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Most FL colonists starved and departed
Source: The Governorship of Spanish Florida #122
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Attempts to grow crops and raise cattle failed, food became scarce, and disease too its toll. [Note: Menendez had the foresight to furnish his colonists with seeds, agricultural implements, and animals for breeding purposes, but the settlers soon came to depend exclusively upon outside aid, since they could not make headway in the sandy wasteland surrounding Saint Augustine or in tiny settlements established in the hinterland. At Santa Lucia conditions were so desperate the soldiers chewed shoes, leather belts, snakes, rats, and dwarf palmettoes as real delicacies. There is some evidence that they also resorted to cannibalism to say alive.] Menendez obtained supplies in Spain and the Indies to sustain his colonists, at least partially; but his long absences away from the new settlement left it without a steadying influence. By 1570 most of the original migration of 1,500 had become disillusioned about their future and departed for Spain, leaving less than 300 hearty souls to carry on in Florida. (Tepaske GSF)
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