1817 map of St. Augustine (courtesy of St. Augustine Historical Society)

In 1513, Ponce de León landed on the east coast of Florida, marking the beginning of the Spanish Colonial period in Florida. When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés arrived in 1565 and established a settlement named St. Augustine, he founded what is today the oldest continuously occupied European city in North America. St. Augustine served as an important outpost for the Spanish Flota (Fleet) that carried gold and silver from the Americas to Spain and as a hub for Spanish exploration into the interior of Florida. From St. Augustine, Menéndez and his successors developed a mission system that spread north, south, and west, converting Native Americans to Catholicism and establishing Spanish outposts and settlements throughout north Florida.

Though Spain had firm control over Florida for much of the 17th century, England and France constantly threatened the Spanish colony from their respective colonies to the north and west of Florida. Pirates also raided the small colonial town. In 1672, Castillo de San Marcos was constructed to defend the settlement. In 1702, the British burned all but the fort in St. Augustine. By 1706 they had destroyed most of the missions between the city and Mission San Luis de Apalachee in present-day Tallahassee, effectively ending the mission period. Despite this loss, St. Augustine and Florida remained in Spanish hands, protected by Fort Matanzas to the south and Fort Mosé to the north, until 1763 when the British gained Florida by treaty. Most Spanish residents left for Cuba.

During the British period, St. Augustine saw an influx of primarily Minorcan but also Greek and Italian immigrants from the failed Turnbull plantation near present-day New Smyrna. As the capital of the 14th and only loyal British colony in North America, St. Augustine also served as a refuge for those loyal to the British crown during the American Revolution.

With the defeat of the British, Spanish rule returned to East Florida and its capital of St. Augustine in 1783. St. Augustine was a town of many cultures during the Second Spanish Period. English was heard on the streets almost as often as Spanish. The majority of British subjects left Florida when the Spanish control returned, but many remained to become Spanish subjects, including those from the Turnbull plantation. Previous Spanish residents who had evacuated St. Augustine in 1764 returned to reclaim the houses and lots they had left behind, leading to squabbles and lawsuits with British period residents. Free and enslaved blacks born in America or recently from Africa, Mexico, Cuba, and Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) worked and lived in St. Augustine.

As it did during the First Spanish Period, the situado (military stipend) allocated by the Spanish Crown provided a major contribution to the economy of St. Augustine. After Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1808 occupation of Spain, funding for Spain’s colonies disappeared. Exports of timber, beef and citrus fruit to Spanish, British and American ports sustained the economy. Ships arrived from New York and Baltimore, Liverpool, Havana and Veracruz carrying cloth, cookware, wine and news. East Florida’s governors relied on local militia to supplement the soldiers. Minorcans, Spanish, and blacks formed their own militia units to protect St. Augustine.

Roman Catholicism returned as the official religion of the colony. Among the most important additions to St. Augustine during the Second Spanish Period was the parish church, built on the north side of the plaza between 1793 and 1797, where it stands today as the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Augustine. At long last the congregation of the St. Augustine parish had its own church after decades of holding services in “temporary” quarters following the total burning of the town in 1702. Local shell-stone, known as coquina, was used for walls of the church and better houses in the town. About two dozen of the colonial buildings in St. Augustine today originated in the Second Spanish Period. Another dozen colonial structures still stand from the First Spanish Period, including Castillo de San Marcos. All but one have exterior walls of coquina.

St. Augustine began as and remained a place of refuge. Residents of East Florida’s countryside fled to St. Augustine when threatened by invasions from Americans, raids by Seminoles, and rumors of pirate attacks. In the summer of 1821, Spanish soldiers and families evacuated St. Augustine when Spain ceded the colony to the United States. But most of the town’s population–Minorcans, naturalized residents who had immigrated from the southern U.S., free blacks and slaves–stayed to form the core of the now-American population.