Spain and England in Florida
Louis C. Kleber writes how Florida was ceded to Britain in 1763; retroceded to Spain after the American Revolution, and acquired by the United States in 1819.
When the Spaniards under King Philip’s lieutenant, Don Pedro Menéndez de Aviles, massacred the French Huguenots at Fort Caroline and Matanzas in 1565, the foremost threat to Spanish Florida was removed. A French reprisal raid three years later was no more than that, and Spain was able to turn to the problem of maintaining a permanent presence in Florida.
It must be remembered that at this time ‘La Florida’ in Spanish eyes meant a vast area of North America, extending from the Keys in the south to Canada in the north. A clash with the rising oceanic power of England was inevitable. Florida was the key to protection of the route followed by homeward-bound galleons carrying enormous wealth from Spain’s colonies farther south.
In 1567 Menéndez returned to Spain to give a first-hand report on Florida. Under his energetic leadership, Spain had established tenuous military outposts from Port Royal Sound in Carolina to Tampa on the west coast of Florida. In addition to St. Augustine, a settlement was founded at Santa Elena. All of these were to suffer from a fundamental weakness of Spanish colonization; none was self-sustaining.
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