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In May 1539, Conquistador Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida, searching for a deep harbor to land. He described a thick wall of red mangroves spread mile after mile, some reaching as high as 70 feet (21 m), with intertwined and elevated roots making landing difficult. The Spanish introduced Christianity, cattle, horses, sheep, the Castilian language, and more to Florida. Spain established several settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success. In 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a settlement at present-day Pensacola, making it the first attempted settlement in Florida, but it was mostly abandoned by 1561.
In 1565, the settlement of
Some Spanish married or had unions with Pensacola, Creek or African women, both slave and free, and their descendants created a mixed-race population of mestizos and mulattos. The Spanish encouraged slaves from the Virginia to come to Florida as a refuge, promising freedom in exchange for conversion to Catholicism. The King of Spain issued a royal proclamation freeing all slaves who fled to Spanish Florida and accepted conversion and baptism. Most went to the area around St. Augustine, but escaped slaves also reached Pensacola. St. Augustine had mustered an all-black militia unit defending Spanish Florida as early as 1683. This unique relationship between the Spanish and escaped slaves unfortunately ended in the 18th century after the Spanish Succession Crisis when the British and Spanish empires became allies. During the 17th century the Spanish Florida refused to accept any more escaped slaves and as such many of these escaped slaves instead fled west from Virginia to join up with Native American tribes.
=== Period of Increased Settlement ===
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=== Pirate Wars ===
In the Caribbean piracy had been a major issue since the late 16th century but from 1660 to 1750 the quantity and success of pirates in the Caribbean dramatically increased (this period is also known as the Golden Age of Piracy). This increase in piracy can be attributed to many factors including growing populations of in Western Europe, lack of major wars leading to less jobs for sailors, profitability of smuggling operations and a proliferation of "unpoliced" areas in the Caribbean and along the gulf of Mexico that served as pirate ports.
The majority of pirates at this time were Anglo, Anglo-Colonial or Dutch in origin and had bases across the Caribbean including the Bahamas, Jamaica, Virginia, Florida, Tejas & Yucatan. During the pirate clearing of the Bahamas in 1718 many pirates in Nassau and other area fled to the tip of Florida and founded the settlements of Freeport, New Nassau (now Cuevas) and Jacobstown (now Santa Cruz).
From 1720 to 1750 the Spanish fought a series of wars to rid of Florida of these pirates (who now fashioned themselves as 'The 2nd Pirate Republic'). Due to the pirates mastery of navigation along with the harsh and defensible terrain of southern Florida, the Spanish had trouble effectively dealing with the pirates and in 1750 they negotiated with the four of the premier 'pirate lords' of the region ( Jim "King Andrew" Briggs, Catherine Kelly, One-eye Ned Jacobszoon, "El Lobo" Bortholomew Jones) to come under the employ of the Spanish crown as privateers and be given clemency and land grants in southern Florida. This strategy worked and the Spanish employed their new privateers to much effectiveness in the great Silesian War (1750-1755). After the war most of these privateers settled in the land granted to them by the Spanish Crown (besides Bortholomew Jones who left for the East Indies and Ned Jacobszoon who got hit in the head with a cannonball during the war). These pirate settlers contributed to settlement and growth of Spanish Florida with cities like Port Andrews and Santa Cruz growing into important ports of call in the mid and late 18th century.
{{Nations of the World}}
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