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Baptista Boazio "Sir Francis Drake lays siege to St. Augustine" 1589 St. Augustine Historical Society, Collection M81-21
As you can see in the picture, a fleet of Francis Drake's are sailing by the mouth of the cove that leads to the then just starting town of St. Augustine. While the people of the town had been trying to build the city up, they were constantly hit by pirate attacks from various small pirates at the time, but one Francis Drake, a notorious pirate of the times, would regularly come to the town, pillaging and destroying everything as he made off with anything valuable. In this picture, he is returning from Cartenega, and sees in the mouth of the peninsula a watch tower built to see when Drake would be approaching so that the town was able to be warned. Needless to say, Drake did not like this, and promptly burned the tower down, as well as once again, ransacking the city of St. Augustine. The Watchtower, or small fort was called 'San Juan de Pinos'
Only after this last attack did the people of St. Augustine finally came to the point of building a real fort, unlike the San Juan de Pinos, which could not hold its own against the force of Drake's privateer army. About 100 years before the Castillo de San Marcos was built however, nine other wooden forts were built at St. Augustine, since Spain did not need to spend the money and man power to build an impregnable fort at that point in time. Due to failures at colonies such as Roanoke, the council in Spain did not see it viable to build the Castillo just quite yet. Yet with the Pressure that the English had pressed upon the Spanish in the 1670s, the Spanish needed something to compete, to keep the British from taking over the coastal town. This is where the Castillo de San Marcos comes in. Using one of the old wooden forts left behind from previous tries to keep Pirates like Francis Drake out, they were able to construct a fort that would keep the town safe from any adversary for centuries to come.
Humphreys, Jay. The History of Castillo de San Marcos. St. Augustine: Historic Print and Map Company, 2005. 10-17.
On our second day in the Jacksonville area, we headed east to St Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European-established city in the US.
Saint Augustine was founded on September 8, 1565, by Spanish admiral and Florida's first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. He named the settlement "San AgustÃn", as his ships bearing settlers, troops, and supplies from Spain had first sighted land in Florida on August 28, 1565, the feast day of St. Augustine.
The city served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200 years, and remained the capital of East Florida when the territory briefly changed hands between Spain and Britain. It was designated the capital of the Florida Territory until Tallahassee was made the capital in 1824.
It is brimming with Colonial history, and it was also among the pivotal sites of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963–1964.
Shot on the Mantanzas River on the grounds of the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. The moon was at 25% Waning Crescent, Venus, Mars and Saturn were showing off, the Bridge of Lions in the distance with the St. Augustine Lighthouse waving in the distance.
This Powder Magazine at Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine was "constructed in 1675 for ammunition storage and is one of the oldest rooms in the fort. Because of dampness the gunpowder had to be moved and the room was used briefly as a prison, then sealed up. Nearly 100 years later it was opened, and bones found inside have given rise to improbable stories." (So says the plaque onsite.) Damn, I wish they'd left the bones on display too!!
Author Unknown "Native American prisoners at Castilo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Florida" 1868
The group of Native Americans depicted here are a small portion of the Cheyenne Native American Tribe that at that point in time, had been exiled from Fort Sill, Oklahoma to the Castillo, which came to be known as Fort Marion when it entered United States possession. The photo itself was taken in 1875, after they Cheyenne endured a long trip on the railroads from Oklahoma to Florida, where they were crowded along with hundreds of other of their kind into a very small living space inside the fort. Most of them were accused of heinous crimes such as murder and rebellion, even though most had done nothing wrong, but were roped in with the rest of their tribe.
After time had passed with the Native Americans still being kept in the fort, the soldiers in charge of the fort started letting them keep watch of their own rather than guards that could care less about them. They even unshackled and let them roam around freely. They were also found jobs around the fort, picking fruit and industrious work. An education system was implemented to them inside the fort as well, and the Native Americans were more willing to learn, as they had garnered more trust thanks to Lieutenant Pratt, for letting them move around freely, and not staying shackled up so they stayed sickly and died off. With teachers who volunteered to help teach the Native Americans, they soon learned English over the next three years of their confinement, and spoke English more regularly than their own language.
In the Spring of 1878, the prisoners of Fort Marion were released, but instead of going their own way, many of them wanted to stay behind at the fort. The men who stayed behind eventually went on to found their own Indian school in Hampton, but when another Indian school, at Carlisle, needed help with recruits, these men came back under Pratt, who needed help in educating all of the new Native Americans from a dozen different tribes. This school however, was later closed down due to the rising of the first World War.
Waterbury, Jean P. "The Oldest City." St. Augustine: St. Augustine Historical Society, 1983. 151-179
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Marion#Second_United_States_pe...
When I went to the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, I found out that there was going to be a cannon-firing demonstration/re-enactment on the roof of the fort.
On our second day in the Jacksonville area, we headed east to St Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European-established city in the US.
Saint Augustine was founded on September 8, 1565, by Spanish admiral and Florida's first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. He named the settlement "San AgustÃn", as his ships bearing settlers, troops, and supplies from Spain had first sighted land in Florida on August 28, 1565, the feast day of St. Augustine.
The city served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200 years, and remained the capital of East Florida when the territory briefly changed hands between Spain and Britain. It was designated the capital of the Florida Territory until Tallahassee was made the capital in 1824.
It is brimming with Colonial history, and it was also among the pivotal sites of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963–1964.
We visited the Castillo de San Marcos! It was started in the 1600's! We looked for ghosts, but didn't see any.
The Castillo de San Marcos is a Spanish fort constructed on the Matanzas River in St. Augustine, FL. Construction began in 1672, and it is the oldest masonry structure in the United States. It was designated as a National Monument in 1924 and is managed by the National Park Service. Photo taken from the patio of The White Lion restaurant.
Defending the Fort
In the summer of 1740, Governor James Oglethorpe led the British invasion of Spanish Florida that surrounded St. Augustine and blockaded its port. Bombarded for 28 days Spanish counterattacks kept the British at bay until reinforcements and supplies arrived from Cuba. With the town freshly resupplied, the British realized they had failed, and Oglethorpe and his troops were forced to retreat to Fort Frederica on the coast of Georgia.