Links to the Past
It is impossible to fully retrieve the past, to know what it was actually like to live in another time, to understand the cadences of another life. Some disciplines work at peeling back the layers of time and attempt to explain those bygone days. Archeology is one of these sciences. By retrieving the remains of the material culture, by seeing a plate that held food, a bottle that held oil, a dish in which herbs were ground to make medicine, the connection with those long gone personages begins to be made. The objects on the next page are among more than 1,000 items that have been retrieved from digs in and around the Castillo and St. Augustine.
Bottle body
Dish fragment, majolica
Spanish olive jar
China accordion player
Plate fragment, majolica
Dish with caduceus (medical symbol)
Platter base fragment, slipware
Bowl fragment, pearlware-mochaware
Even as the British were working to secure the Castillo against a possible attack, international events brought Spain back into the picture. In 1779 Spain declared war on Britain after France promised help in retrieving Florida, if the powers allied against Britain were victorious. One Spanish plan even had the Spaniards launching a surprise attack on the Castillo: Troops would sail upriver from Matanzas, land south of town, sweep north through St. Augustine, and take the Castillo by storm. If this failed they would settle in for a siege. At the last minute, practically, the authorities decided to attack Pensacola, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, instead. A Spanish attack on the British inside a fortress designed and built by Spanish engineers would have been full of irony.
In the settlement after the Revolution, the Spaniards did indeed recover Florida, and on July 12, 1784, the transfer took place.
The Spaniards returned to an impossible situation. The border problems of earlier times had multiplied as runaway slaves from Georgia found welcome among the Seminole Indians, and ruffians from both land and sea made Florida their habitat.
Bedeviled by these perversities and distracted by revolutionary unrest in Latin America, Spain nevertheless did what had to be done at the Castillo—repairs to the bridges, a new pine stairway for San Carlos tower, a bench for the criminals in the prison. In 1785 Mariano de la Rocque designed an attractive entrance in the neoclassic style for the chapel doorway. It was built, only to crumble slowly away like the Spanish hold on Florida.
Defense strategies had changed too, over the years. The British had built a few redoubts to cover vulnerable approaches on the west and south. The Spaniards on their return adapted the British works but also greatly strengthened the long wall from the Castillo to the San Sebastián River. They widened its moat to 40 feet, lined the entire length of the 9-foot-high earthwork with palm logs, and planted it with prickly pear. The three redoubts were armed with light cannon, and a new city gate was completed in 1808. Its twin towers of white masonry were trimmed with red plaster, and each roof was capped with a pomegranate, a symbol of fertility.
Even though San Marcos remained a bulwark against American advances, Florida had lost its former importance to Spain as independence movements sprang up in one South American Spanish colony after another. Constant pressure from the expanding United States finally resulted in Spain’s ceding Florida to the United States. Perhaps Spanish officials signed the papers with a sigh of relief, glad to be rid of a province so burdensome and unprofitable for 300 years. On July 10, 1821, the ensign of Spain fluttered down to the thunderous salute of Castillo cannon, and the 23-star flag of the United States of America was hauled aloft.
In this new era, the aging fort was already a relic. Fortunately for its preservation, the US. strategy for coastal defense did not require much alteration of the Castillo. U.S. Army engineers added only a water battery in the east moat, mounted a few new guns on the bastions, and improved the glacis during the 1840s.
The fort’s name was also changed, for the Americans chose to honor Gen. Francis Marion, Revolutionary leader and son of the very colony against whose possible aggression San Marcos had been built. Congress restored the original name in 1942, almost 20 years after the fort had been designated a national monument.
Heavy doors and iron bars that once protected precious stores of food and ammunition made the old fort a good prison, and the prison days soon obscured the olden times when Spain’s hold upon Florida depended upon the strength of these walls and the brave hearts that served here.
Now the echo of the Spanish tongue has faded and the scarred walls are silent. The records tell of the people who built and defended the Castillo—and those who attacked it, too. In the archives are countless instances of unselfish zeal and loyalty, the cases of Ransom, Collins, and Carr, the crown’s patriarchal protection of its Indian vassals, the unflagging work of the friars. The structure itself tells its own story. As William Cullen Bryant, 19th-century poet wrote: “The old fort of St. Mark is a noble work, frowning over the Matanzas, and it is worth making a long journey to see.”
The Spanish government constructed replicas of Christopher Columbus’ three ships to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his voyage to America. The ships followed Columbus’ route across the Atlantic and made calls at ports throughout the Americas. Here the Santa Maria, in the foreground, Pinta, and Niña visit St. Augustine in 1992.
