At Cuba jealousy and intrigue still dogged his footsteps. The officials of the Casa, by whom he had been imprisoned in Spain, seem to have succeeded in injuring his prestige and reputation. He was coolly received by the Governor of Cuba, García Osario, and refused aid. The belated arrival of several of his ships enabled him to send his Florida posts some relief. On his way back he visited the Indians of Carlos, or Caloosa Indians, who then occupied south Florida. They made a practice of enslaving shipwrecked Spaniards who fell into their hands, sacrificing some of these victims in their pagan rites. Menéndez found several Spanish survivors among them, but looked in vain for the familiar features of his son, Don Juan.
During his extended absence from St. Augustine dissension broke out among his followers. When a vessel arrived with supplies mutineers seized it and prepared to sail away. A similar situation developed at San Mateo. Many had joined the expedition only because they expected it might lead to easy riches. Failure to find any signs of gold and silver in Florida proved a bitter disappointment. Or, they had secretly planned to desert it at the first opportunity, and seek passage to other Spanish colonies from which fabulous wealth flowed to Spain. Now that the French had been defeated there was little glory to be gained in the hardships of fort building, and threatened starvation in this distant wilderness. A number of the mutineers eventually embarked for the Caribbean, and thence some went to Spain, where they circulated damaging reports of Menéndez and the Florida settlements.
Gunpowder Versus Arrows
The Indians meanwhile, though at first outwardly friendly, became an increasing threat to the new colony. Spanish mutineers at San Mateo inflamed their hatred by the unprovoked murder of three of their chiefs. They held a great council and declared their enmity.
Huddled within their stockades, the Spaniards could not venture out in search of food without fear of attack. The savages lurked everywhere in the swamps and woodlands, and shot their arrows with such force as to penetrate a soldier’s coat of mail. The crude firearms of the day were not entirely suited to Indian warfare. When a Spaniard paused to reload his slow-firing arquebus, an operation requiring several minutes, Indians rose from their hiding to shower him with arrows. When they saw the flash of burning powder in the primer of his gun, they crawled through the tall grass and appeared in another place after it had been discharged. Over one hundred Spaniards were thus killed by the Indians during the first year of the colony’s existence.
A Le Moyne drawing, showing Florida Indians attacking a rival village with flaming arrows.
Indian attacks became so serious as to cause the removal of the settlement to another site. One night, when Menéndez was absent on an exploring trip, yelling savages broke through the Spanish lines at St. Augustine, and set fire to the storehouse with flaming arrows, destroying precious powder and supplies.
When Menéndez returned he called a council of his officers. “It was resolved that they should move from there and erect a fort at the entrance of the bar ... because there the Indians could not do them so much harm ... and there they could better defend themselves against the vessels of enemies that might want to enter the harbor.”
Working in shifts, the Spaniards rushed the construction of a stockade and fort at the new location.