The Factional Struggle, the Governor, and the Colony: An Assessment At first glance the dispute between the Creole and Spanish friars hardly deserves more than passing notice. In an isolated corner of the Empire colonial-born Franciscans—after a bitter fight with the peninsulars—had come to dominate conventual affairs. In the process the order had split and lost much of its influence in Florida. AN400 But the Spanish-Creole rift had wider implications. It is significant that the fight within the order did not spread to the rest of the colony to pit Spaniard against Creole. The quarrel was confined almost solely to the friars with only minor repercussions in the social and political life of the colony. Creole residents or soldiers did not join Creole friars in their drive to maintain their ascendancy in the order, nor did Spanish colonists join Spanish Franciscans in their attempt to break the Creole hold on the chapter. Among the residents of Florida, there was apparently no division based on class or birth except within the order. Three Spanish governors—Benavides, Moral, and Montiano—showed no peninsular bias; in fact, they supported the Creole faction, the group they believed best served the interests of the colony. In the mother country, however, the attitudes of the king and his advisers in the Council of the Indies were rigid and uncompromising. The superiority of the peninsular over the colonial was explicit in all royal edicts, in those of the Council of the Indies, and in the opinion of the Franciscan commissary general. The king and his advisers never strayed once from the principle that Spanish ascendancy must be maintained. For them this was more important than the religious welfare of the colony. The era of compromise, like the alternative, had apparently ended, at least in Florida. Bourbon policy dictated a firmer, more arbitrary course. (Tepaske GSF)