All told, there were close to 150 men working in those first days of feverish preparations. They, along with about 500 other persons, including about 100 effective soldiers in the garrison, a few Franciscan friars, a dozen mariners, and the townspeople, had to be fed. When supplies from New Spain did not arrive, the problem of providing food was even more difficult than finding men to work on the fort, especially since the sandy soil around the presidio yielded poorly to the primitive agricultural practices of the seventeenth century.
Indian corn or maize was the staple, and most of the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of the extensive fields near the town was done by Indians brought from their provinces to do the work, so that at times there were as many as 300 Indians serving the Crown in the presidio, counting those at work on the fortification. The Indian peons were furnished rations of maize both while they were in St. Augustine and for their journey over the wilderness trails to their homes, and certain of the convicts were also given a ration of Indian corn. This native corn cost the Crown 7½ reales per arroba (25 pounds) and an arroba lasted the average Indian only 10 days. Flour was imported from New Spain at a cost of 10 reales per arroba, and the master workmen, the English masons, and the Spanish convicts were given rations from this store. In addition, these convicts received a ration of meat. Fresh meat was not plentiful, but the waters teemed with fish and there were plenty of shellfish. A paid fisherman kept the men supplied. There were few garden vegetables. Squash grew well in the sandy soil, and there were beans and sweetpotatoes, citron, pomegranates, and figs. The orange had already been introduced. And of course there were the favorite seasonings of onion and garlic. Withal, however, it must be remembered that St. Augustine was not a self-supporting settlement. After a century of existence, it still depended for its very life upon the subsidy from New Spain.
As the long, hot days of the second summer shortened into fall, Governor Cendoya saw that after a year spent in gathering men and materials he was ready to start construction.
No long-drawn-out survey and detailed study helped to locate the castillo, for the Spanish had learned their lessons by a century and more of experiment on the shores of Matanzas Bay. Engineer Daza and Governor Cendoya decided that the new fort should be erected on the west shore of the bay by the side of the old fort, a site which took into account every natural defense feature of the harbor. Here, the enemy would find it almost impossible to bring his heavy siege guns within range. A shallow bar at the channel entrance kept the bigger warships out to sea. Any other vessel entering the harbor had to pass under the fort guns. The town and the fort were on a narrow peninsula surrounded on three sides by water or impassable marsh; the fourth side—the northern neck where the old fort stood—was constricted by a meandering creek. Beyond the marshes was wilderness—the pine barrens and cypress swamps, palmetto scrubs, and oak groves. Roads were but Indian trails and the quickest passage from one coastal fortified post to the next was along the inland waterway in dugouts. Attackers might march quickly down the coast on the wide, hard beaches (provided they could cross the numerous estuaries on the way), but they were still faced with an advance over broad river and marsh before they could reach the fort.
Nor was it a problem to work out the plan for the castillo. Both Daza and the Governor liked the design of the old fort. They, meeting with the General Council, decided merely to build the castillo slightly larger in order to make room for quarters, guardroom, chapel, wells, ovens, powder magazine, and other essential rooms not included in the old fort. In line with the more recent ideas, Daza recommended a slight lengthening of the bastions. All around the castillo they planned to dig a broad, deep moat, and then surround the land sides with a high palisade.
It was a simple and unpretentious plan, but a good one. Daza was apparently schooled in the Italian-Spanish principles of fortification as developed from the sixteenth century designs of Franceso de Marchi, for Sébastien de Vauban, the great French engineer, was still but a young man in 1671. Little is known about Ignacio Daza, but if he were the typical military engineer, he was nothing if not practical. And Daza, if he were typical, was more than a draftsman. For a military engineer, it was “not sufficient to know how to draw plans, profils and landskips; to understand a few propositions in geometry, or to know how to build a wall or a house; on the contrary, he ought to be well grounded in all the most useful branches of the mathematics, and how to apply them to practice, natural philosophy, and architecture; have a good notion of all kind of handicraft works; and above all things, to be well versed in mechanics.”
THE YEARS OF CONSTRUCTION
So the actual construction finally began. It was indeed the occasion for a ceremony. About 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon, October 2, 1672, Governor Cendoya gathered together the official witnesses, and, to record the event for the information of Queen Mariana and for his own protection, he commanded the public scribe, Juan Moreno, to be present. Into his hands Cendoya took a spade. He walked to a likely looking spot between the strings marking out the lines of the new fortification, drove down his spade, and thus broke ground for the foundations of Castillo de San Marcos, worthy successor to the name that for almost 100 years had been used for the forts of the St. Augustine presidio. All this and more, Juan Moreno noted. Characteristically, he faithfully certified that not only was the work started that Sunday afternoon, but it continued, and that at most of it he, the notary, was present. Because he wrote the certification on ordinary paper, Juan explained that he was out of official stamped paper.
1. DESIGN—2. DEFENSE—3. ASSAULT