Fort Picolata

Fort Picolata (Spanish: Fuerte Picolata) was an 18th-century Spanish fort on the east bank of the St. Johns River, about eighteen miles from St. Augustine (San Agustín), the capital of Spanish Florida (La Florida). Lying on the old trail to the Spanish province of Apalachee in western Florida, Fort Picolata and its sister outpost, Fort San Francisco de Pupo, controlled all traffic at the ferry crossing where the river narrows considerably,[1] a natural pass called "Salamatoto" by the Indians. The first defense works at the site, built soon after 1700 as an outpost of the military defensive network of St. Augustine, were little more than a sentry box surrounded by a palisade.[2]

Fort Picolata
Northwest of St. Augustine, Florida, on east bank of the St. Johns River in United States
Plan of Fort Picalata on St. Johns River
Fort Picolata
Location of Fort Picolata
Fort Picolata
Fort Picolata (the United States)
Coordinates29°55′23″N 81°36′03″W
Height32 ft.
Site information
ConditionOnly traces remain
Website
Site history
Built1734, rebuilt 155
Built bySpanish Army (Ejército de Tierra)
In use1740 (1740)
MaterialsOriginally pine log palisade and blockhouse, rebuilt with coquina shell rock
EventsBurned by Indian allies of James Oglethorpe's invasion force
Garrison information
GarrisonRegular army troops

History

Tensions had been growing between the Spanish and the British after James Moore, the governor of Carolina, invaded La Florida in 1704 and 1706.[2] Fort Picolata, along with Fort Pupo on the opposite side of the St. Johns, was built in 1734 by order of Governor Francisco del Moral y Sánchez in anticipation of more attacks by the English and their Indian allies.[3]

When Gen. Oglethorpe, the governor of the British Province of Georgia, invaded Florida in late December 1739 and early January 1740 with his force of Scottish Highlanders and Indian allies, the Indians captured and burned Fort Picolata; Oglethorpe then laid siege to St. Augustine. The Spanish rebuilt the fort in 1755 using native coquina shell rock.[4] There is no historical record that its sister fort, Fort San Francisco de Pupo, was ever rebuilt by the Spanish.[5]

In a letter to King Philip dated January 31, 1740 (O.S.) Governor Montiano wrote that forts Picalata [sic] and Pupo “were constructed solely for the purpose of defending and sheltering from the continual attacks of Indian allies of the English, the mails that go to and come from Apalachee."[6] When the British acquired Florida after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, they soon recognized the value of Fort Picolata as part of the defenses of St. Augustine, and continued to maintain a garrison there as the Spanish had done. Important congresses between British colonial officials and the Indians took place at Picolata in 1765 and 1767.[7]

The first Picolata Conference, held November 15–18, 1765, between British officials and a delegation of Lower Creek and Seminole leaders, was organized by John Stuart, Indian superintendent of the Southern Department,[8] and summoned by Governor James Grant, to negotiate the boundaries between Indian and British lands.[9][10][11] A treaty was signed at the congress, by which the Indians ceded over two million acres of land in northeast Florida to the British, stretching thirty-five miles from the coast westward past the St. Johns, and including all the tidewater land on the rest of the peninsula, extending up to ten miles inland from the coast.[7] The conference was attended by the American botanist and explorer John Bartram and his son William.[12]

In his Travels, William Bartram wrote that he had visited Fort Picolata in April, 1774, and found it "dismantled and deserted". This is not what actually occurred; the misstatement may be attributed to the fact that it had been 18 years between his visit and the publication of his journal in 1792. In a report made in 1774 to his patron, Dr. John Fothergill, his father John's agent in England,[13] Bartram wrote that he had stopped "at Picolata Fort. which I observed was newly repared [sic]."[14]

References
  1. Ricardo Torres-Reyes (March 10, 1972). The British Siege of St. Augustine in 1740: Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (Historic Resource Study). National Technical Information Service. p. 7. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
  2. John M. Goggin (October 1951). "Fort Pupo: A Spanish Frontier Outpost". The Florida Historical Quarterly. Florida Historical Society. 30 (2): 140–142. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
  3. David J. Weber (1992). The Spanish Frontier in North America. Yale University Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-300-05917-5.
  4. Verne E. Chatelain (January 1941). "Spanish Contributions in Florida to American Culture". The Florida Historical Quarterly. Florida Historical Society. 19 (3): 221.
  5. John M. Goggin (October 1951). "Fort Pupo: A Spanish Frontier Outpost". The Florida Historical Quarterly. Florida Historical Society. 30 (2): 140–142, 156. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
  6. Manuel de Montiano (1909). Letters of Montiano: Siege of St. Agustine [sic]. Savannah, Georgia: Georgia Historical Society. p. 39.
  7. Paul E. Hoffman (11 January 2002). Florida's Frontiers. Indiana University Press. p. 213. ISBN 0-253-10878-0.
  8. Robert L. Gold (July–October 1965). "The East Florida Indians under Spanish and English Control: 1763-1765". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 44 (1–2).
  9. Record in the Case of the United States of America Versus Fernando M. Arredondo and Others. Duff Green. 1831. p. 60.
  10. Kathryn E. Holland Braund (2004). ""The Congress Held in a Pavilion": John Bartram and the Indian Congress at Fort Picolata, East Florida". In Nancy Everill Hoffmann; John C. Van Horne (eds.). America's Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram, 1699-1777. American Philosophical Society. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-87169-249-8.
  11. Joseph P. Ward (8 September 2017). European Empires in the American South: Colonial and Environmental Encounters. University Press of Mississippi. p. 195. ISBN 978-1-4968-1220-9.
  12. William Bartram (2002). William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 0-8032-6205-1.
  13. "Bartram's Travels". georgiahistory.com. Georgia Historical Society. 2015. Archived from the original on December 21, 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
  14. Daniel L. Schafer (2014). "The Journal of John Bartram". www.unf.edu. University of North Florida. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
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