In 1565 a fleet of Spanish ships led by Pedro Menéndez de Aviles established the first permanent European settlement in North America at present-day St. Augustine, Florida.
After a difficult first decade of conflict with the local Timucua Indians, the city established itself as the capital of Spanish La Florida, which in the sixteenth century extended northward to Virginia and westward to the Mississippi. The town was also the administrative center for the very widespread Spanish Franciscan mission system that extended throughout La Florida in the seventeenth century. St. Augustine was entering its fifth decade as a city when the first settlers arrived at Jamestown.
Map titled “St. Augustine, The Capital of East Florida”
St. Augustine served as the northernmost Spanish territory between the North American English colonies and the rest of the Spanish Empire. It was a military garrison of about 300 people until the end of the seventeenth century, when it’s strategic importance increased in response to the growing British presence in the Carolinas, and the garrison was reinforced. Nevertheless, Florida was traded to the English in exchange for Cuba following the Seven Years’ War in 1763, and virtually the entire Spanish and Indian population left the colony for Cuba. The British held St. Augustine from 1764-1784, when it was once again returned to Spanish control.
In 1821 Florida became an American territory, and entered the Union as a State in 1845. Although it was a small and often struggling town on the edge of the Spanish Empire for much of it’s colonial history, St. Augustine did survive as the oldest European town in the United States. It was also one of the most colorful, occupied by Spaniards, Indians, Africans, Canary Islanders, Englishmen, Americans and mixed blood combinations throughout its history. Today it is a popular destination for heritage tourism, serving as a Living History Museum of America’s Spanish colonial past.
Archaeological research has been underway in St. Augustine since the 1930s, and the University of Florida and Florida State University have sustained an annual field school in historical archaeology there since 1968, under the direction of Hale Smith, Charles Fairbanks and Kathleen Deagan. The next University of Florida project will begin in January of 2000. It will be a collaborative archaeological and historical project between Flagler College and the University of Florida to learn more about the sixteenth century origins of the city.
Excavations have studied the entire spectrum of St. Augustines’s cultures and historical periods, including military, religious, and domestic sites ranging from the 16th through the 19th centuries. They have included the homes of Spanish elite, criollo colonists, Indians, Africans, mixed blood people, Minorcans, British colonists and nineteenth century tourists. Much of the work has been incorporated into a Living History Museum that brings St. Augustine’s past to life, and is visited by thousands of tourists each year. The work has also generated a collection of more than 1,000,000 artifacts, which are curated at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Painting of a Casta (mixed blood) family in 18th century
The Boazio map of St. Augustine, made by an artist with Francis Drake's fleet just before Drake burned the town in 1586.
Excavations underway in downtown St. Augustine
Part of historic St. Augustine's living history museum, based largely on archaeological evidence.
Excavations at the National Guard Armory headquarters, home of the first Franciscan monastery in the United States.
1989 St. Augustine and the La Florida Colony: New Life-styles in a New Land. In First Encounters: Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570, edited by Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milbrath. University of Florida Press, Gainesville. Pp.166-82.
Deagan, Kathleen
1983 Spanish St. Augustine: The Archeology of a Colonial Creole Community. Academic Press, New York.
Deagan, Kathleen (ed.)
1985a The Archaeology of Sixteenth Century St. Augustine. The Florida Anthropologist 38:whole issue
1991 America’s Ancient City: Spanish St. Augustine 1565-1763. Volume 25 of the Spanish Borderlands Sourcebooks (David H. Thomas, General Editor). New York: Garland Press.
Deagan, Kathleen and Darcie McMahon
1995 Ft. Mose: America’s Black Colonial Fortress of Freedom. University Presses of Florida: Gainesville.
Gannon, Micheal (ed.)
1996 The New History of Florida. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida.
Graham, Thomas
1978 The Awakening of St. Augustine. St. Augustine: the St. Augustine Historical Society.
Griffin, Patricia
1990 Mullet on the Beach: the Minorcans of Florida., 1768-1788. El Escribano Volume 27 pp. 1-220. St. Augustine: St. Augustine Historical Society
Landers, Jane
1990 African presence in early Spanish colonization of the Caribbean and the southeastern borderlands. In Columbian Consequences, Volume II: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East. Edited by David Hurst Thomas. Washinton D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press.
Lyon, Eugene
1976 The Enterprise of Florida. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville.
Manucy, Albert
1962 The Houses of St. Augustine. St. Augustine Historical Society, St. Augustine, Florida.
1997 Sixteenth century St. Augustine. Gainesville: University Press of Florida
McEwan, Bonnie G. (ed.)
1992 The Spanish Missions of La Florida. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville
Milanich, Jerald T.
1995 Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe. University Presses of Florida: Gainesville.
Scarry, C. Margaret and Elizabeth J. Reitz
1990 Herbs, Fish, Scum, and Vermin: Subsistence Strategies in Sixteenth-Century Spanish Florida. In Columbian Consequences,Volume II: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East. Edited by David Hurst Thomas. Smithsonian Press.
Waterbury, Jean (ed.)
1984 The Oldest City; St. Augustine, Saga of Survival : The St. Augustine Historical Society.
Avery, George
1995 Pots as packaging: The Spanish Olive Jar and Andalusian transatlantic commercial activity: 16th-18th centuries. Ph.D. dissertation, Gainesville: University of Florida.
Beidelman, Katherine
1976 Ceramic means as indicators of socio-economic status.in colonial St. Augustine. MA Thesis, University of Florida, Gainesville
Bonath, Shawn
1976 An evaluation of the mean ceramic date formulas as applied to South’s majolica model. Unpublished MA thesis, Florida State University, Tallahassee.
1978 An evaluation of the mean ceramic date formula as applied to South’s majolica model.Historical Archaeology 12:82-92.
Bond, Stanley
1995 Tradition and change in first Spanish period (1565-1763) St. Augustine architecture: a search for colonial identity. Ph.D. dissertation State University of New York, Albany.
Bostwick, John
1976 Aboriginal ceramics in pre-18th century St. Augustine. Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology Papers 11:140-50.
1980 Plaza II site excavation of a colonial Spanish well in St. Augustine, Florida. Historical Archaeology.14:73-81.
Chaney, Ed and Kathleen Deagan
1989 St. Augustine and the La Florida Colony: New Life-styles in a New Land. In First Encounters: Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570, edited by Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milbrath. University of Florida Press, Gainesville. Pp.166-82.
Cumbaa, Stephen
1975 Patterns of resource use and cross-cultural dietary change in the Spanish colonial period. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Cusick, James
1993 Ethnicity and class: Spaniards and Minorcans in late 18th century St. Augustine. PhD.Dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Deagan, Kathleen
1974 Sex, status and role in the mestizaje of Spanish colonial Florida. Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Florida, Gainesville.
1983 Spanish St. Augustine: The Archeology of a Colonial Creole Community. Academic Press, New York.
1985 The archeology of 16th century St. Augustine. Florida Anthropologist 38(1-2):6-33.
1990 Sixteenth century Spanish colonization in the southeastern United States and the Caribbean. in Columbian Consequences Vol. 2: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives in the Spanish Borderlands East, edited by D. Thomas. Smithsonian Institution Press. Washington, D.C. pp. 225-50.
Deagan, Kathleen and Jane Landers
1999 Earliest Free African-American Town in the United States. In I, too am America edited by Theresa Singleton. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Pp. 261-82.
Deagan, Kathleen and Darcie MacMahon
1995 Ft. Mose: Colonial America’s Black Fortress of Freedom. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Gaske, Fred
1982 The archaeology of a territorial period boarding house in St. Augustine. MA thesis, Florida State University, Gainesville
Goggin, John M.
1952 Space and Time Perspective in Northern St. Johns Archaeology, Florida. Yale University Publications in Anthropology 47.
1960 The Spanish olive jar: an introductory study. Yale University Publication in Anthropology 62. New Haven: Yale University Press.
1968 Spanish majolica in the New World. Yale University Publications in Anthropology 72. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Halbirt, Carl D.
1993a The Archaeology of the Cubo Line: St. Augustine’s First Line of Defense. Florida Anthropologist 46:105-127.
1993b Identifying and locating the Hornabeque Line: An Eighteenth-Century SpanishFortification in St. Augustine. Florida Anthropologist 46:128-136.
Herron, Mary
1978 A formal and functional analysis of St. Johns ceramics from two sites in St. Augustine. Senior honors thesis. Department of Anthropology, Florida State University.
Hill, Erica
1995 Thimbles and thimble rings from the circum-Caribbean region, 1500-1800: chronology and identification. Historical Archaeology. 29(1):84-92.
Hoffman, Kathleen
1994 The development of a cultural identity in colonial America: The Spanish-American experience in La Florida. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville.
King, Julia
1981 An Archaeological Investigation of Seventeenth Century St. Augustine. Master’s thesis, Florida State University, Tallahassee.
1984 Ceramic variability in 17th century St. Augustine. Historical Archaeology 18:75-82.
Koch, Joan
1980 Mortuary Behavior Patterning in Colonial St Augustine. MA thesis, Florida State University, Tallahassee.
Landers, Jane
1988 Black society in Spanish St. Augustine, 1784-1821. Ph.D. dissertation;University of Florida, Gainesville.
Lyon, Eugene
1992 Richer than we thought: The material culture of sixteenth century St. Augustine. Volume 29 of El Escribano. St. Augustine Historical Society
1997b The first three wooden forts of Spanish St. Augustine, 1565-1571. El Escribano Volume 34:140-157.
Manucy, Albert
1997 Sixteenth century St. Augustine: The people and their homes. Gainesville, University Presses of Florida.
McEwan, Bonnie G.
1988 An archaeological perspective on sixteenth century Spanish life in the Old World and the Americas. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville.
1991 The archaeology of women in the Spanish New World. Historical Archaeology 25:33-41.
1992 The roles of ceramics in Spain and Spanish America during the sixteenth century. Sixteenth century Historical Archaeology 26(1):92-108.
MacMurray, Carl D.
1972 Excavations at the Ximenez-Fatio house, St. Augustine, Florida.. Historical Archaeology 6:57-64. 1975 The archaeology of a mestizo household, SA-16-23. MA thesis, University of florida, Gainesville.
Merritt, James D.
1977 Excavations of a Coastal Eastern Timucuan Village in Northeast Florida. MA thesis, Florida State University, Tallahassee.
Olin, Jacqueline, Garmon Harbottle and Edward Sayre
1978 Elemental compositions of Spanish and Spanish colonial majolica ceramics in the identification of provenience. Archaeological Chemistry II. Advances in Chemistry Series, no. 171 edited by E,G. Carter. New York : American Chemical Society.
Otto, John and Russell Lewis
1975 A Formal and Functional Analysis of San Marcos Pottery from Site SA-16-23, St. Augustine. Florida Department of State, Bureau of Historic Sites and Properties Bulletin4.
Piatek, Bruce
1985 Non-local aboriginal ceramics from early historic contexts in St. Augustine. Florida Anthropologist 38(1-2):81-89.
Reitz, Elizabeth J.
1979 Spanish and British Subsistence Strategies at St. Augustine, Florida and Frederica, Florida between 1565 and 1783. Ph.D dissertation, University of Florida
1980 Fauna from the Eighteenth Century Spanish Francisco Ponce de Leon Site. In Spanish Colonial Frontier Research, edited by H. Dobyns, pp. 55-65. Center for Archaeological Studies, Albuquerque, N.M.
1985 A Comparison of Spanish and Aboriginal Subsistence on the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Southeastern Archaeology 4(1):41-50.
1985 Faunal Evidence for Sixteenth Century Spanish Subsistence at St. Augustine, Florida. The Florida Anthropologist 38(1-2):54-69.
1986 Urban/Rural Contrasts in Vertebrate Fauna from the Southern Coastal Plain. Historical Archaeology 20(2):47-58.
1991 Animal use and culture change in Spanish Florida. in Animal use and culture change edited by P.J. Crabtree and J. Ryan. Philadelphia: MASCA Journal, 8 pp. 62-77.
1992 The Spanish colonial experience and domestic animals. in Historical Archaeology 26(1):84-91.
Reitz, Elizabeth J., and Stephen L. Cumbaa
1983 Diet and Foodways of Eighteenth Century Spanish St. Augustine. In Spanish St. Augustine: The Archaeology of a Colonial Creole Community, K. A. Deagan, pp. 147-181. Academic Press, New York.
Reitz, Elizabeth J., and C. Margaret Scarry
1985 Reconstructing Historic Subsistence with an Example from Sixteenth-Century Spanish Florida. Society for Historical Archaeology Special Publication Series 3.
Ruhl, Donna
1993 Old customs and traditions in new terrain: sixteenth and seventeenth century archaeobotanical data from La Florida. in foraging and farming in the Eastern woodlands. edited by M.M. Scarry. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. pp. 255-283.
Scarry, Margaret M.
1985 The use of plant foods in sixteenth century St. Augustine. Florida Anthropologist 38(1- 2):70-80.
Scarry, C. Margaret and Elizabeth J. Reitz
1990 Herbs, Fish, Scum, and Vermin: Subsistence Strategies in Sixteenth-Century Spanish Florida. In Columbian Consequences, Volume II: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East. Edited by David Hurst Thomas. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Press. Pp. 343-356.
Shepherd, Stephen
1976 The Geronimo de Hita y Salazar Site: A Study of Criollo Culture in Colonial St. Augustine. MA thesis, University of Florida, Gainesville.
1983 The Spanish Criollo Majority in Colonial St. Augustine. in Spanish St. Augustine: The Archaeology of A Colonial Creole Community edited by K. Deagan, pp. 65-97. Academic Press, New York.
Singleton, Teresa
1977 The Archaeology of a Pre-Eighteenth Century House Site in St. Augustine. MA thesis, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Skowronek, Russell K.
1982 The Patterns of Eighteenth Century Frontier New Spain: The 1722 Flota and St. Augustine. MA thesis, Florida State University. Tallahassee.
1989 A new Europe in a New World: Hierarchy, continuity and change in the Spanish sixteenth century colonization of Hispaniola and Florida.. Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University: East Lansing.
Smith, Hale G.
1948 Two historical archeological periods in Florida. American Antiquity 13(4):313-319.
Stuhlman, Robin
1995 Acculturation in the Spanish colonies: a comparison of sixteenth century St. Augustine and Puerto Real. MA thesis, University of Florida, Anthropology.
Waters, Gifford
1997 Exploratory excavations at Florida’s First Spanish Fort : SJ-34. MA paper, Anthropology. University of Florida, Gainesville
Williams, Maurice
1982 The Castillo de San Marcos: A Cross Cultural Test of the Determinants of Artifact Patterning. MA thesis. Florida State University, Anthropology.
Zierden, Martha
1981 The archaeology of the nineteenth century second Spanish period in St. Augustine, Florida. MA thesis, Florida State University Anthropology, Tallahassee.
The materials from St. Augustine, Florida (1565-present) were generated by systematic archaeological excavations over the past 40 years (1959-1999) on 33 Spanish colonial, British colonial, African American, American Indian and post-colonial sites in St. Augustine, Florida. They include more than 1 million items of glass, metals, stone, shell and bone. They are curated jointly by the University of Florida, the Florida Division of Historical Resources and the City of St. Augustine at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Painting of a Casta (mixed blood) family in 18th century
