Albert C. Manucy

“ Day after day Alonso Díaz, the quarry overseer, kept the picks and axes going, cutting deep grooves into the soft yellow stone, while with bar and wedge the peons broke loose and pried up the rough blocks—small pieces that a single man could shoulder, and tremendously heavy, waterlogged cubes 2 feet thick and twice as long that six strong men could hardly lift from the bed of sandy shell. ”

“ A smallpox epidemic made Indian labor out of the question, so there were no peons to bear heavy timbers on their shoulders from the forests. No silver lay in the King’s chest: the Florida colony existed almost solely by means of a subsidy of money and provisions from New Spain, whose commerce it protected, and the reluctance of the New Spain Viceroy to pay that subsidy meant that the usual condition of St. Augustine was one of direst poverty and extreme want.
Yet, if ever Florida needed a strong fort, it was now. Year by year the corsairs were becoming bolder. ”

“ A fort, however, can never win a victory. Primarily a defensive weapon, it protects vital points and delays the invader. It can also be, as was the case with the historic fort in Florida, a citadel and a pivot of maneuver for colonial troops.
For most defense problems, there was an answer in the book, though the brilliance of the engineer might well be measured by his ingenious use of natural defenses, as was the case at Castillo de San Marcos. ”

“ To attack a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century fort, the enemy had first to cross natural barriers, advance over level ground where he was exposed to fire from almost every part of the fortification, drive the defenders from the outer works, cross the moat, and then, if there were any of him left, scale the main walls and fight the rest of the defenders hand to hand. It was no easy job. His approach to within striking distance generally involved the laborious digging of zigzag trenches up to the outworks. Meanwhile, his artillerymen tried to get their guns close enough to breach the walls. ”

“ The Indian peon was cheap labor—1 real (121⁄2¢) per day, plus rations of maize—but he was not good labor, for by nature the Indian was unfit for heavy work on a European-style fortification. A brave might play the bone-breaking game of Indian ball for a full day, but he could not stand up under the “day-in, day-out,” grinding, back-straining labor of the quarries. ”

“ These citations of economies were timely, for 34,298 pesos had already been spent upon the new fort, and still it was no more protection than a haphazard pile of stone. Nor was the old fort any defense. If an artilleryman had the temerity to touch his match to a cannon, the sparks from the explosion might well set the timber walls afire. The enemy at Charleston was not 70 leagues away; his 200 fighting men outnumbered the effectives in the Spanish garrison, while, according to the reports of English deserters, Charleston was rather well defended by a stockade fort mounting about 20 guns. ”

“ Laying the foundations of the mighty fort was no easy job, for not only was the soil sandy and low, but as the winter months came the Indian peons 17 were struck by El Contagio—The Contagion—and the laboring force dwindled to nothing. The 30 Negro slaves to be sent from Havana had not yet come. Cendoya himself and his soldiers took to the shovels and as they dug a trench some 5 feet deep and 17 feet broad, the masons laid two courses of heavy stones directly on the hard-packed sand bottom. ”

“ The matter of building a permanent fort had been broached as early as 1586, soon after the discovery of the native shellrock called coquina, and before the turn of that century Governor Canço reported not only the successful construction of a stone powder magazine but a renewed enthusiasm for a masonry fort. The sandy, unstable coastal soil provided the engineers with a problem, but the real obstacles to accomplishment were the poverty of the presidio and the feeling of the Madrid officials that Florida did not require strong military defenses. ”

“ Heathen Indians carried away their Christian cousins into English slavery. Cabrera bided his time. He had other worries. If spring marked the turn of a young man’s fancy, it was no less the season the corsairs chose to “run” the coasts of Florida. Each year the buccaneers grew bolder. In 1682, the year Cabrera finished the fort ravelin, there were a dozen or so pirate craft operating in the Bahama Channel, and they took a number of Spanish prizes, including the St. Augustine frigate on its way to Vera Cruz for the subsidy. ”

“ For England, the seventeenth century opened an era of commercial and colonial expansions, when the great trading companies were active on the coasts of four continents and powerful English nobles strove for possessions beyond the seas. To this era belong the origins of the Carolinas, the Jerseys, Penn’s Colony, and the famous Hudson’s Bay Company. A vast, rich territory stretched from the James River region to the Spanish Florida settlements, and in 1665 the British Crown granted a patent for its occupation. ”

“ The Spanish estimated that the damage to the town amounted to 20,000 pesos or more, and the ease with which the English had occupied and held the town for almost 2 months made it clear that additional fortifications had to be built. In the quarter century that followed, out from the castillo went strong earthworks and palisades, strengthened at strategic points with redoubts, and St. Augustine became a walled town, secure against invasion as long as there were enough soldiers to man the walls. The years of building these town defenses were lean years. ”

“ Indian corn or maize was the staple, and most of the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of the extensive fields near the town was done by Indians brought from their provinces to do the work, so that at times there were as many as 300 Indians serving the Crown in the presidio, counting those at work on the fortification. The Indian peons were furnished rations of maize both while they were in St. Augustine and for their journey over the wilderness trails to their homes, and certain of the convicts were also given a ration of Indian corn. ”

“ All told, there were close to 150 men working in those first days of feverish preparations. They, along with about 500 other persons, including about 100 effective soldiers in the garrison, a few Franciscan friars, a dozen mariners, and the townspeople, had to be fed. When supplies from New Spain did not arrive, the problem of providing food was even more difficult than finding men to work on the fort, especially since the sandy soil around the presidio yielded poorly to the primitive agricultural practices of the seventeenth century. ”

“ Augustine, Queen Mariana chose Don Manuel de Cendoya, gave him the governorship of Florida, and sent him to Mexico City to confer with the Marqués de Mancera, Viceroy of New Spain. 9 Cendoya’s first task was to collect the promised 12,000 pesos for starting the job, and that accomplishment he reported in the middle of January 1671. The disquieting news of the English settlement of Charleston gave point to his discussions with the Marqués.
On his way to Florida, Cendoya stopped at Havana, looking for skilled workmen—masons and lime burners. There he found an engineer, Ignacio Daza. ”

“ Very little masonry had ever been done in the presidio, and, with the exception of the imported artisans, the workmen had to be trained. Even the imported ones had much to learn about coquina, the natural shellrock peculiar to this section of Florida. Coquina is nothing more than broken sea shells cemented together by their own lime. Where the layer of shells has been under great pressure, the rock is solid and hard; where pressure has been less, the stone is coarse and easily crumbled. ”

“ Not all the Indians, however, were common laborers. A half dozen developed into carpenters, and though they did not receive the top wage of 10 to 12 reales, they seemed well pleased with their 8 reales—which was twice what apprentice carpenters earned.
In addition to Indian labor, there were a few Spanish peons who were paid 4 reales per day, a few of the Crown’s Negro slaves, and a number of convicts, either from the local presidio or sent from Caribbean ports. ”

“ That capable engineer and frontier diplomat, Don Antonio de Arredondo, came from Havana to inspect the Florida fortifications and make recommendations. Backed by Arredondo’s expert opinions, Governor Manuel de Montiano put all the cards on the table in a letter to the Havana Governor: “For Your Excellency must know that this castle, the only defense here, has no bombproofs for the protection of the garrison, that the counterscarp is too low, that there is no covered way, that the curtains are without demilunes, that there are no other exterior works to give them time for a long defense ”

“ Augustine in 1565, the Spanish fleet was scattered, and the fledgling English colony was saved. Then Mariana’s treaty with England forbade the disturbance of established English settlements, so with the English only a 2 days’ sail from St. Augustine there was nothing left to do but prepare to defend Florida against certain invasion. To the frontier at Santa Catalina Mission on the Georgia coast a small garrison was sent. And construction of a Florida citadel, built of imperishable stone, was soon to begin. ”

“ The Florida Governor, Joseph de Zuñiga, a Flanders veteran well-versed in the art of fortification, looked at the St. Augustine defenses with jaundiced eye. True, the castillo was a bulwark, but its guns were not only obsolete—many of them were unserviceable. The heavy powder supplied from New Spain so fouled the gun barrels that after “four Shots, the Ball would not go in the Cannon.” Harquebuses, muskets, powder, and shot were sorely needed. Captain Ayala, again sailing to Spain for aid, was racing against time ”

“ Augustine in 1693, and with it came another Governor, Don Laureano de Torres. To lessen the chances of famine in the future, the Florida officials resolved to plant great crops of maize nearby. They found men to plow the broad, field-like clearings around the fort, and acres of waving corn soon extended almost up to the moat. Proudly 26 they reported this accomplishment to the Crown. The reaction was not what they expected. On December 14, 1693, a royal order was promulgated prohibiting thenceforward the sowing of maize within a musket shot of the castillo. ”

“ Both Daza and the Governor liked the design of the old fort. They, meeting with the General Council, decided merely to build the castillo slightly larger in order to make room for quarters, guardroom, chapel, wells, ovens, powder magazine, and other essential rooms not included in the old fort. In line with the more recent ideas, Daza recommended a slight lengthening of the bastions. All around the castillo they planned to dig a broad, deep moat, and then surround the land sides with a high palisade. ”

“ All he wanted was the prompt payment of the subsidy from New Spain—a not unreasonable plea—and out of that money he would buy a dozen Negro slaves versed in stonecutting and masonry, slaves such as were available in any number of Caribbean towns, and to be sure the work was done right he wanted the engineer from Cartagena assigned to the job. At the very least, this Governor asked for the slaves: if nothing more, they could face the walls of the wooden fort with stone. ”

“ Some of them had to travel 80 leagues to reach the presidio. Many of them served unwillingly. There were serious domestic problems, for these peons had the choice of bringing their families with them or leaving the women and children in the home villages to eke out their own living. In some cases, not even the chiefs were exempt from the draft. In theory each complement of Indian labor served only a certain length of time; in practice it was not uncommon for the men to be held much beyond their assigned time, either through necessity or carelessness. ”

“ At his anvil, the blacksmith made a great noise, hammering out axes, picks, and stonecutters’ hatchets, and putting on their steel edges; drawing out the bars to the proper length and flattening their ends for crowbars; working shapeless masses of iron into shovels, spades, hoes, and wedges; and for lighter work, making nails of all kinds and sizes for the carpenters. ”

“ When there should have been 150 men to keep the 15 artisans working at top speed—50 in the quarries and hauling stone, 50 for gathering oyster shells and helping at the kilns, and another 50 for digging the foundation trenches, carrying the baskets of sand, and mixing mortar—it was hard to get as many as 100 laborers on the job. ”

“ Of the artisans, there were Lorenzo Lagones, master of construction, and a pair of master masons, each of whom received the master workman’s wage of 20 reales (about $2.50) per day. In addition there were 7 masons at 12 reales, 8 stonecutters at the same rate, and a dozen carpenters whose pay ranged from 6 to 12 reales per working day.
There were few men for the job in hand, and to speed the work along Governor Cendoya had to be ingenious and resourceful. ”