The History of Saint Augustine, Florida

by William W. Dewhurst

RETURN OF MENENDEZ.—ATTEMPT TO CHRISTIANIZE THE INDIANS.—ATTACK UPON ST. AUGUSTINE BY SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.—MURDER OF THE FRIARS.

While these events were transpiring Menendez had completed his equipment, and sailed with a fresh supply of men and means for his colonies in Florida. His first information of the disaster which had overtaken his posts on the St. Johns was received after he arrived at St. Augustine. So humiliating a disaster as the capture of three of his forts well fortified and garrisoned with four hundred trained men, was the occasion of no little mortification and vexation to this gallant knight, especially since the victors were the avengers of the former colonists, and the forces that accomplished the affair were so greatly outnumbered by his soldiers, who were also well defended by strong forts. To add to the discouragement the condition of the colony at St. Augustine was found to be most distressing. The garrison was nearly naked, the colonists half starved, and the attacks of the Indians growing more frequent and reckless as the weakness and despondency of the Spaniards became more apparent. The intrepid and indomitable spirit of Menendez did not bend under these obstacles and reverses which would have crushed a nature of ordinary mold. His extraordinary and comprehensive genius opened a way, in the midst of almost superhuman difficulties, for the maintenance of his colony and the extension of the Catholic faith, the objects to which his life was now devoted. Perceiving the insecurity of the garrisons at a distance from each other and the principal post, he wisely concluded to preserve his forces entire at St. Augustine, and thus maintain the colony and a base of operations. The spread of the Catholic faith he determined to secure by inducing the different tribes of Indians to receive and support one or more missionaries or teachers. At the earnest solicitation of Menendez large numbers of priests, friars, and brothers of the various religious orders of the Catholic Church had been sent to Florida by the King of Spain. Mission-houses were built all over the country from the Florida capes on the south to the Chesapeake on the north and the Mississippi on the west, to which these teachers, being mostly Franciscans, were sent. By the mildness of their manners, the promises of future joys and rewards which their teachings declared, and the interest excited by the introduction of the arts of civilized life, they gained a powerful ascendency over the native tribes, that promised at one period the conversion of the whole North American Indian race to the religion and customs of their Christian teachers. This would have been an achievement that would have amply compensated for all the efforts, treasure, and lives expended by the Europeans in the conquest of the New World. In fact it would have been a wonderful revolution that might well have been considered a miraculous dispensation of Providence.

It is due to the grandly comprehensive conception of Menendez that there was initiated this plan of mission stations through the Floridas, which so nearly accomplished this happy result. That the ultimate success of the efforts to Christianize the Indians was not attained was probably owing to the political changes that occurred in Europe in the eighteenth century. In both France and Spain the Jesuits fell into disgrace, and the most rigorous measures of suppression and banishment were adopted against them. The Jesuit missions in Florida shared the fate of their order in the Old World, and thus was the encouraging prospect of Christianizing the Indians swept away forever.

Under Menendez and his immediate successors whom he named and who followed his counsels were founded those missionary establishments, whose ruins have been at a late period a subject of curious investigation throughout Middle Florida. Romans (“History of Florida,” New York, 1775) states that in his time there was an old bell of one of these mission houses lying in the fields near Alachua. Hon. Wilkinson Call, United States Senator from Florida, who is somewhat of an antiquarian, has informed the writer that near his birthplace in Leon County are to be found the ruins of another of these Spanish missions. The early inhabitants of the region being filled with superstition and a belief that the ruins were the remains of an establishment of the buccaneers, threw the bell into a neighboring pond, from which it has been rescued within a late period.

Menendez, finding that the interests of the colony were neglected at the Spanish Court, and that the maintenance of the colony was daily impoverishing himself, resolved to return permanently to Spain, where he hoped that his influence would be able to accomplish more benefit to the undertaking in Florida than could be expected to accrue from his presence in the territory. Leaving the province under the command of his nephew, Don Pedro Menendez, he sailed for Spain in 1572. Upon his arrival all the honors of the court were lavished upon him, and his counsels were eagerly sought in the various affairs of state. He was not destined to enjoy his honors long, nor to reap new laurels in the European wars of the Spanish crown. In the midst of his glory his career was suddenly ended by his death from a fever, in 1574. His rank and memory are perpetuated in the Church of St. Nicholas, at Avilès, by a monument, on which is inscribed the following epitaph:

“Here lies buried the illustrious Captain Pedro Menendez de Avilès, a native of this City, Adelantado of the Province of Florida, Knight Commander of Santa Cruz, of the Order of Santiago, and Captain General of the Oceanic Seas, and of the Armada which his Royal Highness collected at Santander in the year 1574, where he died on the 17th of September, of that year, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.”

Following out the instructions of Menendez, De las Alas, now governor of Florida, assembled a council from the different missions in the province for the purpose of considering methods of extending the Catholic faith. In pursuance of the advice of this council embassies were sent to all the tribes of Indians for several hundred miles around St. Augustine.

Spanish garrisons and many Spanish monks to teach the Indians had already been received into the towns east of the Appalachicola River. In 1583 the Chickasaws, Tocoposcas, Apacas, Tamaicas, Apiscas and Alabamas, received the missionaries. At this period the Catholic faith was recognized as far west as the Mississippi, and as far north as the mountains of Georgia.

The Franciscans and Dominicans had been the first to represent the monks in the New World. Afterward came the Fathers of Mercy, the Augustines, and the Jesuits.

Although Florida was included in the diocese of the Bishop of Cuba, it was decided to establish a convent of the Order of St. Francis at St. Augustine. I find the name originally given this convent was the “Conception of Our Lady,” though it is generally referred to as St. Helena.