The Menendez Marquez Cattle Barony at La Chua and the Determinants of Economic Expansion in Seventeenth-Century Florida

It was the Spanish Crown's policy to populate the Indies and make them productive, and Florida was no exception. Spain made repeated attempts to establish a settlement there. Each successive adelantado contracted to found towns, bring in settlers, and distribute the land without dispossessing the Indians. Each family was to be given tools, seeds and cuttings, and livestock, including cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs. First, however, the land had to be conquered. That conquest began when Pedro Menendez founded St. Augustine in 1565 and Santa Elena (on present Parris Island) a year later. (Pedro Menendez de Aviles to King Philip II, October 15, 1565.) Although the great anti-corsairing captain from Asturias at one time or another had a garrisoned fort and a Jesuit located on every deep harbor from the Chesapeake south to the Keys and along the Gulf to Tampa Bay, the Spanish presence remained precarious. At the time of Menendez's death in 1574, all his fortified places had collapsed except Santa Elena and St. Augustine; the French had resumed their interrupted peltry and sassafrass trade; and even the Jesuits had departed. (King [Philip II] cedula to Pedro Menendez Marquez, July 11, 1583.) ...For another twenty-five years the Spanish confined themselves to St. Augustine, the islands off the coast of present Carolina and Georgia, and some missions along the St. Johns River. (Bushnell MM)

In the contract Pedro Menendez entered into with the King to conquer and settle North America he was promised a marquisate over a large tract of land, twenty-five leagues squared, or close to 4,000 square miles. He probably selected these properties near Santa Elena, which was the Florida capital until 1587 and the place to which he took his family. (Po Menendez to Po Menendez Marquez, Santander, September 8, 1574.) At one time it was Menendez's intention to give this marquisate to his illegitimate daughter Maria, and the lieutenant governorship of Florida to Diego de Velasco, as her dowry upon their marriage. But the Adelantado died, Velasco fell into disgrace, and Santa Elena was abandoned. (Po Menendez Will, San Lucar, January 7, 1574; Consejo, April 11, 1579.) The claims of the heirs against the Crown passed to a collateral line through a nephew called Pedro Menendez the "One-Eyed." He was killed in Florida after a career of intrigue which included charging the King freight on the illegal goods he was smuggling in His Majesty's ships.(Auto on Guale Rebellion, January 12, 1598.) For seventy-five years the Menendez Florida inheritance, if any, remained in doubt. When the lawsuits were finally settled in 1648, all that was left was the title of Adelantado, one fishery, and a seemingly uncollectible note for 40,000 ducats. There was no marquisate and no land. (Martin Menendez de Aviles, January 8, 1646; Consejo, August 6, 1648.) The Menendez Marquez family of Florida came from a separate collateral line (see table on p. 413). Pedro Menendez Marquez was the first royal accountant for Florida. He was also the first royal governor (1577-1589), the greatest of what might be called the "Asturian Dynasty." Pedro was a nephew of the Adelantado on his mother's side. (Consejo, October 21, 1579.) Pedro's sister, Catalina, lived in Florida for forty years and ran a hospital for soldiers in her home. By her second husband, treasurer Juan de Posada, she had a daughter, Maria Menendez y Posada. When the latter was twelve years old Pedro and Catalina betrothed her to a veteran Indian fighter named Juan Menendez Marquez, who called Pedro his cousin but who may have been his son. Juan returned to Florida in 1593 to succeed Juan de Posada as treasurer, and three years later he married Maria. It is from this union that the Menendez Marquez family of Florida descended. They were related to the Adelantado on both sides: on the one through a grand-nephew whose legitimacy was uncertain, and on the other through females for three generations. (Maria Menendez y Posada, Madrid, October 23, November 3, 1629. Marquez, May 24, 1622; Brme Arguelles, March 18, 1599; Ju Mendedez Marquez, January 5, 1608.) [Note: Juan was on the expedition from Florida to Roanoke (Axacan) in 1588... Francisco, son of Juan, called himself a grandson of Pedro Menendez Marquez. The King understood that Maria was Juan's niece. (Cedula to Governor Mendez de Canzo, July 7, 1596.)] If the Adelantado did leave lands in Florida, any claim these relatives could make would seem farfetched. CHART: MENENDEZ MARQUEZ OFFICEHOLDERS AND RANCHERS Juan Alonso Sanchez de Avilds m. Maria Alonso de Arango -Pedro Menendez de Avilds Alvaro SAnchez de Avilds Maria Alonso de Arango la moza m. Ana Maria de Solis m. Berenguela de Vald6s m. Alonso Marquez el mozo Governor Factor Juan Menendez (drowned) Pedro Menendez el mozo Accountant Maria Menendez (nun) m. Mayor de Arango Treasurer Ana Menendez (murdered) 1565- Catalina Menendez (childless) Pedro Menendez de Avilds 1592 m. 1 Hernando de Miranda m. Ysavel de Porras m. 2 Hernando de las Alas Alvaro Menendez de Aviles Porras Maria Menendez (illegit.) Gabriel Menendez de A. Porras m. Diego de Velasco Martin Menendez de A. Porras Pedro Menendez Marquez m. Maria de Solis Catalina Menendez Marquez m. 1 Diego Londoiio de Otalora (Factor) m. 2 Juan de Posada Treasurer 1593- 1649 dMaia Menendez y Posada _m. 1596 Juan Menendez Marquiz (illegit.?) Alonso Menendez y Posada Francisco Men Marqu&z m. 2 Juana Sanchez de Uriza m. 1 Antonia de Pedroso Juan Menendez Marquez II Antonio M. Marquez Thomas Menrndez Marquiz m. Teresa Sotolongo m. Maria Mejia de los Angeles Accountant 1664- 1743 Maria Isidora M. Marquez Antonia M. Marquez Francisco Menendez Marquez II m. Francisco Romo de Uriza m. Juan de Hita m. 2 Francisca L6pez de Toledo m. 3 Catalina de Avila y Saavedra m. 1 Antonia Basilia de Le6n Francisco Menendez Marquez III m. Juana Benedit Horruytiner (accountantcy denied him in 1720) (Bushnell MM)

By 1600 there was no more land which a governor could deed outright. Many of the lots in St. Augustine had been granted when the city was founded, and the rest in 1587, when the settlers of Santa Elena were removed to live there. (Bushnell MM)

To feed the garrison, dried beef was bought in Havana at a cost of 2,000 ducats a year. And when this did not arrive, or suffice, as often happened, a soldier slaughtered one of his family's cows. (Bartolome de Arguelles, May 12, 1591.) [Note: There were ordinarily eight reales in a peso and eleven in a ducat.] (Bushnell MM)

The treasury office, Maria's dowry, was bequeathed with less trouble than the land. When Juan departed St. Augustine after twenty-seven years to become governor of Popayan in South America, he was able to leave his son Francisco as treasurer, a position which Francisco held for twenty-nine years. Then Francisco's sons by his first wife, a Cuban girl, purchased the office of accountant and also the right to succeed each other: first Juan II, then Antonio, and finally Thomas. The three brothers remained in office for a total of forty-two years. Thomas trained his own son, Francisco II, who served 37 years. Between 1593 and 1743, the year of Francisco II's death, the family had held one of the two offices of the royal treasury for a total of 135 years. [Note: The office of factor was subsumed into the others in several phases between 1624 and 1628.] (Bushnell MM)

The Potano territory, which included the good grass country, ran west from the St. Johns River to the Gulf marshes, south to Ocali (presently Ocala), and north to the San Martin River (Suwannee-Santa Fe). Above Potano on the way to Apalache there were two other regions peopled by Timucuan-speakers--Utina and Ustaqua. The natives of Potano suffered through three generations of exposure to European pathogens and firearms, two wars, and sixteen years of exile before they finally made peace with the Spanish in 1600. The Indians agreed to furnish laborers and maize to St. Augustine when required, and requested that friars be sent into their territory. Within a few years the Franciscans were gathering their Potano converts into missions placed at strategic points along the communications network. Two transpeninsular roads led from the east coast to Apalache. On the upper artery were the missions of San Diego de Salamototo, at a ferry point on the St. Johns; San Francisco de Potano, near present-day Gainesville; Santa Fe, where the road entered Utina by a natural bridge over the Santa Fe; and San Juan de Guacara, the ferry point over the Guacara River (Upper Suwannee) between Utina and Ustaqua. The lower road crossed the St. Johns two leagues south of Salamototo and came into the savannahs of the interior somewhere in what is presently southern Alachua County. Then, heading northwest toward Apalache, the road crossed the San Martin four leagues from its mouth, at present Old Town Hammock, which may have been the site of San Martin mission. The two transpeninsular roads were linked at San Francisco by a north-south trail. (Note: The trail described by ...Vanderhill, "The Alachua Trail"... was east of this earlier one.) Water ways were also available. From the St. Johns there was access into the interior by the Oklawaha; from the Gulf, by the San Martin or the Amajuro, the lower of the two Withlacoochees. The transportation network for north-central Florida was complete, and docile Indians were there to run the errands, row the canoes, and carry the burdens. (Bushnell MM)

The new missions were harassed by the Tocobaga and Pocoy Indians from the coast and the Keys who raided upriver in their great scows of cypress. Governor Juan Fernandez de Olivera (1609-1612) made war on these Indians in 1610 or 1611, and afterward he kept a launch on the San Martin to insure the safety of Potano, open the way for missions in Utina and Ustaqua, and provide a back door exit to Havana. (Governor Fernandez de Olivera, October 13, 1612; Thomas Menendez Marquez and Joachin de Florencia to Governor Torres y Ayala, April 15, 1697.) This was the first time soldiers were stationed in the Florida interior. The frontier of conquest--or of "pacification" as Philip II preferred to call it--shifted to Ais and Jeaga on the east coast. (Governor Salinas, January 30, 1623.) But Potano's troubles were not yet over. In 1614 an epidemic struck... (Bushnell MM)

In 1614 an epidemic struck, and within four years at least one half of the Christian mission population had died. Soldiers began referring to Florida as an "uninhabited land." (Fr. Francisco Pareja et al., January 14, 1617.) (Bushnell MM)

The Spanish were also facing adverse times. Piet Heyn, the Dutch corsair, captured the New Spain silver fleet in 1628, and the Florida situado with it. (Bushnell MM)

Governor Andres Rodriguez de Villegas was baffled by Indian mortality. In 1630 he wrote, ".... the Indians [of Florida] are the least worked and the best treated in the Indies, yet they die here as elsewhere." (Bushnell MM)

There was a modest boom in production. Governor Luis de Horruytiner (1633-1638), whose family elected to remain in Florida, may have begun land grants in the provinces. He was the one who opened trade between Havana and the port of San Marcos in Apalache, the newest and richest province. Trading vessels began to call at the port of San Martin, four leagues up the Suwannee, and at other rivers on the Gulf coast. (Governor Luis de Horruytiner, June 24, 1637; Thos Menendez Marquez and Joachin de Florencia to Governor Torres y Ayala, April 15, 1697.) [Note: Havana and San Marcos were only a week's sail apart according to Joseph de Prado and Juan Menendez Marquez II, September 22, 1667.) (Bushnell MM)

Like the governor, the treasurer and accountant were provided with official residences in St. Augustine. They knew when boats were being dispatched to barter for ambergris or furs with the infieles (the Indians not yet converted). They speculated on the certificates for back wages which served as a medium of exchange after 1638. A treasury official's salary plus rations amounted to 1,150 ducats or 1,470 pesos, ten times as much as a foot soldier was paid. The governor received 2,080 ducats. The two treasury officials were also the city councilmen which allowed them to regulate prices, assign lots, and receive a rebate from tavern sales. Traveling to Mexico City for the situado was a prerogative the officials generally shared in turn. The per diem they received nearly doubled their salaries, and while they were at the viceregal capital they often made use of the King's money to buy trade goods of their own. (Bushnell MM)

Ten years later the King ordered all situados bound for Caribbean forts brought instead to Spain for more pressing military needs. (Pedro Beltr:in de Santa Cruz, November 28, 1645.) If only Florida had suffered a loss, Spanish colonies that were unaffected could have come to her aid, but in these two cases there was nowhere to go for help. Credit was available in Havana, but without exports to serve as collateral, it could be secured only on the most usurious terms. (Brme Arguelles, May 12, 1591; Governor Rojas y Borja, November 6, 1628; Francisco Menendez Marquez and Pedro Benedit Horruytiner, May 17, 1646.) Florida was forced to become as self-sufficient as possible, while trying to find products for export: hides and pelts to Spain, naval supplies and provisions to Havana. (Bushnell MM)

In an attempt to make this trade beneficial to St. Augustine, Governor Damian de Vega Castro y Pardo (1639-1645) sent ships around the peninsula to secure maize, and he stationed customs officials at the Apalache port. (Governor Vega Castro y Pardo, August 22, 1639.) (Bushnell MM)

Governor Benito Ruiz de Salazar Vallecilla (1645-1651) opened up fur trade operations with Apalachicola, north of Apalache, and started a wheat farm at Asile in Ustaqua. (Auto on Bishopric, September 30 to October 5, 1645; Domingo de Leturiondo, Madrid, December 30, 1672. [Note: Asile, on the border between two Spanish provinces, was sometimes said to be in Apalache and sometimes in Timucua.) (Bushnell MM)

And Francisco, the first Florida-born Menendez Marquez of the line, began raising cattle in Timucua. So far, only two documents referring to this early ranch have been found. The ranch's location, its date of founding, even its name, are unknown. The most famous of the Menendez Marquez family ranches in a later time was the "hacienda de la chua," from which the town and county of Alachua took their name. Its owner, Francisco's son Thomas, claimed he had inherited la Chua from his father. (po Beltran Santa Cruz, November 20, 1655; Salvador de Cigarroa, Madrid, June 25, 1659; Thos Menendez Marquez and Joachin Florencia to Governor Torres y Ayala, April 15, 1697.) Without more documentation, however, it would be premature to equate la Chua with the first ranch. Francisco may have started his hacienda in 1646 or 1647, when he and the accountant were serving as co-interim governors, having suspended Governor Salazar Vallecilla for not finishing the galleon he had promised to the King. During that period Francisco led a troop of Spanish soldiers and Timucuans into Apalache province, where he subdued a rebellion and obligated the natives for the first time to the labor draft, for as he explained, the other provinces of Christians were almost out of Indians. (Frco Menendez Marquez and Po Benedit Horruytiner, May 17, 1646 and July 27, 1647; Frco Menendez Marquez, February 8, 1648.) (Bushnell MM)

The conditions for large ranches in north-central Florida seemed to have been met. The provinces were pacified. In Potano, the largest district of Timucua province, there were some 3,000 Indians, enough to maintain the transportation network but not to compete for the grasslands. There were creole entrepreneurs who had access to the capital with which to acquire both labor and livestock. And there were markets: internal ones at St. Augustine and the smaller Florida garrisons, and external markets in Spain and in Havana, where the treasure fleet was outfitted. But, in addition, there had to be more Spanish citizens than were needed to maintain the St. Augustine garrison, and there had to be continuity. These two determinants of economic expansion into the hinterlands were about to receive a serious setback. In 1648 Francisco Menendez Marquez complained that a clique of Basques, with the governor as their leader, were monopolizing trade and threatening his life because he was carrying out his responsibilities as treasurer. (Frco Menendez Marquez, February 18, 1648.) A year after the King received this letter, Francisco was dead. Typhus or yellow fever, which had carried off a third of the people of Havana, had been brought from there to Florida. In St. Augustine the epidemic killed Francisco and his fellow treasury official, the governor, both company captains, and many friars. (Po Beltrin Santa Cruz, November 20, 1655.) [Note: The "fiebres putridas" were brought to Cuba on the New Spain flota in the spring of 1649.] Florida's Spanish population was so reduced that expansion would not be possible for years unless more settlers arrived on the scene. (Bushnell MM)

It is not clear how capital was supposed to be accumulated legitimately in Spanish Florida. Perhaps there was no way. Alonso Menendez y Posada, the young uncle and guardian of Francisco's children, was engaged in many disreputable political and economic activities during the 1650s. Although never a royal official himself, Alonso was favored by Governor Pedro Benedit Horruytiner (1651-1654) and Governor Rebolledo (1654-1659). His involvement with retail trade, ambergris smuggling, and rigged elections may have accounted for some of the capital which became available in the 1660s.(Petition of Menendez Marquez orphans, Madrid, June 30, 1630; Po Beltran Santa Cruz, November 20, 1655; Anonymous, November 20, 1655; Stos Heras and Domgo Leturiondo, October 8, 1657; Governor Rebolledo, October 10, 1657; Po Benedit Horruytiner, November 10, 1657.) Certainly little funds were coming from the Crown. (Bushnell MM)

From the prices prevailing in 1651 one can estimate the capital needed to start a ranch. Land in the provinces cost nothing unless it was under cultivation. It was measured by the league or by the amount of seed required to plant it. Cattle averaged twenty-one pesos each, and locally-bred horses, 100. A black or mulatto slave from New Spain, expert at handling cattle, could be purchased for 500 to 600 pesos. (Sale of Governor Salazar Vallecilla's estate, October 16, 1651.) [Note: Governor Rebolledo, October 18, 1657, thought these prices were low for Florida.) In addition to the outlay for equipment and ranch buildings, a spread of 200 head, five mounts, and two hands could run to over 6,000 pesos, or four times as much as a royal official legally earned in one year. Treasurer Francisco's ranch was valued in 1649 at 8,000 pesos, and was showing an annual profit of 700 pesos. Thus, if Francisco had invested 8,000 pesos in his property, he was receiving a return of nearly nine percent. Since Francisco died almost 20,000 pesos in debt to the treasury, the money he had invested was obviously the King's. (Po Beltrin Santa Cruz, November 20, 1655.) (Bushnell MM)

In 1651 one head of beef had been valued at 21 pesos and an ox at 40... The price of horses was also falling, from 100 pesos in 1651 to 25 pesos in 1682. (Bushnell MM)

Famine followed plague. The wheat flour was used up and, more seriously, one of the 1653 maize crops was damaged by a wind storm. In the "noble and loyal city of St. Augustine," people were living on distasteful wild roots and shellfood. (Acclamation of Philip V, January 7, 1702; Santos de las Heras and Joseph de Prado, August 24, 1653.) (Bushnell MM)

The labor shortage caused by the smallpox epidemic and famine were soon aggravated by events originating away from Florida. When the English seized Jamaica in 1655 all of the garrisons in the Caribbean were put on alert. Indian auxiliaries were called up to strengthen the forces at St. Augustine, and extra workmen were requisitioned for the fortifications. (Bushnell MM)

Six years after the epidemic of 1649, smallpox was reported in Florida. All of the royal slaves died, and many of the Indians. The plague atmosphere produced a kind of recklessness in the city. In an irregular popular election Pedro Benedit Horruytiner was chosen governor, and immediately issued 44 officers' patents, including twenty-three for captain. (Anonymous, November 20, 1655.) (Bushnell MM)

The chief of San Martin, outraged that chiefs should be required to carry their own rations of maize on their backs when coming to help the Spanish, started an uprising in Potano and Utina in 1656. The "Great Rebellion" erupted into an eight-month civil war between loyal and rebel Indians. The whole countryside deserted their towns for the woods out of fear, and bands of starving people roamed from place to place. It was during this time that the herds of cattle at Francisco's ranch were destroyed. (Fr. Juan Gomez de Engraba to Fr. Francisco Martinez, Havana, March 13, 1657; Friars, September 10, 1657; Sdor Cigarroa, Madrid, June 25, 1659.) (Bushnell MM)

Before cattle raising could resume in north-central Florida the essentials must be reestablished. Peace seemed to have returned to the land, where most of the inhabitants had died, but a detachment of soldiers under a deputy governor was stationed at Santa Fe just in case. The transportation network had been re established. Breeding stock was available, with some 800 yearlings being branded every spring on the small estancias east of the St. Johns. [Note: This figure is an estimate from the cattle tithes of 1648-1657, reported by Stos Heras and Domgo Leturiondo, September 13, 1656. Since the tithe was 2.5%, rather than 10% as Arnade supposed, his estimates of herd size may be quadrupled. (Frco Rocha and Frco Cigarroa, July 10, 1685. For the practice of branding, see Governor Zuniga y Cerda, Auto on cattle, November 10, 1702.) (Bushnell MM)

War and famine were followed by a measles epidemic, the peste or sarampion. Governor Alonso de Aranguiz y Cotes (1659 1663) claimed that before he arrived the disease had already killed 10,000 Indians. (Guale chiefs, October 16, 1657; Governor Aranguiz y Cotes, November 1, 1659.) Florida was demoralized by death. Juan FernAndez de Florencia, whose parents had been murdered eight years earlier in the Apalache rebellion, was sent into Timucua to return the survivors to essential communications points: San Juan de GuacAra, San Martin, San Francisco, and Santa Fe. (Juan Fernandez de Florencia, July 31, 1670; Claudio de Florencia et al., May 7, 1707; Po BeltrAn Santa Cruz, November 20, 1655.) In once populous and well-kept Potano, villages were abandoned and wild grass covered the maize fields. If Potano was to be occupied at all, it would have to be by ranchers. (Bushnell MM)

The Florida situado was an annual royal subvention which in the seventeenth century was a charge upon the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1660 it was raised from 48,000 pesos to 67,000, and it was approximately 81,000 pesos in 1700. (Bushnell MM)

In the 1660s three of Francisco's sons by Antonia de Pedroso took their commissions in the garrison. The first one, Sergeant Major Juan, also became the accountant in 1664. The parish priest, the mistress of Governor Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega (1664-1671), and Juan's wife all seem to have been related. Captain Antonio went on dispatch voyages and maintained the family trade connections. Adjutant Thomas, the youngest, married Maria Mejia de los Angeles in 1663, when he was twenty. (Ju Menendez Marquez II, July 4, 1668; Governor Guerra y Vega, September 18, 1667, and Joseph de Prado and Ju Menendez Marquez II, September 22, 1667; Governor Guerra y Vega to Governor Divila Orejon Gaston of Cuba, July 7, 1668.) (Bushnell MM)

Skilled labor was inadvertently provided by the Viceroy of New Spain when he dispatched a company of Mexicans to the garrison. Purportedly useless as soldiers, since they were mestizos and not "real" Spaniards, many who were expert horsemen found themselves working on ranches. One, Francisco Perez de Castaneda from Xochimilco, later became the Menendez Marquez overseer and was married in Don Thomas's house. (Nicolas Ponce de Leon II, February 19, 1664; Joseph de Prado and Ju Menendez Marquez II, June 30, 1668; Florencia Visita of 1694-1695; Parish Register Marriages, April 20, 1678.) [Note: Judging from those they married, these Mexican recruits and those who came later were mestizos or mulattoes.] (Bushnell MM)

In 1668 the situado was delinquent by eight years, and there were only 130 effective soldiers in the garrison, which had an authorized strength of 300. There is no evidence that any of the 8,000 Spanish refugees from Jamaica to Cuba chose to come on to Florida. (Bushnell MM)

Five years later, when privateers from Jamaica under Robert Searles attacked St. Augustine and killed sixty persons in the streets, Juan and Antonio distinguished themselves in the defense of the fort, but Thomas was absent. (Ju Menendez Marquez II, July 4, 1668, and Governor Guerra y Vega, July 7, 1668.) He may have been on assignment with the little garrison in Timucua, and using his leave time to plan a new ranch in Potano. Most of the more affluent families of St. Augustine owned farms in the country, but the Menendez Marquez brothers wanted more than a small country place. (Auto on St. Mark's Day, April 27, 1697; Governor Zuniga y Cerda, Decree, November 6, 1702.) (Bushnell MM)

In 1670, Apalache hogs were quoted at four pesos, delivered to the city. Thirty years later... (Bushnell MM)

In 1670, two years after the Searles raid on St. Augustine, Charles Towne was founded sixty leagues up the coast. Accountant Juan commanded a small fleet that hoped to destroy this settlement, but a storm dispersed his boats. Before anything else could be attempted, news came that Spain had made peace with England. The two powers may have intended this peace only as a breathing period, but the effects on St. Augustine were immediate. Authorities in New Spain, whose interest in Florida had been reawakened as a result of the Searles raid, now began forwarding everything that had been lacking: weapons and ammunition, supplies, soldiers to replenish the garrison quota, and most important, money--enough to pay debts and back wages and to start constructing a stone castillo. [Note: Interim Governor NicolAs Ponce de Leon II informed the Crown that Charleston (San Jorge) had been settled in 1669. See July 8, 1673. Settlement actually took place in April 1670, three months prior to the Treaty of Madrid which defined boundaries on the principle of uti possidetis de facto.] AN175 (Bushnell MM)

In the twenty-three years (1672-1695) that it took to build the Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine was a busy, prosperous place. In addition to the increased numbers of soldiers, more slaves, convicts, and artisans were sent to work on the fort. The levy of Indians from the provinces was larger, with as many coming from Apalache as had formerly come from all three provinces together. The demand for foodstuffs rose sharply, and the creoles of Florida were ready to take advantage of the situation. (Fr. Antonio de Somoza, May 2, 1673; Consejo summary [November 5, 1676?] of letter from Fr. Alonso del Moral; Joseph de Prado and Antonio Menendez Marquez, March 21, 1672.) (Bushnell MM)

SPANISH FLORIDA has the historical reputation of a bleak and unfriendly place, unproductive, impoverished, and unhealthy, where governors and soldiers, friars and passive Indian converts were unable to defend their own borders, much less make the land self-sustaining. The doleful letters from officials of the colony about the lateness or inadequacy of the garrison's situado have made an impact on researchers, if they did not on the Crown... In recent years, however, examples of economic activity have been examined that belie this picture of total dependency. There were times during the seventeenth century when Spanish Florida approached self-sufficiency and was even exporting some of its products. These periods of economic activity were closely related to pacification of the provinces and demographic contraction. When conditions were relatively peaceful, the Florida-born Spanish--the creoles--would leave St. Augustine to move out into the provinces of Timucua (north-central Florida) and Apalache (the Tallahassee region), taking advantage of Indian settlements for labor and abandoned fields for land. As native population fell due to epidemic disease, the Spanish obtained the rights to more and more of the land for grazing purposes. They raised livestock, partly to supply the garrison, but mostly for the ranch products to ship from ports on the Gulf of Mexico. When these ranches in the provinces ceased to operate, it was not due so much to creole apathy as to pirates, falling prices, and Indian wars. The most important of the seventeenth-century cattle ranches was the hacienda de la chua ("ranch of the sinkhole") in north central Florida, owned and operated by the Menendez Marquez family, who were related to Pedro Menendez de Aviles himself. The earliest possible date for their ranch is 1646, eighty-one years after the founding of St. Augustine; the first reference to its exports is in 1675, and to its name, 1682. (Bushnell MM)

Meanwhile, as a result of another epidemic in 1672, and of the mortality rate among the natives working on the castillo, the Indians of the earliest converted provinces seemed to be disappearing. (Fr. Anto Somoza, May 2, 1673; Interim Governor Nicolas Ponce de Le6n II, n.d. [1674].) A census ordered by Governor Pablo de Hita y Salazar (1675-1680) showed that of the 10,766 Christian and heathen Indians subject to the Crown in 1675, there was a provincial distribution of 81% in Apalache, 13% in Timucua, and 6% in Guale. Potano, the largest territorial unit in Spanish Florida, had no more than 1.5% of the provincial population: 170 natives in the two towns of Santa Fe and San Francisco. The demographic vacuum was beginning to exert a pull on other Indians of the southeast. Representatives of various heathen tribes began drifting into the peninsula as early as 1650. [Note: The Bishop of Cuba confirmed 13,152 natives during his visit to Florida in 1674-1675. The reasons for this wide variance in figures invite further study.] Since they were neither tributary nor living in towns, they had not been counted in the census. Some attempt was made to redistribute the King's subjects. Ustaquan families were subsidized to form the new town of Ivitanayo on the road between San Francisco and Salamototo, but within a few years they had abandoned the place. (Leturiondo Visita of 1677-1678; Florencia Visita of 1694-1695.) (Bushnell MM)

Royal instructions prohibited the treasury officials in the Indies from introducing cattle and having income-producing ranches, but this restriction, like many others, was not enforced in Florida. The beef was needed for food, the hides and other ranch products for exports. (Cedula to royal officials of Florida, September 30, 1580; Brme Arguelles, August 3, 1598.) Few persons had the capital of a royal official or the interest in investing it locally. It was usual for the treasurer or accountant to engage in trade and production ("tratos y granjerias") of his own. Retail trade was not allowed to a gentleman, but a good head for business was always respected. (Fr. Juan Luengo, [Madrid], November 30, 1676.)

With the influx of castillo builders and soldiers, the St. Augustine Spanish population had recovered and was increasing. Plans were proposed for new towns of Spaniards in Timucua and Apalache provinces to provide defense against a foreign take-over. Governor Hita y Salazar issued numerous estancia licenses in both provinces, including some to Florencias and some to his own sons. He encouraged the creoles to resign their places in the garrison and to move into the interior to occupy the land and make it productive. (Joseph Prado and Ju Menendez Marquez II, September 22, 1667; Domgo Leturiondo, Madrid, December 30, 1672; NicolAs Ponce de Le6n II, March 24, 1675; Governor Hita y Salazar, September 6, 1677 and October 30, 1678.) Settlers took their families to San Luis, the new capital of Apalache, where they started ranches and became middlemen for the sale of Indian produce. One Spaniard entered into partnership with the chief of Ajoica in Utina to start an hacienda on that town's abandoned fields. (Alonso de Leturiondo, Relacion (Madrid, n.d. [1700?]); Leturiondo Visita of 1677-1678.) (Bushnell MM)

Before Governor Hita y Salazar's administration there had been no charge for the use of either the King's lands or his waters except the 2.5% tithe on the fruits of the land: maize, cattle, and garden stuff, and an occasional excise tax for a special purpose. (Stos Heras and Domgo Leturiondo, September 13, 1656; Frco Ramirez, Frco Menendez Marquez and Juan de la Cueva, June 2, 1627.) The governor lacked the funds to pay the laborers on the castillo and the viceroy was ignoring his letters. He decided to raise the money himself through land sales and quitrents, or usufructs. Ranchers were charged fifty pesos for each of their estancias. Farmers paid four reales (later reduced to one) per yugada, which was the area that a yoke of oxen could plow in one day. The minimum for each farmer was five pesos. (Governor Hita y Salazar, October 30, 1678; Frco Rocha and Frco Cigarroa, July 10, 1685; Consejo, October 13, 1687.) Indian chiefs, who appreciated the new source of income, began allotting and charging for the use of their old fields--a practice which they called "imposing tribute"--and they disputed the governor's right to assign the realengo. (Frco Rocha and Sdor Cigarroa, March 2, 1680.) Estancia holders who wanted their licenses made inheritable and not subject to the quitrent could buy titles of inheritance for fifty pesos a league. It is unclear whether this was computed by a square league, a league on one side of a square, or a radial league. Between 1677 and 1685, these titles brought in 2,500 pesos. (Frco Rocha and Frco Cigarroa, March 20, October 6, 1685; Governor Hita y Salazar, October 30, 1678.) [Note: The petitions of Marcos Delgado [December 1694] in the Florencia Visita of 1694-1695, and of Lorzo Horruytiner, May 6, 1685 suggest that the measurement was radial.] (Bushnell MM)

The way was now open to accumulate land in true baronial style by family alliance. Don Thomas and Dofia Maria betrothed their daughter Antonia to the governor's son, Captain Juan de Hita, whose ranch was near San Francisco. Another daughter, Maria Isidora, was married to Captain Francisco Romo de Uriza, whose ranch, the Chicharro, was visible across the Nayoa from the buildings at la Chua. Don Thomis's son Francisco was betrothed to Antonia Basilia de Le6n, daughter of the widow Luisa de los Angeles who had estancias east of the St. Johns. (See the 1763 map referred to in note 14 above; Freo Menendez Marquez II will, September 2, 1742.) [Note: These ranches of north central Florida figured largely in the third war of the Florida provinces.] (Bushnell MM)

It was about this time that the ranch at la Chua began operating at full strength. Thomas Menendez Marquez had already resigned his commission in order to devote all his time to it. The cattle, which had browsed in the woods throughout the winter, returned to the savannahs in the spring. They were then rounded into corrals for counting and branding, and the ecclesiastical tithe was set apart. There were no fences except those around gardens, and the savannahs were regularly burned over to control pests and renew the grass. Cattle from la Chua were driven to St. Augustine, crossing the St. Johns on flatboats operated by the Indians of Salamototo. In the city they were moved on to the royal abattoir, where they were slaughtered. The fresh meat was delivered to the garrison or sold to the citizens. (Florencia Visita of 1694-1695; Sdor Cigarroa and Frco Rocha, February 18, 1680.) The tallow was then extracted, the hides tanned, and then these ranch products were exported--some by the yearly vessel licensed since 1621 to trade with Spain, but most of them to Cuba. (Governor Hita y Salazar, September 6, 1677; cedula, May 9, 1687; Juan de Pueyo and Joseph Benedit Horruytiner, November 10, 1707.) It was a profitable enterprise, and probably operated as a monopoly when the Menendez Marquez brothers were on good terms with the governor. At times Don Thomais also provided the meat for the garrison at Apalache, although there were a number of cattle ranches in that province. From la Chua there was access to Apalache by both transpeninsular roads and by canoe. (Governor Hita y Salazar, Orders, April 7, 1679; Domingo de Leturiondo Visita of 1677-1678.) La Chua had not been located, however, to serve the needs of any garrison, nor did Don Thomais prefer to use the harbor at St. Augustine. The port of San Martin on the Suwannee was much closer to his ranch--fourteen leagues rather than thirty--and nearer to Havana than St. Augustine was. Also, the pigs-and chickens coastal trade of the Gulf, important as it might be to Cuba and the Florida provinces, was not as attractive to pirates as the treasure fleets which sailed up the Bahama Channel on the Atlantic coast. When Manuel de Cendoya was governor (1671 1673), San Martin was formally opened for exports. (Thos Menendez Marquez and Joachin Florencia to Governor Torres y Ayala, April 15, 1697.) Diego de Florencia and other Havana merchants began sending sloops and ketches up the river for consignments of la Chua hides, dried meat, and tallow. Don ThomAs himself had a frigate in the coastal trade. It carried too much draft to cross the shallows of the Suwannee River mouth when loaded, so Juan FernAndez de Florencia, now deputy governor of Apalache, regularly sent Tocobaga Indians with canoes to lighten it. (Diego de Pefialver Angulo, Havana, March 21, 1696, Thos Menendez Marquez, [April 15, 1697], and Thos Menendez Marqubz and Joachin Florencia to Governor Torres y Ayala, April 15, 1697; Ju Fernindez Florencia to Governor Hita y Salazar, May 25, 1675; Juan de la Rosa, December 24, 1677, in Leturiondo Visita of 1677-1678.) (Bushnell MM)

The black cattle of la Chua played a significant role in what might be called the Wars of the Florida Provinces, which began in 1680 and lasted to 1706. The first to take notice of them were pirates. In June 1682... (Bushnell MM)

The conquest of Florida promised to be long and drawn out. [Note: Florida's exhausting Indian wars were often compared by contemporaries to those in Chile. See ex-Governor Hita y Salazar, n.d., seen in the Junta de Guerra on December 10, 1680.] (Bushnell MM)

In 1651 one head of beef had been valued at 21 pesos and an ox at 40. In 1682 a pair of draft oxen was worth 25 pesos, and a calf, nine... The price of horses was also falling, from 100 pesos in 1651 to 25 pesos in 1682. (Bushnell MM)

In June 1682, French buccaneers, with headquarters on Anclote Key, sent out 35 men to hunt provisions. The party raided several ranches near the Gulf, then, guided by a captive pilot, they came four leagues upriver and fourteen leagues overland to la Chua. At two in the morning they surprised the ranch houses and captured Don ThomAs, his son-in-law Juan de Hita, and four servants, including two women. The buildings were left in flames. The buccaneers demanded a ransom of 150 head of cattle and a purse of money, but before it was paid three Timucuan chiefs ambushed the French as they retreated toward the Suwannee, and Don Thomas escaped. (Bushnell MM)

Governor Juan MArquez Cabrera (1680-1687) tried to close off the river with a barricade of trees and brush, but the Suwannee's strong current washed the debris away. (Governor Marquez Cabrera, July 16, 1682; Thos Menendez Marquez [1682]; Auto on the pirates, July 1682.) This was not the only waterway near the ranch, anyway. Eligio de la Puente later thought that la Chua's outlet to Havana had been the Amajuro. The next time that corsairs attacked la Chua, in 1684, they traveled by way of the Amajuro. (Governor Mirquez Cabrera, June 28; Auto on the pirates, November 1684; Antonio de Arguelles, February 24, 1688.) Don Thomas was not present when his ranch was raided the second time. Earlier in the year he had inherited the accountantcy from Antonio, and he began spending most of his time in New Spain and on his business arrangements with the Florencias. His fragata no longer went up the San Martin. The ranch of la Chua was left to the care of overseers, slaves, and Indian peons. (Governor Marquez Cabrera, October 6, 1686; Alo Leturiondo, April 29, 1697.) Perhaps cattle no longer brought a high enough price to be worth Don Thomas's personal attention. (Bushnell MM)

The King was displeased with Indian chiefs and a governor who set tribute and granted the royal lands as if they themselves were sovereign. At first he refused to confirm the titles, decreeing that only grants made at the foundation were inheritable. The treasury officials answered that governors in St. Augustine had always had the right to grant lands, and that many of the lands awaiting title confirmation had been granted at the foundation. They mentioned as one proof the ephemeral twenty-five-league grant to Pedro Menendez in 1565. (Fiscal of the Consejo, October 3, 1680, in reply to Frco Rocha and Sdor Cigarroa, March 2, 1680; Lorzo Horruytiner, May 6, 1685; Frco Rocha and Frco Cigarroa, October 6, 1685.) As the titles proved impossible to retrieve without refunding monies already spent on the castillo, the King merely declared his displeasure and his willingness to accept whatever funds were generated, as long as the assigning of lands was done fairly. (Bushnell MM)

The commons was allocated yearly among the married soldiers for the six-month growing season. (Frco Rocha and Frco Cigarroa, March 20, 1685.) (Bushnell MM)

The Crown tried to encourage commercial hide production in Florida. Governors imported Cuban cattle at great expense to keep on the nearby coastal islands, but with little result. The animals died from a shortage of pasture and fresh water, and some even from mosquito bites. [Note: The cattle were first placed on islands because it obviated the need for fences and horses, and it kept them away from hungry Indians and soldiers.] (Francisco de la Rocha and Francisco de Cigarroa, October 6, 1685.) (Bushnell MM)

The multiplying herds around la Chua could not be left to themselves. The free food supply they presented was too dangerous an attraction in the heartland of Florida. Governor Marquez Cabrera put some of the ranchhands, including the overseer, back onto the garrison payroll and had them defend the ranch and continue its operation. (Governor Marquez Cabrera, March 20, 1686.)

In 1651 one head of beef had been valued at 21 pesos and an ox at 40. In 1682 a pair of draft oxen was worth 25 pesos, and a calf, nine. Seven years later, the legal price of a beef was down to six pesos, and deducted from that amount were the tithes, the tax for the castillo, the butcher's fee, the amortized cost of the land, and the beef tongue and loin which went to the governor. (Sale of Governor Salazar Vallecilla's Estate, October 16, 1651; Three Ranchers, August 28, 1689.) La Chua, of course, was not dependent for an outlet upon St. Augustine, but the price of cattle must have been declining in Havana, too. (Bushnell MM)

Although the majority of Florida's products went out through San Martin and other Gulf ports, all imports for trade or resale were supposed to arrive by way of St. Augustine, where there was a customs house. Don ThomAs claimed that his fragata was only used to bring in necessities for his household and his ranch. The Havana record of cargoes and destinations, however, shows otherwise. He was carrying on a profitable three-cornered trade: ranch products to Havana for rum, rum to Apalache for furs. (Diego de Pefialver Angulo, Havana, March 21, 1696, Thos Menendez Marquez, [April 15, 1697], and Thos Menendez Marquez and Joachin Florencia to Governor Torres y Ayala, April 15, 1697.) The entire Menendez clan were merchants and the sons of merchants. They could have written at the top of their ledgers, as did one Renaissance entrepreneur: "In the name of God and of profit." (Bushnell MM)

The income from quitrents and titles, and then of the three reales per beef that Governor Marquez Cabrera imposed, was applied at first entirely to the castillo construction. Later, 55 pesos a year, and then 100, was spent on the celebration of saints days dear to the King's heart. (Frco Rocha and Frco Cigarroa, March 20, 1685; Consejo, October 6, 1690, in reply to Three Ranchers' letter of August 28, 1689; King [Charles II] to Governor Quiroga y Losada, August 31, 1688; Alo Leturiondo, August 7, 1697.) (Bushnell MM)

The usual Apalache maize route up the Suwannee and then overland to St. Augustine is described in Thos Menendez Marquez and Joachin Florencia to Governor Torres y Ayala, April 15, 1697. (Bushnell MM)

There were enough peons [at la Chua without the owner] in 1699 for Governor Laureano de Torres y Ayala (1693-1700?) to show concern that they all attend mass, and that Apalaches not leave their families to work at la Chua on contract. In that year, the ranch paid 35% of all the cattle taxes collected: 77 head. The next largest ranch paid only fifteen head of cattle. (Florencia Visita of 1694-1695.) (Bushnell MM)

The Florida situado was approximately 81,000 pesos in 1700. (Bushnell MM)

The value of hogs [in contrast to beef and horses] was increasing. In 1670, Apalache hogs were quoted at four pesos, delivered to the city. Thirty years later they sold for as much as twenty-five pesos each, in spite of attempts at price control. The Menendez Marquez family owned land east of the St. Johns as well as in Potano. (Sale of Governor Salazar Vallecilla's Estate, October 16, 1651.) Perhaps they turned to raising hogs.

In the 18th century the hollow peninsula of Florida began to fill with buffalo, deer, and thousands of wild black cattle. Outlaws of all races found good hunting in Florida. The British, and then the Spanish, recognized the fait accompli and relinquished by treaty the lands across the St. Johns. [Note: The Treaty of Picolata in 1765 disregarded Spanish land claims west of the St. Johns.] But the Menendez Marquez family did not forget their former holdings. In the will of Francisco [9/2/42]... (Bushnell MM)

Every year it became more difficult to guard the herds. Runaway slaves and Indians from the missions could survive by rustling cattle in the woods. Ranchers along the St. Johns wanted to treat all Indians not on their own payroll as trespassers, but Governor Torres y Ayala decreed that the sale of the lands had not cancelled the Indians' ancient right to glean wild fruits. Anyone caught killing cattle, however, was sentenced to four months hard labor on the ferry, and anyone not a ranch peon who made a round-up on the lands of la Chua was to have his ears cropped. (Florencia Visita of 1694-1695; Governor Zuniga y Cerda, January 20, 1701.) AN268 (Bushnell MM)

Don Thomas quietly continued his export of ranch products out the San Martin to Cuba, and la Chua prospered. It is likely that Lieutenant Colonel James Robertson was referring to Don Thomas in his report in 1763, when he noted that in the days before the Indians rebelled against the Spaniards (which would have been before 1702), black cattle abounded and one man owned 7,000 fat oxen. (Bushnell MM)

Indian vassals of the Crown owned in the name of their chief both the lands about their current towns and the "old fields" of their former townsites. These Indian rights were defended by the Franciscan friars, who opposed Spanish settlement near their charges. All the rest of the land, the realengo, belonged to the King, and it was for the free use of the Indians if they wanted it. (Pedro Benedit Horruytiner, November 10, 1657; Governor Zuniga y Cerda Visita, February 7, 1701.) There was a provision for Spanish ranches of a sort. Any creole might ask the governor for grazing rights to an area roughly circular and about eight leagues across in a certain locality. But these estancias, or hatos, were supposed to be no closer than three leagues from any Indian settlement. (Lorenzo Horruytiner, May 6, 1685; Joachin de Florencia Visita of 1694-1695. A land league in Florida was about two and one-half miles or four kilometers.) As Governor Diego de Rebolledo... once remarked, if such rules had been enforced in New Spain, Guatemala, or Yucatan, those regions would never have become productive. (Governor Rebolledo, October 18, 1657.) The ideal location for large-scale ranching, as far as grasslands were concerned, belonged to the Potano people. It was in the interior of the peninsula, in the lake region, some fifteen leagues west of the St. Johns. There, regular burning off of the scrub for fire hunts and agriculture had created great savannahs, where the wire grass came up in fresh tender shoots after every fire. The natives, however, did not want the Spanish using their land. According to friars who tried to work among them, "The Indians used to kill and exterminate our cattle like vermin, and did the same to the trees and seeds, wishing to leave no trace nor smell of US." (Fr. Pedro Ruiz et al., October 16, 1612). Conditions for large-scale ranching in north-central Florida would not develop easily. It would first be necessary to have peace with the Indians, empty range grasslands, a reliable transportation network, entrepreneurs with sufficient capital to import stock and allow it time to increase, experienced labor, locations inconvenient to pirates yet accessible to markets, prices high enough to guarantee a profit, and a larger Spanish population than the garrison required. And there had to be a feeling of continuity: the rancher needed to know that the King would defend his province, and that he could keep his land. Apparently these conditions did not come into conjuncture before the 1630s or 1640s, and then only briefly.

In 1651 one head of beef had been valued at 21 pesos and an ox at 40... By 1702, a Florida steer was worth only two pesos. (Bushnell MM)

The cattle attracted not only pirates and rustlers, but also enemy Creeks. English-allied Indian forces leaving the siege of St. Augustine in 1703 moved into Potano, where they raided San Francisco and drove herds of horses, cattle, and humans up the Alachua-St. Marys Trail and into Carolina. From then until 1706 these slave raiders, armed by the British, continued to return to Florida. (Governor Zuniga y Cerda, March 30, 1704; Ju Pueyo and Joseph Benedit Horruytiner, November 10, 1707. [Note: Vanderhill, in "Alachua Trail," postulates that this trail was in existence by the late seventeenth century.] They did not have to carry their own provisions. (Bushnell MM)

With the provinces of Apalache and Guale lost to the enemy, the food source in Timucua became even more important to the Spanish. (Frco Florencia and Ju Pueyo, April 30, 1706.) The governor built a blockhouse at la Chua and placed overseer Juan Lorenzo de Castaneda in charge. Under Castaneda's direction, soldiers and ranchhands salted or dried meat for the garrison. It was dangerous work. One black ranch hand was captured by a raiding party and quartered. Twice the blockhouse was under fire. At other times, just beyond musket range the enemy leisurely slaughtered cattle and pigs, broke horses, and destroyed gardens. (Juan Benedit Horruytiner to Governor Corcoles y Martinez, n.p., April 18, 1706, and Governor Corcoles y Martinez, November 30, 1706.) Finally in 1706 the little force at la Chua burned their own blockhouse and retired to San Francisco. Later that year all the soldiers and Hispanic Indians in Timucua were withdrawn to St. Augustine. Old Don Thomas died in New Spain the same year his ranch was lost. (Dispatches from these Timucuan outposts between February 3, 1705, and October 9, 1705; Governor Corcoles y Martinez, September 30, 1706.) It had been an over-extension of Spanish resources to try to raise cattle in Potano. AN294 (Bushnell MM)

(Bushnell MM)

In the will of Francisco, last of the direct line to hold office in the treasury, there was an echo of the original promise to Pedro Menendez. Francisco stated that the cattle hacienda de la Chua, 25 square leagues, had been given to his ancestors in perpetuity by grace of the King. Even though it had been lost in the time of his father during the enemy invasion and the Indian uprising, the family possessed legal title to the land if it was ever reclaimed. [Note: Charles Arnade a transcript of this will, dated September 2, 1742.] There was little chance of that. The fortunes of the Menendez Marquez family were those of Spanish Florida, and for both of them the Golden Age was over. (Bushnell MM) AN495

Between 1593 and 1743, the year of Francisco II's death, the family had held one of the two offices of the royal treasury for a total of 135 years. (Bushnell MM)

The earliest property map marking the ranches of the interior was made in 1763 when Florida was transferred to the British after the Seven Years War. It indicates the lands offered in payment of debts owed to William Walton of New York, who had been supplying the colony for years. Eight square-shaped ranches were located west of the St. Johns River, with a combined territory of 258 square leagues. Five of these ranches, totalling two-thirds of the land, belonged to the Menendez Marquez family, who claimed to have inherited this princely property from their ancestor, Pedro Menendez de Aviles. (Will and probate report of July 3, 1743.) [Note: The five Menendez Marquez ranches shown were Tococruz, Abosaya, Acuitasigue, la Rosa del Diablo and la Chua. La Chua proper was only twenty-five square leagues, but most of the other ranches were contiguous to it, and there was a large unclaimed expanse to the south.] If this were true, it would demonstrate an amazing continuity of landholding in Spanish Florida. (Bushnell MM)