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Content Enable editor Use plain text Code entry Duties, Responsibilities, and Privileges of the Governor Spanish colonial administration did not operate under the separation-of-powers principle. In the colonies there were few, if any, officials or councils that handled executive, legislative, or judicial responsibilities exclusively. Most colonial administrators and agencies had a multitude of duties and functions. The powers of the viceroy, for example, spread into the executive, legislative, and judicial spheres; so did those of his advisory council (audiencia). In Florida the situation was no different. The governor had wide powers that spread into all phases of colonial life. His titles alone—governor, captain general, royal vice patron of the church—gave him more than just executive responsibility. As governor he received political power usually inherent in such a title—administrative authority and limited appointive power. As captain general he took command of all soldiers serving in the colony. As royal vice patron of the church he had at least partial control over religious activities. Since Florida was too more and too meagerly populated to support a court system, the governor was also the chief colonial judicial officer. He arranged all civil and criminal trials and forwarded legal documents to the Council of the Indies in Spain when the offense warranted review or trial by this body. The governor found his many duties and responsibilities defined in two principal sources—his initial dispatch of title and royal law. Unlike his English counterpart, the Spanish colonial governor did not receive lengthy instructions, both open and secret; he obtained only a short dispatch of title that set down his functions in a general way. Signed by the king, sealed with the royal coat of arms, and countersigned by the secretary of state (after 1717), this dispatch of title granted him the governorship for a three- or five-year term. The document ordered him to guard and defend the province of Florida against all enemies, to observe all laws governing the conduct of his predecessor, to make an investigation of the outgoing governor’s administration, and under no circumstances to forsake his post until a replacement arrived. The document also outlined his salary and perquisites in great detail. (Tepaske GSF)

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