To the Spaniards the attack on St. Augustine was far more than a pirate raid. St. Augustine, though isolated and small, was the keystone in the defense of Florida, a way station on Spain’s great commercial route. Each year, galleons bearing the proud Iberian banners sailed past the coral keys and surf-pounded beaches of Florida, following the Gulf Stream on the way to Cádiz. Each galleon carried a treasure of gold and silver from the mines of Perú and México—and all Europe knew it.
A shipload of treasure, dispatched from México by Hernán Cortés in 1522, never reached the Spanish court. A French corsair attacked the Spanish ship and the treasure ended up in Paris, not Madrid. Soon, daring adventurers of all nationalities sailed for the West Indies and Spanish treasure. Florida’s position on the lifeline connecting Spain with her colonies gave this sandy peninsula strategic importance. Spain knew that Florida must be defended to prevent enemies from using the harbors for preying upon Spanish commerce and to give safe haven to shipwrecked Spanish mariners.
The French, ironically, brought the situation to a head in 1564 when they established Fort Caroline, a colony named for their teenage king, Charles IX, near the mouth of Florida’s St. Johns River. A year later Spanish Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés came to Florida, established the St. Augustine colony, and forthwith removed the Frenchmen, suspected of piracy. This small fortified settlement on Florida’s northeast coast and Havana in Cuba anchored opposite ends of the passage through the Straits of Florida enabling Spanish ships to pass safely from the Gulf of Mexico out into the Atlantic.
Sir Francis Drake’s attack on St. Augustine was part of the growing hostilities between Spain and England that culminated in the attack of the Spanish Armada on England two years later. Drake was also the first sea captain to take his own ship all the way around the world. Ferdinand Magellan’s ship had made the trip 57 years earlier, but Magellan had been killed in the Philippines.
A typical early fort was San Juan de Pinos, burned by English sailor Francis Drake in 1586. Drake took the fort’s bronze artillery and a considerable amount of money. San Juan consisted of a pine stockade around small buildings for gunpowder storage and quarters. Cannon were mounted atop a broad platform, or cavalier, so they could fire over the stockade. Such forts could be built quickly, but they could also be destroyed easily. If Indian fire arrows, enemy attack, or mutinies failed, then hurricanes, time, and termites were certain to do the job. During the first 100 years of Spanish settlement, nine wooden forts one after another were built at St. Augustine.
Spain in the Caribbean, 1717-1748
Spain, England, and France vied for the land and wealth of the New World. This map, while not showing actual settlement and possession of the land shows what each nation thought was theirs. Spain’s dominions were more extensive than those of Britain or France, for the Spaniards were the first to explore and to begin to claim and settle the land.
The spice fleet from the Philippines sailed to Acapulco, on Mexico’s west coast, the goods were hauled overland to Veracruz, and then carried by ship to Havana.
Fleets of ships filled with silver, gold, spices, precious woods, and other products of the New World left Havana for Spain each year.
The silver fleet from Perú brought the treasure to the isthmus of Panamá where it was transshipped to Portobelo and then on to Havana via Cartagena.
Spanish St. Augustine served as the northernmost outpost of the Caribbean, watching over the waters of the Gulf stream, Spain’s highway to Europe.
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1519-74) was the founder of St. Augustine and first governor of Florida. He struggled throughout his life to put St. Augustine on a firm footing, fending off French efforts to destroy his settlement. The engraving is a copy of a portrait by Titian that was destroyed in a fire at the end of the last century.