Cattle ranching in Spanish Florida facts for kids
Cattle ranching was a very important business in Spanish Florida during the late 1600s. The Spanish had been in Florida for almost 100 years before cattle ranches became common. By the late 17th century, ranches were found along the middle St. Johns River. They were also in the Potano Province (which is now North Central Florida) and the Apalachee Province (the eastern part of the Florida Panhandle). These ranches grew even with problems from Florida's native people. But attacks from the English colony, the Province of Carolina, and their native allies suddenly stopped ranching in Florida in the early 1700s.
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Life in Spanish Florida
Spanish Florida in the 1500s and 1600s was a wild frontier. Only about 2,000 Spanish people lived in the colony. Between 800 and 1,500 of them lived in the Presidio (fortified town) of St. Augustine. Florida was not a rich colony. It had no valuable metals like gold or silver.
The Spanish people living there mostly depended on government salaries. These salaries came from the situado. This was money sent yearly to the colony by the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Mexico). Most goods for the colonists had to be brought in from Cuba and Mexico. The situado often arrived late, sometimes by years. Once, a ship carrying the money was even captured by a Dutch privateer (a type of pirate). Another time, it was lost in a shipwreck.
Because the situado was small and often delayed, the colony always needed supplies and money. The government and people of Florida bought goods from Havana on credit. But growing debt made prices go up and made it hard to get more credit. So, the Spanish in Florida looked for ways to earn extra money.
They sent things like ambergris (a waxy substance from whales) found on the coast to Havana and Spain. They also sent maize (corn) and beans from Apalachee Province. Deerskins and furs from the Apalachicola people were also traded. But for a few decades, cattle ranching was the most successful way for Spanish Florida to make money. It helped make up for the small support from the situado.
First Tries at Ranching
Juan Ponce de León, Hernando de Soto, and Tristán de Luna y Arellano all brought cattle with their expeditions to Florida. They planned to start Spanish settlements. But there is no proof that any of these cattle survived and had babies.
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés brought cattle to Florida again when he founded St. Augustine in 1565. For the rest of the 1500s, cattle were brought from Cuba. They were placed on islands near St. Augustine. But there wasn't enough grass or fresh water. Also, too many mosquito bites killed them. Families in St. Augustine each kept a few cows. About a few hundred cattle were reported in the town in 1600. Because they couldn't raise their own cattle, St. Augustine had to import a lot of dried beef from Havana every year.
Records about ranches in Spanish Florida are hard to find, especially for the early 1600s. It is now known that cattle herds began to grow in Florida starting in 1618. This happened when Governor Juan de Salinas started bringing enough cattle from Cuba.
Large areas of empty land became available in Spanish Florida. This was because native people in mission villages died from frequent diseases. Or they left their villages to avoid the repartimiento. This was a system where men from mission villages had to work for the Spanish without pay. The Saltwater and Freshwater Timucua villages along the St. Johns River were mostly empty by 1617. This left unused land that was good for cattle ranches. The first mention of a cattle ranch in Florida is in Potano Province. It might have started in the mid-1620s.
How Ranching Grew
Luis Benedit y Horruytiner became governor of Florida in 1633. He encouraged criollos (people of European descent born in the Americas) in St. Augustine to move inland. He wanted them to start farming and ranching. They used native people as workers. Horruytiner gave out many land grants during his time as governor. These lands were likely used for ranches. Horruytiner stayed in Florida after his term ended. His family later owned several cattle ranches.
About a dozen criollo families who worked in St. Augustine's government or military got land grants. Building the Castillo de San Marcos fort in St. Augustine began in 1672. This created a greater need for food for the workers. Pablo de Hita y Salazar, governor from 1675 to 1680, also gave out land grants freely. He was later told off by the Spanish Crown for this. He also stayed in Florida and became a cattle rancher after leaving office.
The best places for pastures in Spanish Florida were grasslands in the Potano Province. This was about 15 leagues (about 45 miles) west of the St. Johns River. The Potano people had regularly burned their lands. This cleared them for farming and made hunting better. These repeated fires turned forests into savannas of wiregrass. The number of people in Potano Province started to drop after the first missions were built there in 1606. Two early missions, San Miguel de Potano and San Buenaventura de Potano, disappeared from Spanish records after 1613. This was probably due to fewer people living there. Many diseases hit Spanish Florida. Several happened between 1649 and 1655. Governor Diego de Rebolledo noted in 1657 that sickness had left few native people alive in Timucua Province.
How Ranches Worked
Cattle on ranches were allowed to roam freely in the woods for most of the year. They were gathered and put into pens in the spring. There, calves were branded. Some cattle were chosen for slaughter. Most of the cattle to be slaughtered were driven to St. Augustine.
The cattle sent to St. Augustine first provided meat for the soldiers. Any extra meat was sold to people in the city. As ranches produced more, extra hides, fat, and dried meat became available for export. Some was sent to Spain on the one ship allowed to sail from St. Augustine to Spain each year. The rest was shipped to Havana and other cities in the Caribbean. Juan Márquez Cabrera, governor of Florida from 1680 to 1687, ordered that cattle ready for sale had to be slaughtered at a government slaughterhouse in St. Augustine. This was done at a set price, and a tax had to be paid.
Ranches got workers from several places. Some were repartimiento (forced unpaid labor) workers. These were provided by the caciques (chiefs) of mission villages. As mission populations dropped, ranchers started hiring native people as day laborers. Some workers even moved to live on the ranches. Full-time ranch hands included both hired workers and slaves. In the 1660s, soldiers were sent from Mexico to Florida to join the army. These Mexican soldiers were mestizos (mixed European and native heritage) or mulattos (mixed European and African heritage). In St. Augustine, they were seen as not fit to be soldiers. Many of them ended up working on ranches.
Ranches and farms in Spanish Florida paid a tithe, or tax in kind. This was two-and-a-half percent of what they produced. Governor Hita y Salazar needed money to build the Castillo de San Marcos. He also needed funds to start new Spanish towns in important places in Florida. So, he added new taxes on farms and ranches. This included a yearly tax of 50 pesos for each ranch. There was also a charge of 50 pesos per league to make grazing licenses inheritable. These new taxes brought in 2,500 pesos for the government between 1677 and 1685. Native chiefs also started charging for the use of old fields in their areas. They called this "tribute."
The Menéndez Márquez Family
The Menéndez Márquez family was the most important criollo family involved in cattle ranching in Spanish Florida. This family was related to Pedro Menéndez Márquez. He was the nephew of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who founded Spanish Florida. Pedro Menéndez Márquez was the third royal governor of Spanish Florida.
Pedro Menéndez Márquez's great-nephew, Francisco Menéndez Márquez, was the Royal Treasurer for Spanish Florida from 1628 to 1637, and again from 1639 until he died in 1649. When Governor Benito Ruíz de Salazar Vallecilla was suspended in 1646, Francisco Menéndez Márquez and Pedro Benedit Horruytiner served as co-governors.
By the 1640s, the Potano Province had lost many people. Francisco started cattle ranching in the empty Potano lands. He had the approval of the Timucua chief Lúcas Menéndez. This probably happened in 1646 or 1647, while he was co-governor. By 1649, the ranch was worth 8,000 pesos and earned 700 pesos a year.
A few years after Francisco died, the royal treasury in St. Augustine was checked. It was found that between 16,000 and 20,000 pesos were missing. (Francisco's salary as treasurer was 1,470 pesos a year). His family repaid about three-quarters of the missing money. They were allowed to pay back the rest over six years.
Cattle ranching grew very fast in Spanish Florida in the late 1600s. Francisco's son, Tomás Menéndez Márquez, and Tomás's son Francisco II, started or bought most of the ranches. These were located between the St. Johns River and the Potano missions. This area is now western Alachua County. The most famous ranch was La Chua. It was on the north side of what is now known as Paynes Prairie. Tomás also worked with other cattle ranchers. Several of his children married into other ranching families.
Like other ranches, the Menéndez Márquez ranches sent cattle to St. Augustine. Cattle were sometimes driven to Apalachee Province too. A port called San Martin was built in the early 1670s on the Suwannee River. Tomás shipped hides, dried meat, and fat to Havana from that port. Tomás owned a ship that traded between San Martin, Havana, and San Marcos in Apalachee Province.
Problems with Native Groups
The native people of Spanish Florida did not like cattle ranching in their lands. Problems with ranches were part of a bigger fight. This was a struggle between the "republic of Indians" and the "republic of Spaniards." They fought over who controlled the land and the labor of native people. This struggle was made more complex by differences between chiefs and common native people. Also, missionaries often supported native complaints against Spanish ranchers and the government.
Trouble over cattle began when the colony was first founded. At the very start, cattle had to be kept on an island. They were protected from native attacks by trained attack dogs. Reports of native people complaining about cattle destroying crops happened throughout the 1600s. In 1694, the people of San Diego de Salamototo were very short of food. This was after cattle had destroyed their crops. This town was the ferry station on the St. Johns River for the trail connecting St. Augustine and Apalachee.
Timucuas sometimes killed cattle to protect their fields. The first report of this was in 1614. During the Timucua Rebellion in 1658, Timucuas attacked the Menéndez Márquez family's la Chua ranch. They killed four ranch hands and all the cattle they could find. Franciscan missionaries in Apalachee and Timucua did not want Spanish settlements and ranches near native towns. They saw them as threats to converting native people. They also saw them as threats to the power of the chiefs.
Another problem was hiring native people as ranch hands. The power of the chiefs in Apalachee and Timucua depended on their control of land and labor. Enough people working in the fields were needed to produce extra food. This gave chiefs ways to compete with other chiefs. It also helped them get valuable goods.
Ranches needed more workers than the repartimiento system could provide. So, ranchers offered higher wages to native people who would work voluntarily. This led native men to leave their villages and live on ranches. This meant their chiefs lost their labor in the village fields. It also meant they were not available for the repartimiento demands of the Spanish government. It also took the native men and their families away from the missionaries' efforts to convert them to Christianity.
Good Times, Then Trouble, Then End
In the late 1600s, there were 34 permanent ranches in Spanish Florida. In 1698 and 1699, these 34 ranches paid a tax of 222 head of cattle. The largest ranch, la Chua, paid a tax of 77 head of cattle. The tax rate on ranch products was two-and-a-half percent. A tax of 222 cattle means that about 8,880 calves were born in those two years. About 3,080 calves were born on the la Chua ranch alone. In 1763, a British official named James Robertson noted that cattle were plentiful in Florida. He said one Spaniard (likely Tomás Menéndez Márquez) owned 7,000 cattle before the Spanish missions were destroyed in the early 1700s.
Ranching became less profitable over time. A beef steer was worth 21 pesos in 1651, but only six pesos in 1689. The value of a horse dropped from 100 pesos in 1651 to 25 pesos in 1682. A pair of oxen used for pulling was worth 80 pesos in 1651, but only 25 pesos in 1682.
Also, having so many cattle attracted unwanted attention. French pirates from Anclote Key on Florida's Gulf coast raided Spanish ranches in 1682 and 1684. They reached the la Chua ranch both times. Runaway slaves and native people who had left their mission villages killed cattle for food. Native allies of the English Province of South Carolina attacked St. Augustine in 1702. When they left, they went through the Potano region. They took cattle, horses, and Timucua captives with them to Carolina.
By the early 1700s, attacks by pirates, rustlers, and the English had badly hurt ranching in Spanish Florida. A blockhouse (a small fort) was built at la Chua. Soldiers were stationed there to help work the ranch and protect it. But more attacks forced the defenders to burn the blockhouse in 1706 and retreat to St. Augustine. The Spanish had lost control of Florida outside the area right around St. Augustine, including the cattle ranches.
