Not being originally from Florida, the history of our new home state we found to be both informative and often fascinating. Our tour stops for the day in Tallahassee, the State Capitol and Mission San Luis, were filled with all sorts of Floridian historical insights.
The first contact made in Florida by a European was in 1513 when a Spanish explorer named Juan Ponce de Leon landed north of Cape Canaveral during the Easter season. He named this new land ‘La Florida’ after Pascua Florida, meaning feast of flowers, which the Easter season was referred to in Spanish.
Although St. Augustine, FL is the oldest continuous US city, the first colony in Florida was established 61 years prior to the Mayflower landing. This colony was located on the shores of Pensacola Bay when the Spanish explorer Tristan de Luna arrived with 1500 colonists in 1559. This new colony was called Santa Maria de Ochuse. Unlike other landings in the US where colonies lasted a week or two, the Pensacola Bay colony survived 2 full years.
In 1564 the French explorer Laudonniere established Fort Caroline near today’s Jacksonville. A year later today’s oldest US permanent settlement in North America, that is St. Augustine, was established by the Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who immediately ordered that all the French Huguenots be executed. Just five years later in 1570, the first citrus groves in Florida were planted in St. Augustine. Fast forward 16 more years to 1586 and the English explorer Sir Francis Drake arrives on the scene and he raids and sets fire to the St. Augustine settlement. Everything of value is either taken or destroyed. Sir Francis Drake will later become known as El Dradue, the dragon, by the Spanish for his numerous ruthless and cunning attacks on Spanish Ships and settlements. Sir Francis Drake then leaves with all the goods and the Spanish return from hiding to rebuild the city of St. Augustine.
Florida was set to become the site of numerous battles over the years as various countries desired control of the trade routes to Asia and Europe. The Spanish explorers, in an effort to understand this new land and its resources, fostered relationships with the native people. And, the King of Spain saw it as his duty to spread Christianity to this New World. Over 100 Franciscan missions were eventually built in Florida to aid in these endeavors. The Franciscan friars first entered Florida in the St. Augustine area in 1573. Starting in 1606 they expanded their efforts westward, convincing native leaders to provide food and labor to support the Spanish troops in exchange for tools and protection.
While in Tallahassee we visited the only reconstructed mission in Florida, Mission San Luis. From 1656 to 1704, Spanish soldiers and the Apalachee natives coexisted in a cooperative community. The community consisted of over 1500 residents including a powerful Apalachee chief and a Spanish Deputy Governor. The Apalachee lived in their traditional Palm thatched huts and held their meetings as well as religious and cultural ceremonies in their large Council house. Within the same community, the Spanish built traditional rectangular 2 room houses made of wattle-and-daub or wood planking with palm-thatched roofs. The Spanish soldiers commonly married Apalachee women. Marriage to Spanish soldiers was perceived as a means of upward mobility by Apalachee women. Within this community, Apalachee men served with Spanish soldiers (but only with their bows and arrows) in the San Luis military garrison, protecting the Apalachee Province from rival tribes and their English colonial allies. The mission was built on fertile land and was the major supplier of food to the soldiers in St. Augustine.
In 1703, the English with their Creek allies burned down and killed or enslaved the natives in the most of the over 100 remote missions. The Spanish were ill-prepared and hugely outnumbered. Seeing the inevitable as the English troops with Creek allies approached the San Luis Mission the community was abandoned on July 31, 1704, and the entire community was burned by the Spanish and Apalachee with the intention of preventing the English from benefitting from their settlement. With all their missions destroyed all that was remaining of Spanish Florida was St. Augustine. In 1763 Spain traded their only remaining hold in Florida to Great Britain.
The San Luis Mission community has been historically recreated where original structures stood and period actors provide an excellent insight into life in this early cooperative community.
In Tallahassee, we also visited the old and new capitol buildings. Tallahassee was established as a capital city in 1824 because it was midway between the then two largest cities in the state, St. Augustine and Pensacola. Just prior to FL becoming the 27th state in 1845, the present ‘old Capitol building’ was completed. Tallahassee was the only Confederate Capitol east of the Mississippi to avoid capture by Federal Troops.
Today, the Capitol location is no longer central to the state or its population. In 1967, serious consideration was given to moving the State Capitol to Orlando which makes a lot of sense. Opponents of this relocation, however, successfully spearheaded the construction of a new Capitol Complex in Tallahassee. In the mid-1970’s construction of the new Capitol began with its completion in 1982. Upon completion, it was decided to restore the old Capitol to its 1902 appearance, which is how it stands today.
Within the old Capitol building is the Florida state museum which contains a lot of political history of the state. Most notable to us was how slow Florida addressed civil rights. Women did not get the right to vote until the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920 and complete desegregation of schools in the state did not happen until 1970. Florida was also the origin of the 1963 landmark US Supreme Court case Gideon vs Wainwright. In this case, it was ruled that states are required under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to provide an attorney to defendants in criminal cases who are unable to afford their own attorneys. Two weeks after the Gideon decision the Florida Supreme Court issued a rule allowing inmates to appeal their convictions. Almost 25 percent of those that had not had counsel were eventually released.
Apalachee Council House
Mission San Luis
Interior of Council House
Traveling visitors would bed down in these alcoves
Mission San Luis
Spanish House
Mission San Luis
Church
Mission San Luis
Fort
Mission San Luis
Florida New Capitol Building
Interior
Florida New Capitol Building
House of Representatives
Florida New Capitol Building
Senate
Florida New Capitol Building
View of Florida State University from the top of the
Florida New Capitol Building
Tallahassee Old Capitol Building
SupremeCourt
Tallahassee Old Capitol Building
Senate
Tallahassee Old Capitol Building
House of Representatives
Tallahassee Old Capitol Building |
