By 1565, founding date of the treasury under study, Spanish presence in the Indies was 73 years old. The experimental stage of government was past; institutions of administration had taken more or less permanent shape. A network of royal treasuries existed, some subordinate to viceroyalties or presidencies and others fairly independent. Principal treasuries with proprietary officials were located in the capital cities; subordinate treasuries staffed by lieutenants were at seaports, mining centers, or distant outposts. The factor had become a kind of business manager, administering tributes and native labor. The overseer’s original functions were forgotten as the crown turned its attention from commerce and conquest to the dazzling wealth of mines. As a result of the overriding interest in precious metals, overseers were confined to duty at the mints; in places without a mint their office was subsumed under the factor’s. And wherever there was little revenue from tribute the factorship was disappearing as well. The treasury of Florida had its beginnings in a maritime enterprise. This was no haphazard private adventure, but the carefully organized joint action of a corporate family and the crown. Pedro Menendez de Aviles was a tough, corsairing Asturian sea captain known to hold the interests of his clan above the regulations of the House of Trade, but the king could not afford to be particular. In response to French settlement at Fort Caroline, Philip II made a 3-year contract (capitulacion) with Menendez, naming him Adelantado, or contractual conqueror, of Florida. At his own cost, essentially, Menendez was to drive out Rene de Laudonniere and every other interloper from the land between Terra Nova (Newfoundland) and the Ancones (St. Joseph’s Bay) on the Gulf of Mexico. Before three years were out he was to establish two or three fortified settlements and populate them. [Note 3: “Agreement between Dr. Vazquez of the Council in the name of the King, with Pedro Menendez de Aviles, 3/15/1565.”] The bounds of Florida in the 1565 contract did not include the northern Gulf Coast, called Amichel. This was corrected in 1573 by a codicil extending the adelantado’s territory around the Gulf to the border of New Galicia: the River Panuco, which he proposed to penetrate and settle (cedula to Pedro Menendez de Aviles, 2/23/1573)] He did all of this, but as the French crisis escalated, the king had to come to his support. During the three years of the contract Menendez and his supporters invested over 75,000 ducats; the crown, more than 208,000 ducats, counting Florida’s share of the 1566 Sancho de Archiniega reinforcements of 1,500 men and 17 ships. Despite the heavy royal interests, the new colony was governed like a patrimonial estate. The adelantado nominated his own men to treasury office: his kinsman Esteban de las Alas as treasurer, his nephew Pedro Menendez Marquez as accountant, and a future son-in-law, Hernando de Miranda, as factor-overseer. This was open and honorable patronage, as Menendez himself said: “Now, as never before, I have need that my kinfolk and friends follow me, trustworthy people who love me and respect me with all love and loyalty.” It was also an effort to settle the land, as he once explained: “They are people of confidence and high standing who have served your Majesty many years in my company, and all are married to noblewomen. Out of covetousness for the offices [for which they are proposed], and out of love for me, it could be that they might bring their wives and households. Because of these and of others who would come with their wives, it is a fine beginning for the population of the provinces of Florida with persons of noble blood.” AN8 (Bushnell KC)