The Building of Castello de San Marcos / National Park Service Interpretive Series, History No. 1

by Albert C. Manucy

The trend was becoming clear. The fight for Florida was inevitable.

In the middle 1600’s St. Augustine was practically defenseless. Where the masonry fort now stands, there was a wooden fort of almost the same size, but rotten—rotted into uselessness and so weakened by repairs that much of the original design was lost. Nor were there means for fixing it. A smallpox epidemic made Indian labor out of the question, so there were no peons to bear heavy timbers on their shoulders from the forests. No silver lay in the King’s chest: the Florida colony existed almost solely by means of a subsidy of money and provisions from New Spain, whose commerce it protected, and the reluctance of the New Spain Viceroy to pay that subsidy meant that the usual condition of St. Augustine was one of direst poverty and extreme want.

Yet, if ever Florida needed a strong fort, it was now. Year by year the corsairs were becoming bolder. Without stronger defenses for the province, said one Governor, “the success of its defense would be doubtful in spite of the great valor with which we would resist....” The matter of building a permanent fort had been broached as early as 1586, soon after the discovery of the native shellrock called coquina, and before the turn of that century Governor Canço reported not only the successful construction of a stone powder magazine but a renewed enthusiasm for a masonry fort. The sandy, unstable coastal soil provided the engineers with a problem, but the real obstacles to accomplishment were the poverty of the presidio and the feeling of the Madrid officials that Florida did not require strong military defenses. Even when the Spanish Crown granted permission to build a stone fort (as happened more than once) circumstances proved that the time for the castillo had not yet come. Once a very practical Florida administrator cited the abundance of native materials, and even went so far as to claim that no additional funds would be needed for building a stone fort. All he wanted was the prompt payment of the subsidy from New Spain—a not unreasonable plea—and out of that money he would buy a dozen Negro slaves versed in stonecutting and masonry, slaves such as were available in any number of Caribbean towns, and to be sure the work was done right he wanted the engineer from Cartagena assigned to the job. At the very least, this Governor asked for the slaves: if nothing more, they could face the walls of the wooden fort with stone.

WITH OXCARTS IN PLACE OF THE TRUCKS, THIS QUARRYING SCENE ON ANASTASIA ISLAND MIGHT HAVE TAKEN PLACE ALMOST 300 YEARS AGO.

Even this well-considered project was tabled. One of Florida’s royal officials in a letter unwittingly mentioned the old fort as being in fair condition, and the Council in Madrid decided to await more information before doing anything.

The Council appeared more concerned over other Florida problems, and for good reason. Even before fortification came the matter of keeping the St. Augustine people from starvation such as came in the spring of 1662. Expected provisions from New Spain failed to arrive; the frigate out of St. Augustine, bringing maize from the granaries of the Apalache Indians in western Florida, was long overdue and the people feared she was lost. The tiny garrison was more or less accustomed to being underclothed, underfed, and unpaid, but to make matters worse, the Royal Treasurer refused to pension several veterans—men who had spent 50 years in the service of the Crown. True, these soldiers were now too old even for ordinary guard duty. The Treasurer was within his rights in refusing to pay them when they did not work, but his refusal was a death knell for the old men. The Governor saw it as something worse—a damaging precedent. The younger soldiers would realize, argued the Governor, that “they were wasting their youth and hoarding up for themselves a sentence of death from starvation as the price of their services.”

The Council of the Indies sided with the Governor in this routine instance of bleak poverty, and certainly the Treasurer was glad to relieve his own conscience. Yet the fact remained that while the officials in Spain recognized the shocking conditions of neglect, St. Augustine was still far from succor. To the Viceroy of New Spain went new orders to pay the subsidies. The royal commands were ignored. By 1668 more than 400,000 pesos—8 years’ payments—were owing to the Florida presidio. Then came the midnight raid of 1668.

After that crippling blow, St. Augustine was left destitute. Once again the soldiers were faced with the prospect of digging roots by day and begging alms by night from the few more fortunate inhabitants of the presidio—or starvation. As for the old wooden fort—the one nominal defense of the colony—a gun platform had fallen under its artillery; there was a great breach in the timber wall; the sea had washed away part of the foundation.

Notwithstanding, the sack of St. Augustine proved to be a blessing in disguise, for the turn of events shocked the home officials into action. On October 30, 1669, Queen Regent Mariana commanded the Viceroy of New Spain to provide 12,000 pesos to start a new fort of stone, and 10,000 pesos each year to carry it to completion, amounts over and above the regular subsidy.