THE SPANISH MISSIONS.
Early Attempts.--Efforts of Aviles.--Later Missions.--Extent during
the most flourishing period.--Decay.
It was ever the characteristic of the Spanish conqueror that first in
his thoughts and aims was the extension of the religion in which he was
born and bred. The complete history of the Romish Church in America
would embrace the whole conquest and settlement of those portions held
originally by France and Spain. The earliest and most energetic
explorers of the New and much of the Old World have been the pious
priests and lay brethren of this religion. While others sought gold they
labored for souls, and in all the perils and sufferings of long journeys
and tedious voyages cheerfully bore a part, well rewarded by one convert
or a single baptism. With the same zeal that distinguished them
everywhere else did they labor in the unfruitful vineyard of Florida,
and as the story of their endeavors is inseparably bound up with the
condition of the natives and progress of the Spanish arms, it is with
peculiar fitness that the noble toils of these self-denying men become
the theme of our investigation.
The earliest explorers, De Leon, Narvaez, and De Soto, took pains to
have with them devout priests as well as bold lancers, and remembered,
which cannot be said of all their cotemporaries, that though the
natives might possess gold, they were not devoid of souls. The latter
included in his complement no less than twelve priests, eight lay
brethren, and four clergymen of inferior rank; but their endeavors seem
to have achieved only a very paltry and transient success.
The first wholly missionary voyage to the coast of Florida, and indeed
to any part of America north of Mexico, was undertaken by Luis Cancel de
Balbastro, a Dominican friar, who in 1547 petitioned Charles I. of Spain
to fit out an armament for converting the heathen of that country. A
gracious ear was lent to his proposal, and two years afterwards, in the
spring of 1549, a vessel set sail from the port of Vera Cruz in Mexico,
commanded by the skillful pilot Juan de Arana, and bearing to their
pious duty Luis Cancel with three other equally zealous brethren, Juan
Garcia, Diego de Tolosa, and Gregorio Beteta. Their story is brief and
sad. Going by way of Havana they first struck the western coast of the
peninsula about 28° north latitude the day after Ascension day. After
two months wasted in fruitless efforts to conciliate the natives in
various parts, when all but Beteta had fallen martyrs to their devotion
to the cause of Christianity, the vessel put back from her bootless
voyage, and returned to Vera Cruz.[276]
Some years afterwards (1559), when Don Tristan de Luna y Arellano
founded the colony of Santa Maria de Felipina near where Pensacola was
subsequently built, he was accompanied by a provincial bishop and a
considerable corps of priests, but as his attempt was unsuccessful and
his colony soon disbanded, they could have made no impression on the
natives.[277]
It was not till the establishment of a permanent garrison at St.
Augustine by the Adelantado Pedro Menendez de Aviles, that the Catholic
religion took firm root in Floridian soil. In the terms of his outfit is
enumerated the enrollment of four Jesuit priests and twelve lay
brethren. Everywhere he displayed the utmost energy in the cause of
religion; wherever he placed a garrison, there was also a spiritual
father stationed. In 1567 he sent the two learned and zealous
missionaries Rogel and Villareal to the Caloosas, among whom a
settlement had already been formed under Francescso de Reinoso. At their
suggestion a seminary for the more complete instruction of youthful
converts was established at Havana, to which among others the son of the
head chief was sent, with what success we have previously seen.
The following year ten other missionaries arrived, one of whom, Jean
Babtista Segura, had been appointed Vice Provincial. The majority of
these worked with small profit in the southern provinces, but Padre
Antonio Sedeño settled in the island of Guale,[278] and is to be
remembered as the first who drew up a grammar and catechism of any
aboriginal tongue north of Mexico; but he reaped a sparse harvest from
his toil; for though five others labored with him, we hear of only seven
conversions, and four of these infants _in articulo mortis_. Yet it is
also stated that as early as 1566 the Adelantado himself had brought
about the conversion of these Indians _en masse_. A drought of eight
months had reduced them to the verge of starvation. By his advice a
large cross was erected and public prayer held. A tremendous storm
shortly set in, proving abundantly to the savages the truth of his
teachings. But they seem to have turned afresh to their wallowing in the
mire.
In 1569, the Padre Rogel gave up in despair the still more intractable
Caloosas; and among the more cultivated nations surrounding San Felipe,
north of the Savannah river, sought a happier field for his efforts. In
six months he had learned the language and at first flattered himself
much on their aptness for religious instruction. But in the fall, when
the acorns ripened, all his converts hastened to decamp, leaving the
good father alone in his church. And though he followed them untiringly
into woods and swamps, yet “with incredible wickedness they would learn
nothing, nor listen to his exhortations, but rather ridiculed them,
jeopardizing daily more and more their salvation.” With infinite pains
he collected some few into a village, gave them many gifts, and
furnished them food and mattocks; but again they most ungratefully
deserted him “with no other motive than their natural laziness and
fickleness.” Finding his best efforts thrown away on such stiff-necked
heathen, with a heavy heart he tore down his house and church, and,
shaking the dust off his feet, quitted the country entirely.
At this period the Spanish settlements consisted of three colonies: St.
Augustine, originally built south of where it now stands on St. Nicholas
creek, and changed in 1566, San Matteo at the mouth of the river of the
same name, now the St. Johns,[279] and fifty leagues north of this San
Felipe in the province of Orista or Santa Helena, now South Carolina. In
addition to these there were five block-houses, (casas fuertes), two,
Tocobaga and Carlos, on the western coast, one at its southern
extremity, Tegesta, one in the province of Ais or Santa Lucea, and a
fifth, which Juan Pardo had founded one hundred and fifty leagues inland
at the foot of certain lofty mountains, where a cacique Coava ruled the
large province Axacàn.[280] There seem also to have been several minor
settlements on the St. Johns.
Such was the flourishing condition of the country when that “terrible
heretic and runaway galley slave,” as the Spanish chronicler calls him,
Dominique de Gourgues of Mont Marsain, aided by Pierre le Breu, who had
escaped the massacre of the French in 1565, and the potent chief
Soturiba, demolished the most important posts (1567). Writers have
over-rated the injury this foray did the colony. In reality it served
but to stimulate the indomitable energy of Aviles. Though he himself was
at the court of Spain and obliged to remain there, with the greatest
promptness he dispatched Estevan de las Alas with two hundred and
seventy-three men, who rebuilt and equipped San Matheo, and with one
hundred and fifty of his force quartered himself in San Felipe.
With him had gone out quite a number of priests. The majority of these
set out for the province of Axacàn, under the guidance of the brother of
its chief, who had been taken by Aviles to Spain, and there baptized, in
honor of the viceroy of New Spain, Don Luis de Velasco. His conversion,
however, was only simulation, as no sooner did he see the company
entirely remote from assistance, than, with the aid of some other
natives, he butchered them all, except one boy, who escaped and returned
to San Felipe. Three years after (1569), the Adelantado made an attempt
to revenge this murder, but the perpetrators escaped him.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks, at the time of the death of Aviles, a
firm and extensive foundation had been laid for the Christian religion,
though it was by no means professed, as has been asserted, “by all the
tribes from Santa Helena, on the north, to Boca Rattones, on the south,
and from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico.”[281]
After his death, under the rule of his nephew, Pedro Menendez Marquez, a
bold soldier but a poor politician, the colony seems to have dwindled to
a very insignificant point. Spanish historians speak vaguely of many
nations reduced by him, but such accounts cannot be trusted. At the time
of the destruction of St. Augustine by Drake, in 1586, this town was
built of wood, and garrisoned by one hundred and fifty men.[282] And if
we may believe the assertions of the prisoners he brought to England,
the whole number of souls, both at this place and at Santa Helena, did
not exceed two hundred.[283] Only six priests were in the colony; and as
to the disposition of the Indians, it was so hostile and dangerous, that
for some time subsequent the soldiers dared never leave the fort, even
to hunt or fish.[284] Yet it was just about this time (1584), that
Williams,[285] on the authority of his ancient manuscript, states that
“the Spanish authorities were acknowledged as far west as the river
Mississippi (Empalazada), and north one hundred and forty leagues to the
mountains of Georgia!”
As early as 1566, fourteen women had been introduced by Sancho de
Arminiega; but we read of no increase, and it is probable that for a
long series of years the colony was mainly supported by fresh arrivals.
It was not till 1592, when, in pursuance of an ordinance of the Council
of the Indies, twelve Franciscans were deputed to the territory, that
the missions took a new start. They were immediately forwarded to
various quarters of the province, and for a while seem to have been
quite successful in their labors. It is said that in 1594 there were “no
less than twenty mission houses.” One of these priests, Pedro de Corpa,
superior of the mission of Tolemato (Tolemaro) near the mouth of the St.
Marys river, by his unsparing and harsh rebukes, excited the anger of
the natives to such a degree that, headed by the chief of Guale, they
rose _en masse_, and murdered him at the foot of the altar. Nor did this
glut their vengeance. Bearing his dissevered head upon a pole as a
trophy and a standard, they crossed to the neighboring island of Guale,
and there laid waste the missions Topiqui, Asao, Ospo, and Assopo. The
governor of St. Augustine lost no time in hastening to the aid of the
sufferers; and, though the perpetrators of the deeds could nowhere be
found, by the destruction of their store-houses and grain fields,
succeeded by a long drought, “which God visited upon them for their
barbarity,” such a dreadful famine fell upon them that their tribe was
nearly annihilated (1600).
In 1602, Juan Altimirano, bishop of Cuba, visited this portion of his
diocess, and was much disheartened by the hopeless barbarity of the
natives. So much so, indeed, that years afterwards, when holding
discussion with the bishop of Guatemala concerning the query, “Is God
known by the light of Nature?” and the latter pressing him cogently with
Cicero, he retorted, “Ah, but Cicero had not visited Florida, or he
would never have spoken thus.”
This discouraging anecdote to the contrary, the very next year, in the
general assembly that met at Toledo, Florida, in conjunction with Havana
and Bahama, was constituted a Custodia of eleven convents, and in 1612,
they were elevated into an independent Provincia, under the name of
Santa Helena, with the head convent at Havana, and Juan Capillas
appointed first Provincial Bishop.[286] An addition of thirty-two
Franciscans, partly under Geronimo de Ore in 1612, and partly sent out
by Philip III., the year after, sped the work of conversion, and for a
long time subsequent, we find vague mention of nations baptized and
churches erected.
About the middle of the century, (1649,) the priests had increased to
fifty, and the episcopal revenue amounted to four hundred dollars. At
this time St. Augustine numbered “more than three hundred inhabitants.”
So great had been the success of the spiritual fathers, that in 1655,
Diego de Rebolledo, then Governor and Captain-General, petitioned the
king to erect the colony into a bishopric; a request which, though
favorably viewed, was lost through delay and procrastination. Similar
attempts, which were similarly frustrated, were made by his successors
Juan Marquez in 1682, and Juan Ferro in 1689.
Notwithstanding these indications of a lively energy, a very different
story is told by the traveller of Carthagena, François Coreal, who
visited the peninsula in 1669. He mentions no settlements but San
Augustine and San Matheo,--indeed, expressly states that there were
none,[287]--and even these were in a sorry plight enough, (assez
degarnies.) Either he must have been misinformed, or the work of
conversion proceeded with great and sudden rapidity after his visit, as
less than twenty years afterwards, (1687,) when by the attempts of Juan
Marquez to remove the natives to the West India Islands, many forsook
their homes for distant regions, they left a number of missions
deserted, as San Felipe, San Simon, Sapola, Obaldiqui, and others. This
marked increase was largely owing to a subsidy of twenty-four
Franciscans under Alonzo de Moral in 1676, and the energetic action of
the Bishop of Cuba, who spared no pains to facilitate the advent of
missionaries to all parts.[288]
In pursuance of the advice of Pablo de Hita, Governor-General, attempts
were renewed in 1679 to convert the nations of the southern extremity of
the peninsula, and in 1698, there were fourteen Franciscans employed
among them. These Indians are described as “idolaters and given to all
abominable vices,” and not a few of the missionaries suffered martyrdom
in their efforts to reclaim them.[289]
Towards the close of the century, (1696,) the condition of St. Augustine
is described by Jonathan Dickinson[290] as follows:--“It is about
three-quarters of a mile in length, not regularly built, the houses not
very thick, they having large orchards, in which are plenty of
_oranges_, _lemmons_, _pome-citrons_, _lymes_, _figgs_, and _peaches_:
the houses, most of them, are old buildings, and not half of them
inhabited. The number of men that belong to government being about three
hundred, and many of them are kept as sentinalls at their lookouts. At
the north end of the town stands a large fortification, being a
quadrangel with bastions. Each bastion will contain thirteen guns, but
there is not passing two-thirds of fifty-two mounted.... The wall of the
fortification is about thirty foot high, built of sandstone sawed
[coquina rock].... The fort is moated round.”
The colony of Pensacola or Santa Maria de Galve, founded by Andres de
Pes in 1693, gradually increasing in importance and maintaining an
overland connection with St. Augustine, naturally gave rise to
intermediate settlements, for which the fertile, wide-spread savannas of
Alachua, the rich hammocks along the Suwannee, and the productive
limestone soil of Middle Florida offered unrivalled advantages.
The tractable Apalaches and their neighbors received the missionaries
with much favor, and it is said that almost all the former were
converted;[291] a statement which we must confine, however, to that
small portion of the confederated tribes included under this title, that
lived in Middle Florida. When Colonel Moore invaded their country in
1703-4, he found them living in villages, each having its parish church,
subsisting principally by agriculture, and protected by a garrison of
Spanish soldiers.[292] The open well-cleared character of their country,
and the marks of their civilized condition were long recalled in
tradition by the later Indians.[293] So strong a hold did Catholicism
take upon them that more than a century subsequent, when the nation was
reduced to an insignificant family on the Bayou Rapide, they still
retained its forms, corrupted by admixture with their ancient
heliolatry.[294]
On the Atlantic coast, there were besides St. Augustine the towns of San
Matheo, Santa Cruce, San Juan, Santa Maria, and others. The Indians of
these missions Dickinson[295] describes as scrupulous in their
observance of the Catholic rites, industrious and prosperous in their
worldly relations, “having plenty of hogs and fowls, and large crops of
corn;” and each hamlet presided over by “Fryars,” who gave regular
instruction to the native children in school-houses built for the
purpose. All these were north of St. Augustine; to the south the savages
were more perverse, and in spite of the earnest labors of many pious
priests, some of whom fell martyrs to their zeal, they clung tenaciously
to heathendom.
Nothing definite is known regarding the settlements on and near the
Gulf, but in all probability they were more extensive than those on the
eastern shore, peopling the coast and inland plains with a race of
civilized and Christian Indians. Cotemporary geographers speak of “the
towns of Achalaque, Ossachile, Hirritiqua, Coluna, and some others of
less note,”[296] as founded and governed by Spaniards, while numerous
churches and villages are designated on ancient charts, with whose size
and history we are totally unacquainted. Many of these doubtless refer
to native hamlets, while the Spanish names affixed to others point to
settlements made by that nation. How much the Church of Rome had at
heart the extension and well-being of this portion of her domain, may be
judged from the fact that she herself bore half the expense of the
military kept in the province for its protection.[297]
Such was the condition of the Spanish missions of Florida at their most
flourishing period. Shortly after the commencement of the eighteenth
century, foes from the north destroyed and drove out the colonists,
demolishing in a few years all that the life, and the blood, and the
toil of so many martyrs during two centuries had availed to construct.
About the middle of the century we have a tolerably accurate knowledge
of the country through English writers; and then so few and
insignificant were the Spanish settlements, that only one occurred
between St. Marks and St. Augustine, while, besides the latter, the only
post on the Atlantic coast was a wretched “hut” on the south bank of the
St. Johns at its mouth.[298]
Undoubtedly it is to the close of the seventeenth century therefore that
we must refer those vestiges of an extensive and early inhabitation that
occasionally meet our notice in various parts. Sometimes in the depth of
forests of apparently primeval growth the traveller has been astonished
to find rusting church bells, half buried brass cannon, mouldering
walls, and the decaying ruins of once stately edifices. Especially
numerous are these in middle Florida, along the old Spanish highway from
St. Augustine to Pensacola, on the banks of the St. Johns, and on Amelia
island. The Indians informed the younger Bartram[299] that near the
Suwannee, a few miles above Manatee Spring, the Spaniards formerly had
“a rich, well cultivated, and populous settlement, and a strong
fortified post, as they likewise had at the savanna and field of
Capola,” east of the Suwannee, between it and the Alachua plains; but
that these were far inferior to those on the Apalachian Old Fields
“where yet remain vast works and buildings, fortifications, temples,
&c.” The elder Bartram[300] speaks of similar remarkable antiquities on
the St. Johns, Bernard Romans[301] in various parts of the interior,
Williams,[302] Brackenridge,[303] and others[304] in middle Florida, and
I may add the numerous Spanish Old Fields which I observed throughout
the peninsula, the extensive coquina quarries on Anastasia (St. Estaca,
Fish’s) Island, and the deserted plantations on Musquito and Indian
river Lagoons, as unequivocal proofs of a much denser population than is
usually supposed to have existed in those regions.
The easy conquest these settlements offered to the English and the
rapidity with which they melted away were partly owing to the
insufficient force kept for their protection. Colonel Daniels, who led
the land force of Governor Moore’s army in 1702, and took possession of
St. Augustine, apparently met with no noticeable opposition on his
march; while we have it on official authority that the year after there
were only three hundred and fifty-three soldiers in the whole province
of whom forty-five were in Apalache, seven in Timuqua, nineteen in
Guale, and the rest in St. Augustine.
The incursion of the English in 1702-1706, and of the Creeks (Alibamons)
in 1705, were very destructive to the monastic establishments of the
north, and though Juan de Ayala, minister of the interior, devoted
himself earnestly to restoring them, his labor was destined to yield
small profit. The destruction of Pensacola by Bienville in 1719, the
ravages of Colonel Palmer eight years later, the second demolition of
the settlements in Apalache, between Tallahassie and St. Marks, by a
marauding party of English and Indians in 1736, the inroad of Governor
Oglethorpe four years subsequent, and another incursion of the English
in 1745--these following in quick succession, it may be readily
conceived rendered of no avail the efforts of the Franciscans to
re-establish their missions on Floridian soil.
Previous to the cession to England the settlements had become reduced to
St. Josephs, Pensacola, and St. Marks on the Gulf, Picolati on the St.
Johns, and St. Augustine on the Atlantic. When the English took
possession, the latter town numbered nine hundred houses and five
thousand seven hundred inhabitants including a garrison of two thousand
five hundred men.[305] There was a well-built church here as also at
Pensacola, while at St. Marks there were two convents, one of Jesuits
the other of Franciscans.[306] At this time but very few of the Indians,
who are described as “bigotted idolators worshipping the sun and moon,”
and “noted for a bold, subtile, and deceitful people,”[307] seem to have
been in the fold of the Catholic Church.
Harassed and worn out as the colony was by long wars, and apparently
soon to die a natural death, it is not a matter of wonder that in the
tripartite Definitive Treaty of Peace signed at Versailles, February
10th, 1763, Spain was glad to relinquish her right to its soil in
consideration of the far superior island of Cuba.[308] Though it was
stipulated that all who desired to remain should enjoy their
property-rights, and religion, very few availed themselves of the
privilege, little loth to forsake a country that had been one continued
scene of war and tumult for more than half a century.
With this closes the history of the conversion of the Indians as during
the English regime they were lost sight of in other issues, and when the
Spanish returned to power such a scene of unquiet turmoil and ceaseless
wrangling awaited them as effectually to divert their attention from the
moral condition of the aboriginal tribes.