A landmark study of Spain's fortified settlements in West Florida
from a lifelong specialist on the period
Presidios of Spanish West Florida provides the first comprehensive
synthesis of historical and archaeological investigations conducted at the
fortified settlements built by Spain in the Florida panhandle from 1698 to
1763. Combining intensive research by author Judith Bense, a lifelong
specialist on the Spanish West Florida period, with a century's worth of
additional data, this landmark study brings to light four presidio locations
that have long been overshadowed by the presidio at St. Augustine to the
east, revealing the rest of the story of early Spanish Florida.
Bense details a history fraught with catastrophe - hurricanes, war against
France and England, and treaties that forced the Spanish base in West
Florida to be uprooted and rebuilt four times. Examining each presidio,
including associated military outposts, shipwrecks, and refugee mission
villages of the Apalachee and Yamasee Indians, this book provides four
discrete, sequential windows into the Spanish presence in the region.
Bense compares the population to that of Presidio San Agustin,
established 133 years later, revealing very different communities, people,
and local customs. Interwoven with these historical findings is an account
of how the general public has participated in investigations in the region,
providing readers with an understanding of eighteenth-century West
Florida and the development of public archaeology in the state from the
person who initiated and directed much of the research.
Using extensive archaeological, historic, and archival data, Bense
summarizes and integrates the data collected into a synthesis of how and
where Spain first occupied and used the Pensacola area. Relevant for
anyone interested in the long-term process of colonization and
ethnogenesis. A superb example of how the public can be integrated into
a long-term archaeological project, to the benefit of all.Lynne Goldstein,
professor emerita, Michigan State University
About Author/s
Judith A. Bense, president emerita and professor of anthropology at the
University of West Florida, is the editor of Archaeology of Colonial
Pensacola and Presidio Santa María de Galve: A Struggle for Survival in
Colonial Spanish Pensacola. Bense is the founder of the Florida Public
Archaeology Network (FPAN).
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Appendixes
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