by John E. Worth
© UWF Division of Archaeology and Anthropology
In the year that we recognize the 200th anniversary of the formal delivery of Pensacola from Spain to the United States in 1821, it seems fitting to turn some of our attention to Spain’s first attempt to establish a port colony here some 262 years prior to that date. Even though the settlement they established only lasted two years before its abandonment, leaving Pensacola Bay without any European residents for the next 137 years, the physical remains of that settlement were only identified in 2015, and have only recently begun to be explored by archaeologists from the University of West Florida. After a year’s absence due to the pandemic, this summer will mark our fifth summer field school at the site.
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| Section of the 1587 map published by Abraham Ortelius, noted to have been authored by Jerónimo de Chaves, son of Alonso de Chaves, both Spanish geographers during the 16th century (note arrows at "P[uerto] de S[anta] Maria" on the Gulf coast and "P[unta] S[anta] Helena" on the Atlantic coast). |
Once the high terrace overlooking the heart of Pensacola Bay had been selected at some point after the fleet’s arrival in mid-August of 1559, most of Luna’s army and attached personnel would have immediately set about clearing the landscape where the new town of Santa María de Ochuse would be laid out on what we now call Emanuel Point. The Viceroy had indicated in a letter to the King that the city would have 140 house lots, of which 40 would be reserved for the plaza and public buildings within an administrative district, the rest of which would be allocated to colonists who would settle in the new colonial town. Based on typical hand-drawn plans submitted for new cities founded across the New World during the 16th-century, Luna’s settlement would have had a grid of criss-crossing streets laid out around blocks of four individual house-lots, with several streets converging on a town plaza. Surrounding the plaza would have been a church with an adjacent chaplain’s house, a royal warehouse and offices, and residences for the governor (Luna) and other high-ranking royal officials such as the treasurer, accountant, and factor. Coastal towns normally had their plazas adjacent to the port itself, while towns in the interior would have had more centrally-located administrative districts. Archaeological work at the site seems to indicate that the densest concentration of 16th-century Spanish and Aztec debris is indeed consistent with the plaza and administrative district of Santa María de Ochuse being oriented toward the inferred landing site of the port (and not coincidentally near a small natural spring-fed pond below the terrace).
During the no more than five weeks that the members of Luna’s expedition had to work on clearing and building the new settlement, they doubtless focused initially on clearing the undergrowth and whatever trees they chose to remove within the projected lots and streets, and began the construction of at least temporary housing. European armies during this period commonly used tents in temporary encampments, and since at least a third of the population were soldiers and officers of an army that would soon move inland, we might expect a typical “tent city” to have sprung up shortly after landing. But since the goal was to establish a permanent colonial port town, from which the mobile army would be connected to and resupplied from New Spain across the Gulf of Mexico, work would quickly have shifted to building more substantial and durable structures. Foremost among the public structures to be built was undoubtedly the royal warehouse, where equipment, supplies, and food provisions would be housed under lock and key, for the ongoing use of both the traveling army and the resident population at Ochuse. A church would also have been among the first public buildings to be erected, providing a suitable space for celebrating Mass. And residences for the highest-ranking officials would also likely have been begun, particularly those who had brought their own servants and slaves who could dedicate their attention to such structures. Other public structures that might have been among the earliest constructed were probably a hospital, at least one smithy, one or more bread ovens for the wheat flour brought as provisions, and presumably corrals both for the 120 or so horses that survived the passage to Florida as well as the livestock that was brought for ranching. Areas would also have been designated for making charcoal (used in braziers for cooking) and butchering animals for food, because these activities would have been needed very quickly after landing.
Since the goal of Luna’s expedition was to establish settlements that would avert anticipated French colonization efforts, some initial attention was likely also given to military preparedness, perhaps in the form of watch towers or sentinel posts, potentially also with artillery emplacements that could provide some resistance to enemy ships in the bay. One might imagine that such locations might have been placed on either end of the settlement at the bluff overlooking the bay, and archaeologically we have indeed identified concentrations of 16th-century debris that may reflect such positions. And while it seems likely that the town might eventually have had a stockade wall constructed around it in order to defend against potential attack from land, the original intent and strategy of the expedition was to approach local Native groups peacefully, establish missions, and engage in trade, so terrestrial defenses may not initially have been a priority (nor are any such fortifications ever mentioned in the documentary record of Santa María de Ochuse).
Would individual houses have also been begun on the individual lots to be distributed to settlers who were planning to live at Santa María de Ochuse? Perhaps construction would have begun on some of them, particularly for the officers and soldiers who brought their families on the expedition. But since the majority of the army was comprised of unaccompanied soldiers who were intended to move quickly inland, it seems likely that many of the 1,500 people who initially landed at the settlement would have been living in temporary housing, probably tents or at best simple lean-tos or other temporary structures that could be erected quickly. This probably would have included at least the 100 Aztec noble warriors, though the other 100 or so Aztec craftspeople might have been intended to remain at the port, and thus may have begun somewhat less temporary housing and/or workshops. Where would all these temporary residents have encamped before moving inland? While the documentary record is silent on this question, there is no reason to think that the army would have encamped anywhere other than within the town that was actively being cleared and gridded out in the first weeks. Once they departed and moved inland, the streets and lots could have been further formalized for future distribution to settlers intending to become permanent residents as the town grew.
All of this planning and initial effort were
underway but largely incomplete on the night of September 19, 1559, when “the
Luna hurricane” struck Pensacola Bay.
The very fact that most of the food provisions had yet to be offloaded
from the ships bears testimony to the as-yet incomplete nature of even the
first and most important public buildings to be constructed. Luna would not risk a years’ worth of
provisions on a royal warehouse that had yet to be completed, and so he placed
his faith in the ability of the ships and the bay itself to protect the food
from storms. As history would soon
demonstrate, that faith was misplaced.
In Part II, we will explore the evolution and history of Luna’s
settlement during the two years that followed the devastation wrought by the
hurricane.
Selected Bibliography
Priestly,
Herbert Ingram
1928 Historical Introduction. In The Luna Papers: Documents Relating to
the Expedition of Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano for the Conquest of La Florida
in 1559-1561, xix-lxviii. DeLand:
Florida State Historical Society. http://palmm.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/uwf:46938#page/spine/mode/2up
Hudson,
Charles, Marvin T. Smith, Chester B. DePratter, and Emilia Kelley
1989 The Tristán de Luna Expedition, 1559-1561. Southeastern Archaeology 8(1): 31-45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40712896
Worth,
John E.
2009 Documenting Tristán de Luna’s Fleet, and the
Storm that Destroyed It. The Florida
Anthropologist 62(3-4):83-92. https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00027829/00207/9j
2018 Florida’s Forgotten Colony: Historical
Background. In Florida’s Lost
Galleon: The Emanuel Point Shipwreck, ed. by Roger C. Smith, pp. 34-67. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Worth, John E.,
Elizabeth D. Benchley, Janet R. Lloyd, and Jennifer Melcher
2020 The Discovery and Exploration of Tristán de
Luna’s 1559-1561 Settlement on Pensacola Bay.
Historical Archaeology 54(2): 472-501. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41636-020-00240-w
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Christina L. Bolte for editorial review.
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