English privateers in the early seventeenth century did their part. In 1642 Captain William Jackson, with a commission from the Earl of Warwick, made a raid that reminds one of Drake. With eleven hundred men he cruised the coast from Caracas to Honduras, plundering Maracaibo and Trujillo on the way. Landing at Jamaica he captured Santiago and held it for ransom.
Spanish retaliation.—The Spaniards often repaid these aggressions with good interest, and frequent raids were made on the foreign colonies. In 1629 Toledo nearly destroyed the English and French settlements on St. Kitts. Tortuga was several times assaulted. In 1635 a Spanish fleet made a five days' attack on the English colony on Providence Island but was beaten back. In 1641 Pimienta with two thousand men destroyed the forts there and captured seven hundred and seventy colonists. Ten years later a force of eight hundred men from Porto Rico destroyed the English colony on Santa Cruz Island, killing the governor and over one hundred settlers.
The English conquest of Jamaica.—Thus far the English settlements had been made chiefly on unoccupied islands. But in 1654 Cromwell sent an expedition under Venables and Penn to gain Spanish territory by conquest. They failed to take Santo Domingo but succeeded at Jamaica (1655). Twice Spain attempted to recover the island but failed (1657-1658), and in 1670 she acknowledged England's right to all her island possessions.
The Danes and Brandenburgers.—Under their absolute monarch, Frederick III, the Danes organized a West India Company, which in 1671 secured the abandoned island of St. Thomas, using it as a planting colony and a distributing center for Guinea slaves. Porto Rico and the Spanish mainland were the principal Danish markets. Even the Brandenburgers, during the latter days of the Great Elector (1685) secured a thirty-year lease of a part of the Danish island of St. Thomas, with a view to using it as a slave-trading station for supplying the Spanish colonies. But the jealousy of other European powers, especially England, prevented their securing a permanent foothold.
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE ENGLISH ON THE CAROLINA BORDER
The Georgia missions restored.—After the massacre of 1597, the Florida missions seem to have been practically abandoned for a time. But new missionaries, requested by the governor in 1601, reoccupied the abandoned sites, pushed farther up the coast, and entered the interior. The settlement of Virginia by the English was followed by remonstrance and a new wave of missionary activity. In 1612 Fray Luis de Oré came with twenty-three friars and Florida was erected into the province of Santa Elena, with the mother house at Havana. In less than two years the new missionaries had established twenty mission residences among the tribes, especially on the Guale (Georgia) coast. In 1612 was published the first of Father Pareja's numerous books in the Timuquanan language. By 1634 some thirty Franciscans were ministering to 30,000 converts in forty-four missions and mission stations. The success was parallel to that of the Franciscans in New Mexico at the same time.
The Apalachee and the Creek missions.—The simultaneous intrusion of the English, French, and Dutch into the Caribbean waters was a new threat at Spain's Gulf possessions, and it was followed by the advance of her outposts into western Florida. Throughout the sixteenth century the warlike Apalachees had resisted Spanish authority, but in 1633 successful missionary work was begun among them by the guardian of the monastery of St. Augustine and one companion. Within two years they had baptized five thousand natives. In 1638 the Apalachees revolted, but they were defeated, and the presidio of San Luis was established among them. This district now became one of the most important missionary centers of Florida, missions being extended to the Creeks of western Georgia.
The missions in 1647.—By 1647 St. Augustine was headquarters for fifty Franciscans, who worked among the neighboring tribes. Northward a line of ten missions extended up the Georgia coast to Chatuache near the Savannah River. Toward the western interior, within a radius of one hundred and fifty miles there were ten more, and toward the south four. In the Apalachee district there were eight in eight large towns, with three more on the way to St. Augustine. At these thirty-five missions 26,000 converted Indians were served.
The Apalachee revolt.—Just now, however, the prosperous Apalachee missions suffered a severe blow. The chiefs, refusing to render personal sendee and tribute, headed a rebellion in which several Spaniards were slain. The governor led a campaign against them, several battles were fought, and a number of chiefs hanged. The Indians were subdued, but they were so embittered that the Franciscans abandoned the missions.
The English in the Carolinas.—In 1653 English settlers from Virginia began to establish themselves in North Carolina, and in 1670 the English settlement of South Carolina was begun near Charleston. This intrusion into the old Spanish province of Santa Elena was viewed with alarm by Spain, and, as always in the border Spanish colonies, the foreign danger was followed by renewed missionary activity on the threatened frontiers. Missionary work received an impetus in 1674 by the visitation of Bishop Calderón, of Cuba, who spent eight months in a tour of Florida. In that year and the next, five new missions were founded, and in 1676 Father Moral took to Florida twenty-four additional missionaries. Six or more missions were now in operation on the northern Georgia coast between Jekyl Island and the Savannah River, besides those farther south.