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Seven Spanish friars reported persecution by Creoles and Moral
Source: The Governorship of Spanish Florida #122
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The Crisis of 1735 Reports coming out of Florida in the spring of 1735 warned of the impending break within the order. In March seven Spanish Franciscans reported to Philip V that Creole chapter officials, in collusion with Governor Francisco del Moral Sanchez, had created intolerable conditions for them. They had received no language training and had been given difficult villages in which to work. In addition, the Creoles had put colonial-born friars alongside the Spaniards in Indian villages. With greater facility in the Indian tongues and armed with a greater number of supplies and gifts to distribute among the natives, the Creoles pointed up the inadequacies of the Spaniards and turned the Indians against them. When the peninsulars went before Governor Moral in an attempt to put an end to this practice, the governor scoffed at their pleas and told them to return to their missions. He also continued to award supplies for the Indians to the Creoles and in this way further weakened the position of the Spaniards among the natives. [Note 102: los frailes espanoles (7) de la Florida al rey 3/6/1735] Moral’s alliance with the Creoles is not surprising. Assuming the governorship in 1734, he seemed at first to be a model administrator. He eagerly put forward schemes to remedy the chronic problems afflicting Florida—poverty and low morale—and helped to strengthen the tottering defenses of the colony. He fortified Forts Pupo and Picolata, established new lookout posts north and south of the Florida capital, and proposed plans for the revival of Apalache. But it was not long before he alienated many Floridians. He tolerated illicit trade with merchants from Charleston and seems to have taken bribes for allowing the commerce. In his administration of the annual subsidy he distributed money and supplies only to his friends and discriminated against those in the colony whom, he believed, constituted a threat to his authority. His rigid censorship of communications leaving Florida and arbitrary imprisonment of a number of influential Floridians also helped turn the colony against him. But in 1735 he needed allies in his struggle to retain the governorship, and the Creole Franciscans made convenient and powerful friends. He could use the friars as his defenders in representations to the court in Spain, while the Creoles could use him in their fight to maintain control over the order. On their side the Creole friars wrote idyllic letters to Philip V praising Moral’s administration. In return the governor refused to listen to the complaints of the peninsulars and stoutly defended the Creoles in his dispatches to the king. He also placed supplies for the succor of the Indians at the disposal of the colonial-born clergymen, giving them a great advantage with the natives. All the poor Spanish friars could offer the natives were promises of eternal life, which they had to preach in a language completely alien to the Indians. [Note 105: los frailes espanoles (7) de la Florida al rey 3/6/1735] (Tepaske GSF)
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