Early conversion efforts had little success. Although 10 Jesuit missions were established between 1566 and 1572, all were abandoned in the face of violent resistance by the local population (as noted in Chapter 3). Nevertheless the Hispanization policy had not been abandoned. Beginning in 1595, members of the Franciscan order replaced the Jesuits, and over the next six decades managed to convert 26,000 Indians (at least by their own calculations), served by some 70 Franciscan priests.
The Franciscans in Florida generally sought to convert the native peoples without resort to force, having concluded by the end of the sixteenth century that conversion at the point of a sword was both bad theology and self-defeating, since it merely stimulated hostility and resistance. Instead the priests sought to make Christianity attractive by making themselves appear to have access to important magic. They walked barefoot in hair shirts over long distances, which appeared to the Indians to demonstrate their extraordinary bravery and endurance. They wore ornate vestments, used sacred images, chanted music, and recited the liturgy. By 1595 many of the Indians seem to have become open to the possibility that these practices could protect them against natural disasters, especially the diseases that had recently begun to sicken them, but did not apparently affect the newcomers. The friars in addition offered the possibility of access to European goods, which the Indians found both beautiful and useful.
Once a foothold had been established, the Franciscans' techniques became more heavy-handed. They would usually build a church and invite potential adherents to live nearby, for it was a maxim of the friars that converts must live within the sound of the mission bell. Church attendance could then be encouraged, simple catechisms taught, and attention paid to the formal observance of Christian sexual mores. Then pagan idols could be smashed and native rituals discountenanced. The last stage was baptism, after which converts were expected to attend services regularly and go to confession.
Equally important to successful conversion was the process of secular acculturation, since it was assumed that pagans could not become true Christians until they lived like Christians. Hence the Franciscans required their converts to dress, cook, talk, and comport themselves like Spaniards. Particular attention was devoted to the education of the young, since they were more malleable and less resistant to new ideas and could become powerful allies in the battle to win the hearts and minds of a community. Converts who resisted this process of acculturation, by seeking to leave the church or by questioning its doctrines, were brutally punished.
The missions, of course, were never simply spiritual entities, for no friar could succeed unless he enjoyed material support from the host community. Indeed a principal reason for converting the native peoples was to turn them into productive subjects of the Crown. Hence the importance of work in the service of God was constantly emphasized. Meanwhile the world of work was also important for the process of acculturation. By introducing the natives to new crops, livestock, and systems of agriculture, the friars hoped to change their entire way of life. Horses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens were all introduced, as were European crops like wheat and barley and fruits like oranges, peaches, watermelons, and pomegranates. Similarly, useful skills like carpentry, joinery, and metal-working were encouraged to keep the native men and women within constant reach of the friars and control of the Spanish. By 1620 this pattern had allowed the Franciscans to establish missions among the Guales along the coast as far north as Santa Catalina, in present-day Georgia, and among the Timucuas around St. Augustine.
Hoping to expand their influence further, the Spanish next encouraged the creation of missions across northern Florida to the western Timucua and Apalachee peoples. Apart from excluding the English, they also hoped to open a road to New Spain around the Gulf of Mexico. The Franciscans established their first formal missions among the Apalachees in the 1630s, when loss of population had made them vulnerable enough to look favorably on an alliance with the Spanish. There was soon a string of new posts across northern Florida to the Gulf of Mexico near Tallahassee and beyond. In return for Spanish protection and religious instruction, the Apalachees were expected to provide food and labor not only for the missions but also for the maintenance of a road to St. Augustine, along which they sent considerable quantities of corn.
Map 15 Missions in Spanish Florida, circa 1674–1675. From David Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven, 1992), 101 (map drawn specifically for Professor Weber's book by Don Bufkin).
Although the Spanish had obviously managed to establish missions in Florida, the strategy of Hispanicization failed in the long run to attain the regional control for which they had hoped. During the high-water mark of the mission system, the period 1635–75, the Franciscans operated between 40 and 70 missions, organized in four provinces: Timucua in central Florida; Guale along the Georgia coast; Apalachee on the northeastern edge of the gulf; and Apalachicola to the west. Yet the existence of these missions belied a persistent dissatisfaction among the Indians with the Spaniards' heavy-handed methods.5 To the Indians, the most offensive aspect of the Spanish system was the repartimiento, whereby the Spanish levied tribute in money, goods, or services. In theory the repartimiento was limited to periodic labor on public works, for which the Indians were to be paid, the most important requirements being the maintenance of the Camino Real (or royal road), the carrying of supplies to St. Augustine, and the building of fortifications. But in practice the system was open to abuse, both by the friars and by the Spanish ruling class, who forced Christian Indians to work on the settlers' farms instead of tending their own crops. The Indians demonstrated their unhappiness in a series of revolts, notably by the Guales in 1645 and the early 1680s; the Apalachees in 1647; the Timucuas in 1655; and the Apalachicolas in 1675 and 1681. Only the last of these, by the Apalachicolas, or Lower Creeks, succeeded. Most of these revolts were suppressed and their leaders hanged, but in the aftermath of the crackdowns many Indians, including converts, ran away from the missions and removed themselves from the Spanish sphere of influence. An even more serious problem that worked to undermine Spanish control was the unintended effect of Spanish diseases on the local population, whose numbers became substantially diminished during the first century of Spanish occupation. The Apalachee population, for instance, was around 30,000 in 1617, but by 1676 was little more than 8,000.6
The result of the Indians' defection was that the Spanish were not as strong as they might have been to face the challenge posed by the arrival of the English. News arrived in 1670 that the English had established a colony in South Carolina. Spain and England were now technically at peace and on the point of signing a treaty respecting each other's possessions across the Atlantic. However, both sides recognized that the activities of the other were incompatible with their own pretensions regarding the area. The Spanish still wanted to possess as much of North America as possible by converting and holding the allegiance of the native people. The newcomers were equally determined to restrict, if not entirely destroy, the Spanish hold on Florida so that they could develop a market for deerskins and slaves.
As a result hostilities commenced, despite the treaty of 1670. The Spanish attempted a pre-emptive strike on Charleston in 1675, though without success. One major problem was the defection of local Indians to the Carolinians. The Yamasee and the Creek Indians helped the English to attack the Guale missions, attracted by offers of guns, horses, and cheap trade goods. The English had considerably more trade goods to offer than the Spanish, so they were more desirable allies. Moreover, having seen how the Spaniards treated their Christian converts, the Yamasees and the Creeks had little interest in helping them to remain in the area. Within six years the Guale missions had been destroyed.
The English threat to Florida was not limited to eastern Florida, for in 1686 news arrived that Dr Henry Woodward, an English trader and envoy of the Carolina proprietors, had appeared among the Apalachicola or Lower Creek people with a large train of packhorses loaded with weaponry
. This would clearly be a prelude to an attack on the Apalachee missions with their valuable grain supplies. The Spanish accordingly launched pre-emptive strikes against both the Apalachicola and against Charleston itself. Neither scheme was a success. The Charleston expedition got no further than Edisto Island, while the invasion of Apalachicola merely encouraged the Creeks to hit back, having been newly convinced that the Spanish presence in the area should not be tolerated.
Unfortunately for the Spanish, the English and their newfound allies were not the only threat to Spanish hegemony in the region, for in 1684 they learned that the French, under René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, were attempting to establish a colony in the Gulf of Mexico. The Spanish determined to first destroy the French settlement and then establish a permanent base of their own. It proved a case of easier said than done. The Gulf above the Rio Grande, with its swamps, bayous, and shallow waters, was almost unknown to the Spanish and it took nearly three years to find the French settlement, by which time it had been abandoned. Establishing a Spanish fort in the area took even longer because of financial constraints and the difficulty of finding a suitable site. Not until 1698 was the decision made to build the new post at Pensacola and within months it was shown to serve no useful purpose. In the first place it was irrelevant to the defense of the Apalachee missions. Secondly, with the signing of a peace treaty in Europe in 1697, the Spanish found it diplomatically impossible to uproot the French when they did finally establish themselves at Biloxi Bay in 1699, just a few miles from Pensacola itself.
However, the problems of Spain and their Indian allies in Florida really began only in 1702 with Queen Anne's War, or the War of Spanish Succession. As we have seen, the English in Charleston tried to drive the Spanish out of Florida entirely in 1702, raiding St. Augustine and destroying all the remaining missions along the east coast and on the St. Johns River. South Carolina's governor tried again in 1703, invading the province of Apalachee with the help of Creeks and Yamasees, destroying some 14 missions, and executing several Spanish officials when they were unable to ransom themselves. The bitter animosity of the British towards Spanish Catholics was demonstrated by South Carolina's treatment of one friar, Father Parga, who had his legs hacked off before being burned at the stake. The result was the enforced evacuation of Apalachee by both the Spanish and the native peoples, who were dispersed in every direction. Finally, late in 1708, the English launched a third raid, this time against western Timucuas, completing the ruin of the Spanish mission system in Florida. During this period some 10,000 Christian Indians were either killed, enslaved, or forced to run away. A pitiful remnant of about 300 took refuge under the guns of the Spanish fort at San Marcos, it being unsafe even to venture into the town.
By 1708 the Spanish missions had largely failed and many had been abandoned. In effect the colony was reduced to one principal settlement, the town of St. Augustine. After 1708 the only other posts were a few satellite missions between St. Augustine and the St. Johns River, though a mission and fort were subsequently rebuilt in 1718 at St. Marks on the northeast shore of the Gulf for the remnants of the Apalachee people. The colony also received an influx of several hundred Yamasees, following their war with South Carolina. However, the prosperity of the colony could not recover while border warfare continued. Spanish acceptance of the Yamasee refugees, along with the runaway slaves harbored at Mose,7 angered the Carolinians since they interpreted this as an indication of Spain's underlying hostility.
To prevent further reprisals by the Yamasees, the South Carolinians in 1721 established a fort at the mouth of the Altamaha River. In 1727, retaliating for continued Yamasee raids, a South Carolina force fought its way almost to the gates of St. Augustine itself. Although Spanish diplomatic pressure was successful in getting the fort on the Altamaha removed, the tranquility did not last. In 1733 George II granted the area between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers for the new colony of Georgia, creating a new strategic buffer for South Carolina against potential attacks by both Spain and France to the south.
Border warfare continued to batter the colony in the 1740s. The Spanish colony survived the subsequent conflict known as King George's War, managing to beat back a siege by British forces commanded by Georgia governor James Oglethorpe in late 1739 and 1740. Spanish troops once again successfully defended themselves against a second British attack in 1741, and retaliated with their own attack against Georgia in 1742, though they were forced to withdraw. However, the population in St. Augustine and the immediate region was only about 3,000 by mid-century. Of these, some 500 were soldiers, 1,500 ethnic Spanish, and the remainder Hispanicized Indians, African slaves, and free blacks living in Mose. The other two settlements, St. Marks and Pensacola, each had perhaps 150 soldiers and 500 other inhabitants. Everywhere the missions had shrunk. By 1759 there were only 79 Indians in the two villages near St. Augustine and just 25 at St. Marks.
Despite the failure to sustain a large local population in Florida, Spain continued to hold its fortified settlements for defensive purposes. The emergence of British and French colonies in the southern latitudes of North America had, if anything, increased the need to protect the borders of New Spain. Military garrisons were expensive for the Spanish Crown, but they were necessary to keep the British and the French from expanding any further.
2 New Mexico
The colonization of New Mexico began, like that of Florida, because it served the strategic goals of the Spanish Crown. After the exploration of the area by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1540–2, no further effort was made to settle the region for the next 50 years, since the area had little in the way of mineral wealth to offer Spanish adventurers. However, by the 1590s other considerations had come to the fore. The government of New Spain needed to protect the silver mines of Zacatecas in northern New Spain from Indian raids, which were a constant problem. Spanish authorities also believed that somewhere to the north lay the long-sought passage to China, which it was imperative to discover before it fell under foreign control. The presence of the relatively advanced Pueblo civilizations made New Mexico an appealing site for a colony, since some adventurer might be willing to finance the venture in exchange for the right to exploit the Indians' labor in an encomienda-style plantation system. Encomenderos had originally been appointed to fight the Moors in Spain. In return for defending the frontier the Crown gave them the right to exact tribute from any subject peoples.
King Philip II granted a commission to colonize the area and convert the native people in the area to Don Juan de Oñate in 1598. A Mexican-born Spanish aristocrat with extensive interests in the Zacatecas mines, Oñate was expected to bear all the expenses of the conquest. In return he would have extensive rights over the land, with the power to award the status of hidalgo, a lesser nobleman, to his principal followers. No royal forces would accompany him, since Oñate was unlikely to meet European opponents.
Oñate crossed the Rio Grande in April 1598. Accompanying him were some 500 persons, including 130 soldiers, 10 Franciscans, and sundry colonists with their wives, children, servants, and slaves. The Pueblo communities offered little resistance; they had experienced visits from the Spaniards over many years, and most had ended in considerable loss of Indian life. It made sense, therefore, to treat the newcomers with deference. Indeed, it seems that some Pueblos actually welcomed the Spaniards as protectors against the nomadic Apaches, whose raids had recently increased. Oñate accordingly continued northwards along the Rio Grande, taking over a pueblo on the west side of the river for his headquarters, which he renamed San Gabriel. However, the site soon became overcrowded and proved unsuitable for defense. Within 10 years Oñate had moved his capital 20 miles southwards to a place that he named Santa Fe.
The Pueblo Indians quickly realized that Oñate was not the ally and protector they had hoped for. He expected the Pueblos to provide tribute in the form of labor and food, and his men tortured and killed the native people in order to obtain it. When the Pueblo of Acoma resisted the
Spanish extortion by killing 11 of Oñate's men, the adelantado responded by offering the inhabitants a choice of slavery or death. The Acoma declined the offer; their town sat atop a seemingly impregnable mesa, and they thought they were safe. Tragically, they were mistaken in their belief. During the subsequent fighting, at least 500 men and 300 women and children were killed, out of a total population of 1,380. The Spaniard then put the survivors on trial. All except children under 12 were condemned to 25 years' servitude. Males over 25 then had one foot cut off, as a reminder to other Pueblos of the consequences of rebellion.
The viceroy of New Spain removed Oñate from power in New Mexico because of his brutality towards the Indians and placed the colony under royal control. The viceroy curbed the worst excesses of the Spanish settlers and encouraged Franciscan missionaries to convert the Indians, hoping to pursue the same strategy of Hispanicizing the local population that was being pursued in Florida and elsewhere in New Spain. Initially the friars enjoyed remarkable success. By the late 1620s they had established almost 50 churches and residencies along a 200-mile stretch of the Rio Grande. The arrival in 1629 of eight more friars allowed additional missions to be established further afield among the Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi peoples.8
The Indians in New Mexico very likely had a variety of reasons for deciding to convert to Christianity, many of them similar to those of the Indians in Florida. To some extent they undoubtedly complied with the friars out of fear; having seen at Acoma what Spanish soldiers were capable of, they judged cooperation to be a better course than resistance. Another factor was the desirability of Spanish protection against the Apaches, semi-nomadic peoples who often raided the Pueblos. A third was the apparent immunity of the Spanish from the diseases that afflicted the native peoples so severely. And just as in Florida, the Indians may have been open to the idea that the Franciscans had supernatural powers. Their first arrival in 1598 coincided with the ending of a drought, a coincidence that proved so potent that the friars thereafter always attempted, when on a new mission, to arrive just before the rainy season. In addition, the friars wore opulent vestments and engaged in strange, elaborate ceremonies. They performed medical feats that helped to give them an appearance of magic and invincibility.
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