Finding that the Minorcans were unable to receive the full benefit from the teachings of the priests because of their inability to understand the Spanish language, the Vicar-General asked that there might be sent to St. Augustine a priest conversant with the language of this large proportion of his flock. In 1795, agreeably to this request, Friar McAfry Catalan, an Irish priest speaking the Minorcan language, arrived in St. Augustine. The Spanish governor, Don Juan Nepomuseno Quesada, made great efforts to settle the province, and allowed many extraordinary privileges, such as were not enjoyed in any other part of the Spanish dominions. In 1792 Florida was opened to general emigration without exception of country or creed. It was rapidly progressing to importance under this wise policy, when the Spanish Minister, growing jealous of the republican spirit of the new colonists, closed the gates against American citizens about the year 1804. Quesada, however, endeavored to procure a large Irish emigration, and wrote to Las Casas, Governor of Cuba, asking that the government would aid those of Irish nationality and Catholic faith to settle in the province. The governor replied that no settlers should be admitted to Florida unless they paid their own transportation and maintained themselves. He instructed Quesada to afford no other assistance than “lands, protection, good treatment, and no molestation in matters of religion, although there shall be no other public worship but Catholic.” He also referred him to the “Law of the Indies.” By this law lands were granted to new settlers, “making a distinction between gentlemen and peasants.” A peasant’s portion was a town lot fifty by one hundred feet—arable land, capable of producing one hundred fanegas (bushels) of wheat and ten of Indian corn, with as much land as two oxen can plow in a day for the raising of esculent roots; also pasture-land for eight breeding sows, twenty cows, five mares, one hundred sheep, and twenty goats.
A gentleman’s portion was a lot in town one hundred by two hundred feet, and, of all the remainder, five times a peasant’s portion. Many grants were made under this law by Governor Quesada, and the patents issued by him are the foundation of many titles of lands in the vicinity of St. Augustine.
At this time there were many customs, ordinances, and habits of life existing in this old town of which no record or chronicle now remains. One most respectable gentleman of the place has mentioned to the author that his mother was married to three different husbands in the space of two years. This would seem a very strange proceeding at the present day, but can be readily understood when we learn that, a hundred years ago, the women of this town were obliged to marry for protection. The following are some of the orders issued September 2d, 1790, by the Spanish governor: Order No. 12 prohibits all women under the age of forty (whether widows or single) from living otherwise than under the immediate protection of their parents or relations. Order No. 23 forbidding masters or supercargoes of vessels from selling their cargoes by wholesale without having first exposed the same for sale at retail eight days previously to the public. Order No. 25 prohibiting persons from galloping horses through the streets, and dogs from going at large except hounds and pointers. Order No. 27 prohibiting persons from walking the streets after nine o’clock at night without a lantern with a light therein. Another order prohibited the owners of billiard tables from admitting tradesmen, laborers, domestics, and boys on working days.
There were few events worth recording which happened under the Spanish rule after 1800, or at least that are of interest to the general reader. Just after the recession the Indians attacked the settlements, and burned Bella Vista, the country seat of Governor Moultrie, seven miles south of St. Augustine. These Indian contests continued during the whole succeeding period up to the change of flags, and were then transferred to the Americans. The Indians were in almost every instance incited by white men, or goaded to desperation by the deceptions of their white neighbors, who were ever attempting to either make slaves of the Indians or procure what negro slaves were owned by them. Just before the cession of Florida to the United States, there were said to be about a thousand Indians in the vicinity of St. Augustine. These obtained a living by hunting, raising herds of cattle, and crops of corn, and bringing wood into St. Augustine. This they were said to carry in bundles on their backs. About this time they were all nearly starved by the trickery of some unprincipled residents of St. Augustine. At the period when the attention of themselves and their negro slaves was directed to the cultivation of their crops a few worthless wretches, for the purpose of alarming the Indians, and inducing them to sell their slaves for almost nothing, went among the nation and spread the report that two thousand men under General Jackson were coming to expel them from their lands and carry away their slaves and cattle. This form of imposition had before proved successful, and did in this case. The Indians upon this abandoned their lands and sold their slaves, but before the next season experienced great suffering from want, while the unprincipled speculators having gratified their avarice were indifferent to the needs of the poor savages.
In January, 1811, President Monroe appointed George Matthews and John McKee commissioners, with power to occupy the Floridas with force, “should there be room to entertain a suspicion that a design existed in any other power to occupy the provinces.” In pursuance of these instructions, which at this day must be considered simply extraordinary, one of the commissioners came to St. Augustine, and made a proposition to the Spanish governor to surrender the province to the United States, which was of course refused. Thereupon it was given out that the United States intended to occupy the province, and those whose interest would be served endeavored to bring such a result about by every means in their power. This was the period of the embargo in the United States. The port of Fernandina affording deep water, and a convenient point for shipping American productions, and being under the Spanish flag, became the resort for a large fleet of vessels. This was of course obnoxious to the United States authorities, who offered every encouragement to a large class of citizens who were anxious to escape from the Spanish rule.
In March, 1812, a large number of these individuals organized a provisional government, and soon after, with the help of Commodore Campbell, United States Navy, obtained the capitulation of the town and fort on Amelia Island. Still encouraged, and led by citizens and officers of the United States, these men, styling themselves patriots, began a march toward St. Augustine, and taking possession of the old Fort Mosa, invested the place. From this place they were dislodged by a Spanish gun-boat, but they still hovered about the town and cut off all supplies. It is said that the courage and activity of a company of negroes commanded by a free black, named Prince, alone saved the people of the town from starvation. At this period a barrel of corn sold for sixteen dollars. At the same time the Indians were urged to attack the Americans and “patriots,” and for the space of a year there was a constant strife between these parties throughout Florida. In May, 1813, President Monroe, seeing that he had gone too far in incroaching upon the territory of a friendly nation, withdrew the American troops from Florida. These incursions under American protection in East Florida, like General Jackson’s unhesitating course in attacking the British on Spanish territory in West Florida, plainly showed the King of Spain how precarious and unreliable was the tenure of his sovereignty. The Spanish nation had held the territory of Florida for two hundred and fifty years, constantly yielding to the French and English portions adjacent originally claimed by Spain. The great hopes of wealth and a vast revenue from the province had never been realized; but, on the contrary, vast outlays had constantly been required, which were supplied by the more prosperous provinces and the home government. In 1811, Governor Estrada writes to the Captain-General of Cuba, that the $140,013 and 4 reals allowed annually for salaries was urgently needed; also that there were no funds wherewith to pay “the annual presents of the Indians, the payments due invalids, Florida pensioners and settlers, who receive a daily pension and charity, whose outcries are so continual that the most obdurate heart would melt at them with compassion.”
Under these circumstances it was but natural that the King of Spain should be willing to rid himself of this so very unprofitable province. The United States, upon the other hand, were anxious to obtain the possession of the peninsula to complete their coast line.
In 1819 a treaty of amity was concluded between his Catholic Majesty and the United States, whereby the two Floridas were ceded to the latter power as an indemnity for damages estimated at five million dollars. This treaty was dated February 22d, 1819, and ratified February 22d, 1821.
Seven years before the cession the Spanish Cortes had issued an order to the authorities of all the Spanish colonies to erect in some public place of their principal town a monument as a memorial of the liberal constitution which had been granted to Spain and her provinces. Accordingly, the City Council of St. Augustine, probably with the crown’s funds, erected upon the public square a monument to commemorate a grant of the privilege of representation, which the people of the province never even asked for, much less enjoyed. At the east end of the public square, or “Plaza de la Constitucion,” as it is now called, there stood, in Spanish times, the government drug store, two private houses used as dwellings, a bar-room, and the town market. Adjoining the market was a bell-tower, and the guard in front of the public jail, which stood where the St Augustine Hotel now is, used to strike the bell in the tower to mark the hours, which were counted with the old-fashioned sand-glass standing within the tower under the supervision of the guard. As these buildings occupied about a fourth part of the present plaza, the monument, though now situated toward the western side of the square, then stood in the center of the inclosure. Soon after its completion, the Spanish government issued orders that all monuments erected to the constitution throughout its realms should be razed. The citizens of St. Augustine were much grieved to think of losing their monument, which was considered a great ornament to the public park, and appealed to the governor and principal men to allow the decree to be disregarded. It was finally decided to allow the monument to stand without the inscription. The citizens accordingly removed the marble tablets upon which the inscriptions had been engraved, and placed them in concealment, where they remained until 1818, when they were restored without opposition. This monument is the only one in existence commemorative of the Spanish constitution of 1812. It is twenty feet high, standing upon a foundation of granite with a square pedestal, from which the shaft rises in a curve, and thence tapers with rectilinear surfaces to its top, which is surmounted by a cannon-ball. It is constructed of coquina, and its surface is cemented and kept whitewashed, except the ball upon the summit, which is painted black. Don Geronimo Alvarez was alcalde at the time it was erected. Upon three of the four sides there is set in the masonry a small marble tablet bearing the inscription, “Plaza de la Constitucion.” Upon the east side is the large marble tablet upon which is engraved the following:
Plaza de la
Constitucion.
Promulga en esta Ciudad
de San Agustin de la Florida
Oriental en 17 de Octubre de
1812 siendo Gobernador el
Brigadier Don Sebastian
Kindalem Cuba Here
del order de Santiago.
Peira eterna memoria
El Ayuntamiento Constitucional
Erigioeste Obelisco
dirigido por Don Fernando
de la Plaza[31]
Arredondo el Joven
Regidor De cano y
Don Franciscor Robira
Procurador Sindico.
Año de 1813