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Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. The first European known to have explored the coasts of Florida was the Spanish explorer and governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de León, who likely ventured in 1513 as far north as the vicinity of the future St. Augustine, naming the peninsula he believed to be an island "La Florida" and claiming it for the Spanish crown.
The only major British operation that used troops from St. Augustine was the poorly coordinated but successful capture of Savannah, Georgia; the city was taken by troops from New York before those from St. Augustine arrived. At the end of the war, the Peace of Paris (1783) called for the return of Florida to Spain. On July 12, 1784, Spanish ...
Union forces strengthened the fort during the war, in case of attack. A heavy presence of U.S. Army forces would remain through Reconstruction and until the end of the Spanish–American War, always as an important part of the local economy and social life. Many Union soldiers settled permanently in St. Augustine and intermarried with local ...
St. Augustine was founded on September 8, 1565 by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Florida's first colonial governor. He named the settlement San Agustín , because his ships bearing settlers, troops, and supplies from Spain had first sighted land in Florida eleven days earlier on August 28, the feast day of St. Augustine . [ 5 ]
The Jesuits returned to St. Augustine after a year. Menéndez voyaged to La Florida for the last time in 1571, with 650 settlers for Santa Elena , as well as his wife and family. [ 13 ] [ 39 ] In August 1572, Menéndez led a ship with thirty soldiers and sailors to take revenge for the killing of the Jesuits of the Ajacán Mission in present ...
Although St. Augustine faced many hardships the Spanish decided to maintain the town and the colony as a way to counteract English expansion in the Americas and to help protect Spanish ships. [30] Catholic missionaries used St. Augustine as a base of operations to establish over 100 far-flung missions throughout Florida. [31]
After several years of disease and turbulent relations with the Native American inhabitants, the missionaries returned to Spain. [7] In 1565, the Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the St. Augustine presidio, or fort, in La Florida. He then built several presidios along the Florida coastline to protect the colony from French ...
The first settlement in modern-day United States territory was San Juan, Puerto Rico, founded in 1521 by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. 35 years later, Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the city of St. Augustine, Spanish Florida (the earliest settlement in the continental United States), which became a small outpost that ...