the Ribault attack ended in disaster when their ships were wrecked and survivors

who had walked up to Anastasia Island where they were confronted by Menendez who had returned with a company of soldiers.

When the French surrenderedf Menendez had them killed.

The inlet south of Anastasia Island has been known ever since as Matatanzas (the slaughter, massacre, river of blood).

The city became a presidio depending on money and supplies from Spain.

The town specifications were issued by the King: A central plaza with major roads radiating from it

The population was mixed: Orginal Spanish settlers, Floridanos (born in Florida) and Mestizos (part Indian, part Spanish)

in addition to negroes and indians (details)

For almost 200 years the Spanish would occupy Saint Augustine.

It proved to be a trying time for most citizens, plagued by yellow fever, smallpox and measles,

and their town being attacked several times by corsairs and English troops.

On June 6, 1586, Francis Drake, the English corsair, with 42 vessels and 2000 men, sacked the town,

taking the coffer with the payroll and burning the town and fort.

The Spanish escaped with their lives, having fled to the woods. (details)(summary)

In 1668 another privateer, Captain Robert Searles attacked killing many citizens and taking 138 marks of silver.

He did not burn St. Augustine, which to the inhabitants meant one thing: they would be back! (details)(summary)

Searles did not come back, but his raid and the threat of English colonization of the Carolinas

(Charles Town, now Charleston, was founded in 1670) led to the building of the Castillo de San Marcos starting in 1672. (summary)

Castillo years: 1668 to 1763.

In April 1671 the new St. Augustine governor, Manuel de Cendoya, arrived with the needed men and funds for the fort.

The process of constructing the new stone edifice started almost at once. (details)

The material used would be coquina, discovered in 1580 by Pedro Menendez Marques and plentiful on Anastasia Island,

a shell stone soft enough to be quaried with pick and axe, but slowly hardened when exposed to air.

Coquina proved to be the ideal choice indeed as it withstood, actually absorbed, canon balls fired at the Castillo's walls. (details)

It took Indian workers two years to quarry enough of it, but in the fall of 1672 enough was cut and the actual construction

of the Castillo de San Marcos could begin. It took more than eighty years, until 1756, for it to be declared finished.(details)

Coquina proved so useful that during late eighteenth century and the early eighteen hundreds

most of the wooden houses were replaced, including the governor mansion.

Fortunately for the town's inhabitants even the semi-finished castillo proved to be an adequate defense

defense to withstand several attacks from the enemy in the north, England:

On November 9, 1702 fifteen hundred British soldiers and Indians, led by Carolina governor James Moore reached the fort,

now named "San Marco". (summary) Another part of the force under Colonel Robert Daniel came up the St. Johns river. (details)

On their way up the English burned and destroyed the fort and mission at Amelia Island.

For 50 days, until December 26th, the fort was under siege and the garrison and citizens were confined within its walls.

The four Carolina cannon proved ineffective against the thick coquina walls and the day after Christmas

when 4 Spanish vessels appeared governor Moore raised the siege, burned the town and retreated by land back to Carolina.

An even more serious threat was the attack in 1740 by General James Edward Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia. (details)

On June 23 Oglethorpe set up his guns on Anastasia Island. (summary)

Artillery was landed at North Beach under the command of Colonel Alexander Vander Dussen.

Meanwhile a naval force led by Commandant Vincent Pierse blocked the harbor's entrance.

Again the town's citizens found refuge in the fort. From May 24 the fort was bombarded by cannon fire without result.

On July 9 Oglethorpe gave up and the English returned home.

The two attacks led to the building of Fort Matanzas in 1742 to protect the southern "back door" to St. Augustine. (details)

A second attempt by Oglethorpe in 1743 to take the fort was equally unsuccessful.

In February 1763 Spain and England signed the Treaty of Paris, making all of Florida English, in exchange for Cuba,

by the stroke of a pen where military might had failed again and again. (details)

On July 21, 1763 the new ranking officer at the fort, Captain John Hedges, had the British flag raised over the old fort,

now named Fort St Mark, the town still full with its Spanish inhabitants. (details)

In late summer and fall of that year all citizens left for Cuba and Mexico. Only three families stayed behind:

Farmer Francisco Savier Sanchez and wife, Manual Solana, another farmer and Luciano de Herrera, one of the militia,

as an agent of the crown collecting money from the sale of properties. Later he would become a spy for the Spanish in Havana.