Arrival in Florida Philip V, wanting to utilize his services and repay his steadfast loyalty, appointed Benavides governor and captain general of Florida while he was convalescing in Tenerife from his previous injuries. Serious irregularities in local administration were a problem in St. Augustine, the capital of
La Florida, and the governorship was considered a difficult assignment in a dangerous frontier. Benavides was sworn into office by the governor of the Canary Islands, rather than before the Royal Council in Madrid, so that he could establish his administration as soon as possible. He embarked from Tenerife in a squadron that included the frigates
San Jorge and
San Francisco and their escort, the
San Javier, which would stop in Havana on the passage to
Cuba.
Reform and early years as governor (1718–1821) The indefinite borders of Spain's province of La Florida were being challenged by other European powers at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries.
Franciscan friars had established several missions in
Apalachee Province, one of the four major provinces in the
Spanish mission system of Florida. The
Apalachee settlers of
Mission San Luis de Apalachee, who were skilled agriculturalists, traded agricultural and livestock foodstuffs with Havana merchants throughout the 1600s, and built a thriving community. Meanwhile, the British had founded
Charles Town in 1670 in
Carolina, on territory the Spanish claimed, and with good reason considered St. Augustine the greatest threat to their security. Carolinian settlers moved southwards, bringing them into conflicts with long-established Spanish colonists. The Carolinian settlers and their
Creek Indian allies raided the Franciscan mission settlements of convert Indians repeatedly, and by 1706 their expeditions had destroyed most of the
Spanish missions in Florida. Under the previous administration of interim governor
Juan de Ayala y Escobar, the territory of
La Florida had been attacked frequently by these restive tribes and the British, who continued to harass the Spanish, hoping to hinder their trade and force them to abandon the province. An energetic and active administrator despite his improprieties, Ayala regained the loyalty of many of the Indian leaders who had switched their allegiance to the British. The Spanish Crown needed a colonial administrator of demonstrated competency to assume the governorship, address these threats and maintain Spanish domination of the region. Benavides, with his distinguished record in the Spanish military and the support of Philip V, was appointed royal military governor of La Florida. While British forces periodically launched incursions into Spanish Florida by land and sea, British traders were constantly expanding their networks of trade with the Indians, and acquiring more influence with the colonial government in Charles Town. When Benavides, a zealous reformer, arrived at St. Augustine in late 1718 to take Ayala's place, he launched an investigation into his predecessor's entrepreneurial activities, and accused Ayala of having engaged in contraband trade with British merchants while still in office. Ayala was arrested, briefly imprisoned in the Castillo and exiled to Havana. The case was not settled until 1731, years after Ayala's death in Havana in 1727. Benavides familiarized himself with the immediate area by visiting the six
Native American settlements around the city, where he was informed of their available resources and present needs. He relied on his colleagues to help implement his policies, having appointed competent persons of his choosing to positions in his administration. In his periodic official reports to the king, he countered complaints from the disaffected and their possibly distorted interpretations of his actions, informing him of the colony's status and explaining what reforms were needed. The king approved his policy and he continued as governor.
Relations with the Indians and the French The Spanish had burned and abandoned Mission San Luis de Apalachee in 1704 to prevent the British and their Indian allies from taking it, and did not return to Apalachee until 1718, when Benavides dispatched Captain Joseph Primo de Rivera to build a sturdier wooden fort near the coast at
San Marcos de Apalachee, about twenty miles south of the ruined Mission San Luis, for a stronger defense against attackers. Rivera was instructed to erect a structure large enough to house a garrison of one hundred men, a supply storehouse, and a
powder magazine. Benavides wrote the king that by repopulating the country with settler families and dispatching five hundred soldiers to refortify it, Spain might reclaim its lost territory. Events in Europe were affecting those in the Southeast as the European powers maneuvered to assert their claims to colonial lands. France declared war on Spain during the
War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720), and on 14 May 1719,
Pensacola was
captured by Governor
Bienville of
French Louisiana, with a fleet of ships and a force of Indian warriors that met only token resistance from the Spanish. The French occupied Pensacola until August 1719, when a large Spanish force arrived and compelled the small French garrison to surrender. This Spanish occupation lasted until 1 September, when a French fleet arrived to reassert French control.
Subsequent years governing Florida (1721–1734) In 1721, Benavides began an investigation into the historical background for Spanish claims to the coast of what is now the state of Georgia. Perhaps fearing the possibility of reprisal, in 1725 Benavides sent a delegation to Charles Town with an offer to purchase 10
fugitive slaves who had fled to St. Augustine, for 200 pesos apiece. This was angrily rejected by the Carolinian slave owners, who asserted their property was worth much more, and demanded compensation for loss of the slaves' labor. In 1726, Benavides' term of office was temporarily interrupted when he went to
Havana to be operated on for
appendicitis; Ignacio Rodriguez Rozo served as interim governor in his place. After his return to Florida that year, Benavides formed a militia of black slaves to defend Saint Augustine against foreign incursions, and appointed
Mandinga-born
Francisco Menéndez, a runaway black slave from South Carolina, its captain. Menéndez had joined the
Yamasee Indians in fighting European
colonists in the
Yamasee War of 1715–1717, and escaped to St. Augustine in 1724. Benavides ignored the 1693 decree by
King Charles II officially emancipating the slaves who fled Carolina, maintaining that it applied only to those who had arrived in Florida while the war was still under way. Nevertheless, runaway slaves from the Carolinas continued to seek refuge in Florida, knowing they had more rights under the
Spanish system of slavery. Benavides went so far as to offer 30 silver pieces of eight for an Englishman's scalp and 100 pieces for "every live Negro” brought to St. Augustine. In 1727, Spanish raiders commanded by Francisco Menéndez and runaway slaves from Carolina destroyed a plantation on the
Edisto River and carried away seven black slaves. Benavides continued to flout the 1693 decree, and declined to free the runaways, including Menéndez, despite his demonstrated loyalty to the Spanish Crown. Benavides even sold the militiaman with nine other fugitives at
public auction in 1729. Four years later, in 1733, the Spanish government in Madrid banned the sale of runaway slaves and freed all black soldiers after four years of service to the crown; Also in 1733, Benavides proposed sending the runaways to Carolina to incite a rebellion, again intending to "pay them for English scalps", but the
Council of the Indies declined to approve this action. Francisco Menéndez and several other slaves finally won unconditional freedom in 1738 by a decree of the new governor of Florida,
Manuel de Montiano. Over the course of his lengthy term as royal governor of Florida, Benavides succeeded in fending off British incursions and repressing
piracy in Florida waters. Before he left the province, the king promoted him to the rank of
Field Marshal for his able execution of the duties of his office, and as a parting gesture, he donated his belongings to the needy citizens of Florida. ==Governor of Veracruz==