Walk down memory lane with us to look at past special exhibits we’ve enjoyed here at the Florida Museum! While this exhibit has moved on to other places, we treasured the opportunity to learn and explore. Find out what exhibits are currently here at the Museum:
This exhibit was on display October 17, 2015 through April 17, 2016
Long before Jamestown, Spaniards, free and enslaved Africans and Native Americans crafted our country’s first enduring European settlement — St. Augustine, in 1565. Visitors were invited to discover the first colony through archaeology, history and the stories of people who lived there in this hands-on, interactive exhibition. These first colonial immigrants created America’s original “melting pot” — a colorful, multicultural society that was new then, but might seem familiar today.
Florida Museum photos by Kristen Grace
Florida Museum photos by Kristen Grace
Florida Museum photos by Kristen Grace
Florida Museum photos by Kristen Grace
Florida Museum photos by Kristen Grace
Florida Museum photos by Kristen Grace
Did you know?
The first Thanksgiving was held in the first colony in St. Augustine, Florida, on Sept. 8, 1565, decades before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
The first Spanish ship carried 26 women to Florida.
Government-sanctioned Catholicism was the only religion permitted for Spanish colonists, and the church influenced nearly all aspects of life.
St. Augustine’s residents developed a way of life that blended Spanish, Native American, African and newly-created practices.
Both free and enslaved people of African heritage lived and worked in St. Augustine, but Spanish slavery differed in many ways from English slavery.
Spaniards established the first legally sanctioned free black town in North America, Fort Mose, in 1738.
Exhibit Videos
These videos were created for the First Colony exhibit which is now retired. Watch the playlist of videos.
Archaeological Excavation: Dirt Stains
We never know what we’re going to find, and it’s actually the colors of the dirt, and the dirt stains, that are the most exciting. The artifacts are great because they can help us know what was going on and the time period. But it’s the actual stains left in the ground that give us the most information in terms of the activities that were going on at the site. We have the nice, clean, light brown sand, and then this darker dark brownish gray sandy soil with a heavy shell content. That’s why I’m being really careful to differentiate this darker soil from the lighter soil when we’re excavating because this demonstrates a discrete activity area. And Native American St. John’s pottery.
Blacksmithing
I supply all the hardware for the city of Saint Augustine. Chains, gate hinges, really anything you can think of that’s iron. You can’t work with the metal while it’s cold, you have to work while the metal is hot. It’s important to strike while the iron is hot, as it were. I’m copying a Spanish saber. Oh if I’m feeling ambitious, I could probably finish out the rough work today, and then several days worth of finish work.
Cannon Firing
Domestic Artifacts: Hygiene
Sometimes artifacts can tell us about things like domestic life and health practices that just aren’t recorded in documents. Chamber pots, for example, are found in most of the Spanish sites in Saint Augustine. We’ve dug many of these sites and have never found a Spanish latrine or a Spanish privy, and instead, people used these chamber pots, probably taking them out in the morning or whenever they needed to, to dump in the garden. Small pots were made in Mexico in an Aztec tradition starting in really the 16th century. These were called Guadalajara polychrome, and they were made of a special kind of clay called bucaro which when was damped it gave off an aroma. Spanish women came to believe that this bucaro clay had cosmetic properties, and they were exported by the thousands to Spain so that women could have water in these pots and then use it to improve their complexions. And it’s also documented that women would eat the bucaro clay, that it was believed to have properties for health and beauty.
Francisco Menéndez & Fort Mose
Here at this place, Fort Mose, established in 1738, people are arriving from English colonies as far away as Charleston, making the same perilous journey that I did a number of years ago. It was the edict of 1693 that allowed for any man, woman, or child enslaved on an English plantation to find their freedom in Spanish Florida. The English will not rest until they have taken all of Spanish Florida and returned all of us to slavery. Fort Mose, its location two miles North of the city is Spanish Florida’s first line of defense against the English. My brave soldiers and I have vowed to fight until the last drop of blood has been spilled. We will protect the freedoms, not just of ourselves, but of those of the people of Saint Augustine. Who will fight more bravely than those who have been enslaved?
Making Thatch
What we’re doing is a process of thatching that was developed by the Timucua, where you take the palm frond itself. The palm leaf is solid at the top and open at the bottom, so when you layer them, it sheds water like little gutters. And what I’m doing is I’m taking it, I’m going over one, under one, and on top of the next one. And then I’m tying it with the straps that I took off, I’m wrapping it around the bamboo lath and tying it on with a square knot. The Spanish used this, they adapted this very quickly because they saw how successful it was for the Timucua who lived here. You don’t need anything else but the palm leaf itself, and it creates a totally waterproof surface.
Town Plan
The Spanish government decided that the new cities in the New World were to be planned in really a Renaissance tradition of order. You were going to impose order upon the wild nature in which you were located. The Code of the Indies was established to govern the planning, and Saint Augustine was a great example of this. The plaza in which we were standing, originally was not filled with trees and other objects as we see it today, but it was a place of assembly. And from the plaza everything else was planned. The streets radiated from the corners and the lots were assigned according to your place in society. The governor’s palace was located at one commanding area of the plaza, the Catholic church was located close to or upon the plaza, and then as you got further away from the plaza, you got into the private residences and private pieces of property. The Spanish told you the way you were going to set your town up, and you should follow those rules.
Acknowledgments
First Colony: Our Spanish Origins was produced by the Florida Museum of Natural History and UF Historic St. Augustine, Inc., and sponsored in part by the Department of State, Division of Historical Resources and the State of Florida. The exhibit was on display at the Government House Museum in St. Augustine for some time and it is now retired.
First Colony: Our Spanish Origins
