^
Update this timeline entry
Arredondo was sent to investigate Moral
Source: The Governorship of Spanish Florida #122
Project ID
Chapter
No chapter
Timeline title
Start date
End date
Filename received
Filename assigned
Content
Enable editor
Use plain text
Code entry
A second special check on colonial officials was the pesquisa, the secret probe of a given province or official. In 1736 the king called for a pesquisa to investigate Francisco del Moral Sanchez, appointed to the governorship in 1734 and suspected of abuse of office. In Moral’s case a secret investigation was imperative. An official visitador would only serve to put the governor on his guard; an unsuspected secret agent, however, could work more effectively and achieve more reliable results. As pesquisador the governor of Cuba, Francisco de Guemes y Horcasitas, appointed the Cuban engineer Antonio de Arredondo. Ostensibly he was sent to Florida to confer with the governor of Georgia, James Oglethorpe, concerning a border dispute. This, it was hoped, would disguise Arredondo’s real intentions and allow him to survey conditions in Florida without arousing Morals’ suspicions. [Note: Lanning, The Diplomatic History of Georgia, 1936, pp. 45-46 describes Arredondo’s diplomatic mission. Gov of Cuba to king 10/27/1736 points out that Arredondo was serving as pesquisador.] Arredondo obtained strong evidence of Moral’s corruption and misrule. Effectively masking his real aims from the governor, he took secret testimony from soldiers at Fort San Marcos, from friars in the Franciscan convent, and from residents of Saint Augustine. Their statements and Arredondo’s own observations bore out the rumors concerning Moral’s conduct in office and were decisive in convincing Governor Guemes of Moral’s guilt. [Note: AGI SD L862. Testimony taken by Arredondo is contained in documents for the months of Sept and Oct 1736. See, for example, Certificacion de Fray Joseph de Florez Rubio 10/16/1736.] Ultimately, the engineer’s report paved the way for the governor’s ouster in 1737 and formed the basis of later charges against Moral. [Note: Gov of Cuba to king 11/27/1736.] (Tepaske GSF)
Replace existing data with this data
