Spanish Colonial Period in Florida, 1513 to 1821

Spain ruled Florida twice, in the First Spanish Period from 1565 to 1763 and the Second Spanish Period from 1784 to 1821, after Spanish expeditions that began with Ponce de Leon's landing in 1513 (Museum of Florida History; Museum of Florida History).

The Florida Department of State dates written records about life in Florida to Ponce de Leon's arrival in 1513, when he waded ashore sometime between April 2 and April 8 on the northeast coast and called the land la Florida after Pascua florida, the Easter season (Florida Department of State). The department says Menendez established the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States at St. Augustine in 1565, that British rule lasted only twenty years, and that Spain formally ceded Florida to the United States in 1821 under the Adams-Onis Treaty (Department of State).

Both the Department of State and the Museum of Florida History use the First and Second Spanish Period labels, and the museum titles its exhibit sections 1565 to 1763 and 1784 to 1821 (First Spanish Period). Florida readers comparing sources will see the end of the second period given as 1821, the year the cession took effect, even though the treaty itself was signed in 1819 (Second Spanish Period).

Ponce de Leon, Panfilo de Narvaez, Hernando de Soto and Tristan de Luna y Arellano all reached Florida before 1565, and none of their attempts produced a lasting Spanish town (Florida Department of State).

Ponce de Leon came back in 1521 and landed on the southwestern coast with two hundred people and fifty horses, but the Department of State says the colonization attempt quickly failed because of attacks by native people (Department of State). Narvaez traveled from Tampa Bay to the Apalachee country near present-day Tallahassee in 1528, and de Soto wintered there from October 1539 until early March 1540 (16th Century Settlements).

De Soto's army made landfall in Tampa Bay in May 1539, and the National Park Service describes the quest that followed as a four year, four thousand mile odyssey (De Soto National Memorial). The Department of State says de Soto died near the Mississippi River in 1542. In 1559 Luna settled at Pensacola Bay, and that Florida colony was abandoned after two years (Department of State).

France pushed Spain to move faster. The National Park Service chronology dates Jean Ribault's arrival on the Florida coast to April 30, 1562, and the founding of la Caroline on the St. Johns River by Rene de Laudonniere to June 30, 1564 (Chronology of Fort Caroline). The Department of State says Laudonniere's Fort Caroline stood at the mouth of the St. Johns River near present-day Jacksonville, and that these French adventurers prompted Spain to accelerate its plans, sending Pedro Menendez de Aviles across the Atlantic to remove the French (Department of State).

The National Park Service dates the founding of St. Augustine to September 8, 1565, when Pedro Menendez de Aviles and 800 Spanish settlers came ashore and held a Mass of Thanksgiving (National Park Service).

The Museum of Florida History explains the name with a different date: Menendez named the harbor St. Augustine because the Spaniards first sighted land on that saint's feast day, August 28, 1565 (Museum of Florida History). Both dates are correct for what each describes, the sighting and naming on August 28 and the landing and founding ceremony on September 8. After the Mass, the Park Service says, Menendez invited the native Seloy to a meal.

The town did not stay put at first. The Museum of Florida History says the Spaniards first occupied the Timucua village of Seloy, moved to Anastasia Island after hostilities began, and returned to the mainland by 1572, settling on the site of modern St. Augustine (First Spanish Period). Menendez founded a second city, Santa Elena, on today's Parris Island, South Carolina, in 1566, and the Spaniards abandoned it by 1587.

The French threat ended quickly. Spanish forces captured Fort Caroline on September 20, 1565, according to the Park Service chronology (Chronology of Fort Caroline), and the Department of State says Menendez renamed it San Mateo (Department of State). The Park Service chronology says Dominique de Gourgues captured Fort San Mateo on April 27, 1568, and left Florida on May 3 (Chronology of Fort Caroline).

Spanish Florida's missions were Catholic outposts in Native villages, first Jesuit from 1566 to 1572 and then Franciscan, that spread across north Florida and the Georgia coast and lasted more than 100 years (Museum of Florida History).

By 1587 the Franciscans had built missions at the Timucuan villages of Nombre de Dios, north of St. Augustine, and San Sebastian to the south (Missions). Efforts intensified beginning in 1595, and more than 270 priests worked in Florida over the mission period. Missionaries reached the western Timucua across north Florida and, in the 1630s, the Apalachee in the Panhandle; the Calusa of southwest Florida forced Franciscans out after an attempt in 1697.

The missions fed the colony. Under the repartimiento, Indigenous laborers in Florida had to grow corn for the colonists and work on public projects in St. Augustine, and at the height of the mission era in the mid-1600s about forty missions served 20,000 to 30,000 Native people, most of them Apalachee (Museum of Florida History).

Official estimates of the Florida population at European contact conflict sharply. The Museum of Florida History estimates 350,000 Indigenous people at European contact and fewer than 1,000 by the 1750s (Museum of Florida History), while the Department of State gives an aboriginal population of about 100,000 (Florida Department of State). Both agree that disease, war and slave raids nearly destroyed it. The Department of State says Carolina forces destroyed the missions between Tallahassee and St. Augustine in 1704 (Department of State).

The Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fortification in the continental United States, withstood English sieges in 1702 and 1740 and never fell to enemy forces in battle (National Park Service; Castillo stories).

The National Park Service says the first test came only seven years after the Spanish finished the coquina fort, when English forces from Charles Town, Carolina, laid siege in 1702 (Castillo stories). The English fleet appeared off the inlet on November 8, 1702, and almost 1,500 people took refuge inside the walls (The Siege of 1702). The English could not breach the fort and burned the rest of St. Augustine before withdrawing.

Georgia's founder James Oglethorpe besieged the Castillo in 1740, and the Department of State says the attack lasted almost a month (Florida Department of State). The Park Service says the siege was lifted after Oglethorpe ran low on supplies and lost a large percentage of his Highlander regiment in a battle at Fort Mose (The Siege of 1740).

Fort Mose belongs to Florida's Spanish story too. In 1687 a group of enslaved Africans fled English Carolina and received sanctuary, and about forty families later lived at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, a free Black settlement north of St. Augustine with its own church, priest and militia (Museum of Florida History). When the Spaniards left in 1764, all of the Black inhabitants of Fort Mose went with them to Cuba (Museum of Florida History).

Spain lost Florida to Britain in 1763 in exchange for Havana, and to the United States under the Adams-Onis Treaty, signed in 1819 and in effect in 1821 (Florida Department of State; Museum of Florida History).

Spanish officials in St. Augustine transferred Florida to British forces on July 21, 1763 (National Park Service). The Museum of Florida History says St. Augustine had about 3,000 residents in the early 1760s and that the Spaniards evacuated the colony in 1764 (Museum of Florida History).

The return to Spain has two official dates. The Department of State says Spain captured Pensacola from the British in 1781 and regained the rest of Florida in 1784 under the treaty ending the American Revolution (Department of State); the Museum of Florida History names that treaty as the 1783 Treaty of Paris (Museum of Florida History). The museum also says Spain had captured much of West Florida by 1781, and it dates the Second Spanish Period from 1784.

When the British left, the Department of State says, Spanish colonists and settlers from the new United States came pouring in (Department of State). In 1790 Spain began offering land grants to non-Spaniards who pledged loyalty and promised to live on their land for at least ten years, and, in response to American pressure, it ended its policy of offering refuge to people escaping slavery that year (Second Spanish Period). After Andrew Jackson's 1818 campaign, the Museum says, it was clear Spain could not hold Florida.

Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Fort Caroline in Jacksonville and De Soto National Memorial in Bradenton are Park Service sites tied to the Spanish era, and a state trail guide lists more than 50 sites (Division of Historical Resources).

At the Castillo, the Park Service lists the $15 adult entrance as valid for 7 consecutive days, admits children 15 and under free with an adult, and accepts only credit and debit cards; a $45 annual pass covers the holder and three adults (Castillo fees). The fort is open seven days a week except Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day (Castillo hours).

The Park Service says Castillo visitation is lowest from mid-September through mid-November and highest around holidays, especially Christmas to New Year's, during spring, summer and winter school breaks, and on weekends, when a busy Saturday averages 3,500 visitors (Castillo hours). Fort Caroline is a fee free area, and the Ribault Column and Spanish Pond are associated sites (Visiting Fort Caroline).

At De Soto National Memorial in Bradenton, vehicles left in the lot after the 5:00pm gate closing stay overnight and may be ticketed, the park closes on New Years Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and its hours page, last updated February 25, 2025, says winter activities are on hold while the park adjusts to new staffing (De Soto hours). The Division of Historical Resources guidebook, 64 pages, highlights more than 50 Spanish heritage and historical sites dating from 1513 to 1821, and the division says Spanish legacies are reflected in museums, forts, shipwrecks and churches throughout the state (Spanish Colonial Heritage Trail). Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the National Park Service website.