After the Spanish exodus St. Augustine was repopulated by British soldiers, planters and loyalists from the other English American colonies. The population of St. Augustine grew dramatically after the beginning of the American revolution, as British loyalists fled to Florida, which was one of the few remaining sanctuaries.

A large group of Minorcan farmers and fishermen also arrived after 1777, refugees from a failed colony at New Smyrna in Florida. Several hundred Indians of Creek origin, who were by then called Seminoles, also came to St. Augustine, many of them settling in the abandoned mission villages around the city.

The African population also grew, and several hundred enslaved laborers of African origin, and a smaller number of free black and mixed-blood artisans and laborers lived in St. Augustine during the British occupation.

A great many African slaves escaped and fled to the Florida interior to live with Creek-Seminole Indian groups. St. Augustine was a polyglot, multi-ethnic community, but with the English firmly seated at the top of the social and economic ladders.

Artifacts

Images

People

Juan Triay

Artist's rendering of Juan Triay
Juan Triay: Minorcan farmer and refugee

Juan Triay was born in Ciudadela , Minorca in 1754. He arrived in Florida at the age of fourteen, as a member of Turnbull’s New Smyrna expedition. He was also one of the 600 people who made the trek to St. Augustine in 1777, where he lived on north St. George Street, and farmed land north of the city. Five years after coming to St. Augustine, he married another Minorcan refugee, Juana Ximénez, who was a widow with a five year old son. Their wedding may have occasioned a sansarasca (sherivaree in English), which consisted of two or three days of noise-making, buffoonery and tricks by the young men of the community when a widow or widower remarried. The couple had three more sons over the next four years, and acquired more farmland and one slave.

Thomas Browne

Artist's rendering of Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne: Loyalist Ranger

Thomas Browne was a plantation owner in Georgia when the Revolutionary War broke out. In the manner of Turnbull’s New Smyrna venture, Browne had enlisted a number of colonists from England to farm the plantation, and rumors abounded of his cruelty to the workers. As a staunch Loyalist, Browne suffered at the hands of the American rebels. The Sons of Liberty captured and pillaged his plantation, and Browne himself was tarred, feathered, tortured and scalped three times by them. He survived and reached St. Augustine where, craving retribution, he helped organize the East Florida Rangers militia, and was appointed a colonel. The rangers, dressed in buckskin uniforms, patrolled the frontier and raided farms and settlements, often scalping rebel sympathizers. As Revolutionary action reached the Georgia-Carolina backcountry, the Rangers were able to engage in skirmishes with rebel supporters, with what vengeance we can only imagine.

Benedita Usina

Artist's rendering of Benedita Usina
Benedita Usina: Minorcan criolla

Benedita was born in 1772 in the New Smyrna colony. Her parents, Bartolomé and María Usina , were original members of Turnbull’s expedition, and joined the refugee group that fled to St. Augustine in 1777, when Benedita was just five. Her younger sister was born seven years later in 1784. The family occupied (as squatters) a Crown-owned lot on today’s Spanish Street and built a wood and thatch house there. Bartolomé farmed land to the north of St. Augustine, and by 1803 was able to buy the property legally. When Benedita was fourteen, although unmarried, she was listed as living with a neighboring family perhaps to help out in the house, or perhaps because of other family problems. She married Antonio Pons when she was fifteen, which was about a year older than the average age of marriage for Minorcan girls at that time. Pons had a farm in New Smyrna, and he took Benedita back to live with him there.

 

Back to Timeline Next → The End of Colonial Dominion