That year the Viceroy released more than 83,000 pesos for relief of the stricken settlement. It was 12 months of life for the colony. Out of it also came hire for mules that carried baggage from Mexico City to Vera Cruz—baggage for soldiers recruited for Florida. Trouble there was in finding even 75 men, and even more trouble in getting them aboard ship for the long voyage to the hardships of the frontier province. Strangely enough, the arrival of such reënforcements was not an occasion for unmixed rejoicing, for these soldiers were mostly mulattoes and mestizos who, reported Sgt. Maj. Nicolás Ponce, were not highly regarded for their courage in the Queen’s cause.
To give impetus to the belated Spanish preparations for the defense of Florida, an English settlement that became Charleston, S. C., was founded in 1670. The Florida frontiersmen saw the need for vigorous action—for uprooting the new colony before it waxed too strong. Under the command of Juan Menéndez Marqués, a small St. Augustine fleet sailed northward. However, the winds blew stormy as they had for the French fleet before St. Augustine in 1565, the Spanish fleet was scattered, and the fledgling English colony was saved. Then Mariana’s treaty with England forbade the disturbance of established English settlements, so with the English only a 2 days’ sail from St. Augustine there was nothing left to do but prepare to defend Florida against certain invasion. To the frontier at Santa Catalina Mission on the Georgia coast a small garrison was sent. And construction of a Florida citadel, built of imperishable stone, was soon to begin.
BEGINNING THE CASTILLO
To start the work at St. Augustine, Queen Mariana chose Don Manuel de Cendoya, gave him the governorship of Florida, and sent him to Mexico City to confer with the Marqués de Mancera, Viceroy of New Spain. Cendoya’s first task was to collect the promised 12,000 pesos for starting the job, and that accomplishment he reported in the middle of January 1671. The disquieting news of the English settlement of Charleston gave point to his discussions with the Marqués.
On his way to Florida, Cendoya stopped at Havana, looking for skilled workmen—masons and lime burners. There he found an engineer, Ignacio Daza. It was on August 8, 1671, that the first workman began to draw his pay. By the time the mosquitoes were sluggish in the cooler fall weather, the coquina pits on Anastasia Island were open, and two big limekilns were being built just north of the old fort. The carpenters put up a palm-thatched shelter at the quarries; they built a dozen large, square-end dugouts and laid rafts over them for hauling stone for the fortification and firewood and oyster shells for the limekilns; and they built boxes, handbarrows, and carretas (long, narrow, hauling wagons). At his anvil, the blacksmith made a great noise, hammering out axes, picks, and stonecutters’ hatchets, and putting on their steel edges; drawing out the bars to the proper length and flattening their ends for crowbars; working shapeless masses of iron into shovels, spades, hoes, and wedges; and for lighter work, making nails of all kinds and sizes for the carpenters. The grindstone screeched as the cutting edges went on the tools.
In the quarries 3 leagues from the presidio, Indian peons chopped out the dense thickets of scrub oak and palmetto, driving out the rattlesnakes and clearing the ground for the shovelers to uncover the top layer of coquina. Day after day Alonso Díaz, the quarry overseer, kept the picks and axes going, cutting deep grooves into the soft yellow stone, while with bar and wedge the peons broke loose and pried up the rough blocks—small pieces that a single man could shoulder, and tremendously heavy, waterlogged cubes 2 feet thick and twice as long that six strong men could hardly lift from the bed of sandy shell. As a layer of stone was removed, again the shovelmen came in, taking off the newly exposed bed of loose shell and uncovering yet another and deeper stratum of rock. Down and down the quarrymen went until their pits reached water and they could go no farther. Díaz watched his peons heave the finest stone on the wagons. He sent the oxen plodding to the wharf at the head of a marshy creek, and carefully balanced the load of rough stone on the rafts for ferrying across current to the building site. And on the opposite shore of the bay, next to the old fort, the pile of unhewn stone daily grew larger, while the stonecutters plied their squares and chopped unceasingly to shape the soft coquina for the masons.
In the limekilns, oyster shells glowed white-hot and changed into fine quality, quick-setting lime. By spring of 1672, there were 4,000 fanegas (some 7,000 bushels) of lime in the two storehouses, and the great piles of both hewn and rough stone were a welcome sight to the people of St. Augustine.
MOST OF THE ROOMS OPEN INTO THE SQUARE COURTYARD OR PARADE OF THE FORT. THE WELL IN THIS CORNER FURNISHED THE ONLY PALATABLE WATER SUPPLY FOR REFUGEES INSIDE THE FORT DURING TIMES OF SIEGE.
Though it was only preparation for the main job, great obstacles had already been overcome. Very little masonry had ever been done in the presidio, and, with the exception of the imported artisans, the workmen had to be trained. Even the imported ones had much to learn about coquina, the natural shellrock peculiar to this section of Florida. Coquina is nothing more than broken sea shells cemented together by their own lime. Where the layer of shells has been under great pressure, the rock is solid and hard; where pressure has been less, the stone is coarse and easily crumbled. The men had to become expert in grading the stone, for only the hardest and finest rock could go into the fortification. There was also a shortage of common labor. When there should have been 150 men to keep the 15 artisans working at top speed—50 in the quarries and hauling stone, 50 for gathering oyster shells and helping at the kilns, and another 50 for digging the foundation trenches, carrying the baskets of sand, and mixing mortar—it was hard to get as many as 100 laborers on the job.