St. Augustine, Florida
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St. Augustine is the county seat of St. Johns County [1], Florida, in the United States. It is the oldest continuously occupied European established city, and the oldest port, in the continental United States.[2] St. Augustine lies in a region of Florida known as The First Coast, which extends from Amelia Island in the north, south to Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Palm Coast. According to the 2000 census, the city population was 11,592; in 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that its population had reached 12,157.[3]
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[edit] History
St. Augustine was founded by the Spanish under Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565.[2] The first Christian worship service held in a permanent settlement in the continental United States was a Catholic Mass celebrated in St. Augustine. A few settlements were founded prior to St. Augustine but all failed, including the original Pensacola colony in West Florida, founded by Tristán de Luna y Arellano in 1559, with the area abandoned in 1561 due to hurricanes, famine and warring tribes. Fort Caroline, founded by the French (and including a number of free Africans) in 1564 in what is today Jacksonville, Florida only lasted a year before being obliterated by the Spanish in 1565.
[edit] Spanish rule
The city of St. Augustine was founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on September 8, 1565. Menéndez first sighted land on August 28, the feast day of Augustine of Hippo, and consequently named the settlement San Agustín. Martín de Argüelles was born there one year later in 1566, the first child of European ancestry to be born in what is now the continental United States. This came 21 years before the English settlement at Roanoke Island in Virginia Colony, and 42 years before the successful settlements of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Jamestown, Virginia. The first recorded birth of a black child, in the Cathedral Parish Archives, is for Augustin in the year 1606 (there were probably earlier black births, but this is the oldest one for whom a written record has been found--thirteen years before the conventional wisdom says that black people first arrived on these shores at Jamestown in 1619). In all the territory under the jurisdiction of the United States, only European-established settlements in Puerto Rico are older than St. Augustine, with the oldest being Caparra, founded in 1508, whose inhabitants relocated and founded San Juan, in 1521.
In 1586 St. Augustine was attacked and burned by English privateer Sir Francis Drake. In 1668 it was plundered by English privateer Robert Searle and most of the inhabitants were killed. In 1702 and 1740 it was unsuccessfully attacked by British forces from their new colonies in the Carolinas and Georgia. The most serious of these came in the latter year, when James Oglethorpe of Georgia allied himself with Ahaya the Cowkeeper, chief of the Alachua band of the Seminole tribe and conducted the Siege of St. Augustine during the War of Jenkin's Ear.
The country's first legally sanctioned free community of ex-slaves was established in St. Augustine in 1738. Called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, or Fort Mose, it served as the northern defense of the city, and was populated by those who had escaped from slavery in the British colonies to the north. The first Underground Railroad actually headed south, into Spanish Florida, where the policy was to give sanctuary to those who would join the Catholic Church and swear allegiance to the king of Spain. The battle of Fort Mose in 1740 was the turning point in a siege of the city by General James Oglethorpe of Georgia, and saved the city from being taken over by the British. The leader of Fort Mose was Capt. Francisco Menendez, who was born in Africa and twice escaped from slavery. The Fort Mose site is now owned by the Florida Park Service, and recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
[edit] British rule
In 1763, the Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War and gave Florida and St. Augustine to the British, an acquisition the British had been unable to take by force and keep due to the strong force there. St. Augustine came under British rule and served as a Loyalist colony during the American Revolutionary War. John Hancock was burned in effigy in the town plaza, and three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were held prisoner in St. Augustine.
One of the great development efforts of the British period was the establishment in 1768 of a colony of indentured servants from the Mediterranean by Dr. Andrew Turnbull at New Smyrna, south of St. Augustine. Included were many Greeks (marking the first large scale Greek settlement here, an event now heralded by a Greek national shrine on St. George Street, in the heart of the tourist district), Italians, and, Minorcans from the Balearic Island of Minorca in the Mediterranean.
The conditions at New Smyrna were abysmal, and the settlers rebelled, walking all the way to St. Augustine in 1777, where the governor gave them refuge. The story of the Minorcan colony is told, fictionally, in the book Spanish Bayonet by Stephen Vincent Benet, a prominent descendant of one of the leading Minorcan families of St. Augustine. The Minorcans, whose story bears many historic similarities to the Cajun settlers of Louisiana, stayed on in St. Augustine through all the subsequent changes of flags, to become the venerable families of the community, marking it with language, culture, cuisine and customs.
The majority of residents during the British period were black, as the British tried to establish a plantation economy as they had done with their colonies to the north.
The Treaty of Paris in 1783 gave the American colonies north of Florida their independence, and ceded Florida to Spain in recognition of Spanish efforts on behalf of the American colonies during the war.
[edit] American rule
Florida was under Spanish control again from 1784 to 1821. During this time, Spain was being invaded by Napoleon and was struggling to retain its colonies. Florida no longer held its past importance to Spain. The expanding United States, however, regarded Florida as vital to its interests. In 1821, the Adams-Onís Treaty peaceably turned the Spanish colonies in Florida and, with them, St. Augustine, over to the United States.
Florida was a United States territory until 1845 when it became a U.S. state. In 1861, the American Civil War began and Florida seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy. Days before Florida seceded, state troops took the fort at St. Augustine from a small Union garrison (one soldier) on January 7, 1861. However, federal troops loyal to the United States government reoccupied the city on March 11, 1862 and remained in control throughout the four-year-long war. In 1865, Florida rejoined the United States.
Freed slaves in St. Augustine established the community of Lincolnville in 1866. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, because of its origin, because it contains the city's largest collection of Victorian architecture, and because it was the launching place for demonstrations that led directly to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Spanish Colonial era buildings still existing in the city include the fortress Castillo de San Marcos. The fortress successfully repelled the British attacks of the 18th century, though it came under their control (and was renamed St. Mark's) as a result of the 1763 Treaty of Paris. When the Americans acquired it in 1821, they renamed it Fort Marion, after Francis Marion the "Swamp Fox" of the American Revolution. During the Seminole War of 1835-1842 the fort served as a prison for the Native American leader Osceola as well as Coacoochee (Wildcat) and the famous Black Seminole John Cavallo (John Horse) in 1837, and was occupied by Union troops during the American Civil War. After the Civil War it was used twice, in the 1870s and then again in the 1880s, to house first Plains Indians and then Apaches who were captured in the west. The daughter of Geronimo was born at what was then called Fort Marion, and she was named Marion--though she later chose to change that. The fort was used as a military prison during the Spanish-American War of 1898. It was finally removed from the Army's active duty rolls in 1900 after 205 years of service under five different flags. It then began a career as St. Augustine's leading tourist attraction. It is now run by the National Park Service, and called the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument.
[edit] From Flagler to the present
In the late 19th century the railroad came to town, and led by northeastern industrialist Henry Flagler, St. Augustine became a winter resort for the very wealthy. A number of mansions and palatial grand hotels of this era still exist, some converted to other use, such as housing parts of Flagler College and museums. Flagler went on to develop much more of Florida's east coast, including his Florida East Coast Railway which eventually reached Key West in 1912. Flagler had Albert Spalding design a baseball park in St. Augustine, and the waiters at his hotels, under the leadership of Frank P. Thompson, formed one of America's pioneer professional black baseball teams, the Ponce de Leon Giants. It later became the Cuban Giants, and one of the team members, Frank Grant, has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The hot and flavorful datil pepper was brought from Cuba to St. Augustine in the 1880s by jelly manufacturer S.B. Valls. It flourished in dooryard gardens, and became a distinctive element of local cuisine, particularly associated with the Minorcan families. Minorcan clam chowder, pilau (a rice dish), tomato-based hot sauce, Minorcan sausage, and datil pepper vinegar are some common uses. In the late 20th century a number of commercial manufacturers began presenting datil peppers to a national audience, and there is an annual Datil Pepper Festival.
In 1918 the Florida Baptist Academy moved from Jacksonville to St. Augustine, and became the Ancient City's first college. Over the years it was known as Florida Normal, then Florida Memorial College, before it moved to Miami in 1968, where it is now a university. It made a major impact on the community while it was here, providing cultural activities, job training and employment for the black community. During World War II it was chosen as the site for training the first blacks in the U. S. Signal Corps--that branch of the service's counterpart to the famous Tuskegee Airmen. Among its faculty members was Zora Neale Hurston, the famous black novelist and anthropologist. There is now a historic marker on the house where she lived at 791 West King Street (it was there that she completed work on her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road).
The city is a popular tourist attraction, for the rich Spanish Colonial Revival Style architectural heritage as well as elite 19th century architecture. The St. Augustine Alligator Farm, incorporated in 1908, is one of the oldest commercial tourist attractions in Florida. In 1938 the world's first oceanarium (because the term was coined for it), Marineland, opened just south of St. Augustine, becoming one of Florida's first theme parks and setting the stage for the development of this industry in the following decades. The city is one terminus of the Old Spanish Trail, a promotional effort of the 1920s linking St. Augustine to San Diego, California with 3000 miles of roadways.
The rich black history of the area, long neglected, has started to be recognized for its importance. There is now a permanently marked Freedom Trail of historic sites of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and a museum at the site of Fort Mose, the pioneer free black settlement from the 1700s. Excelsior School, built in 1925 as the first public high school for blacks (previously, only whites had access to public high school in St. Augustine), was saved from demolition in 1979 and has now become the Ancient City's first museum of black history. Only in 2009, however, did the city's official website first mention black history, and Flagler College, that same year, refused to have a civil rights Freedom Trail marker on its campus.
[edit] Civil rights movement
In addition to being a major tourist destination and oldest European-settled city in the continental United States, St. Augustine was also a pivotal site for the Civil Rights Movement in 1963[4] and 1964.[5]
Efforts by African Americans to integrate the public schools and public accommodations such as lunch counters were met with arrests and Ku Klux Klan violence. Non-violent protesters were arrested for participating in peaceful picket lines, sit-ins, and marches. Homes were firebombed, black leaders were assaulted and threatened with death, and fired from their jobs.[6]
In the spring of 1964, St. Augustine NAACP leader Dr. Robert Hayling asked the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and its leader Martin Luther King, Jr. for assistance. From May until July 1964 marches, sit-ins, and other forms of peaceful protest took place in St. Augustine.
Hundreds of black and white civil-rights supporters were arrested and the jails were filled to over-flowing. At the request of Dr. Hayling and Dr. King, white civil-rights supporters from the north, including students, clergy, and well-known public figures came to St. Augustine and were themselves arrested. The KKK responded with violent attacks that were widely reported in national and inter-national media. Popular revulsion against the Klan violence generated national sympathy for the black protesters and became a key factor in passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[6]
[edit] Hurricanes
In modern times, St. Augustine has mostly been spared the wrath of tropical cyclones. The only direct hit was Hurricane Dora, which came ashore just after midnight on September 10, 1964. Prior to Dora, no hurricane had struck northeast Florida from the east since record-keeping began in 1851.[7]
[edit] Geography and climate
St. Augustine is located at 29°53′39″N 81°18′48″W / 29.89417°N 81.31333°W (29.89785, -81.31151)[8]. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.7 square miles (27.8 km²), of which, 8.4 square miles (21.7 km²) of it is land and 2.4 square miles (6.1 km²) of it (21.99%) is water. Access to the Atlantic Ocean is via the St. Augustine Inlet of the Matanzas River.
[edit] Demographics
As of the 2000 United States Census,[9] there were 9,592 people, 4,963 households, and 2,600 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,384.6 people per square mile (534.7/km²). There were 5,642 housing units at an average density of 673.9/sq mi (260.3/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 81.21% Caucasian, 15.07% African American, 0.41% Native American, 0.72% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 0.88% from other races, and 1.61% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.11% of the population.
There were 4,963 households out of which 18.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.4% were married couples living together, 12.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 47.6% were non-families. 36.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.11 and the average family size was 2.76.
In the city the population was spread out with 16.1% under the age of 18, 15.3% from 18 to 24, 23.9% from 25 to 44, 25.2% from 45 to 64, and 19.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 84.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 81.4 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $32,358, and the median income for a family was $41,892. Males had a median income of $27,099 versus $25,121 for females. The per capita income for the city was $21,225. About 9.8% of families and 15.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.8% of those under age 18 and 10.0% of those age 65 or over.
[edit] Points of interest
- Alligator Farm
- Anastasia State Park
- Bridge of Lions
- Casa Monica Hotel
- Castillo de San Marcos National Monument
- Cathedral of St. Augustine
- Excelsior School Museum of African American History
- Flagler College, part of which is the former Ponce de León Hotel
- Fort Matanzas National Monument
- Florida School for the Deaf and Blind
- Fort Mose Historic State Park
- Fountain of Youth
- Freedom Trail of Historic Sites of the Civil Rights Movement
- Gonzalez-Alvarez House (Oldest House)
- Grace United Methodist Church
- Lightner Museum, in the former Hotel Alcazar
- Old St. Johns County Jail
- Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse
- Ripley's Believe it or Not! Museum
- The Spanish Military Hospital Museum
- San Sebastian Winery
- St. Augustine Airport FAA code is: SGJ
- St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum
- St. Augustine Amphitheatre
- World Golf Hall of Fame & IMAX Theater at World Golf Village
- Ximenez-Fatio House
- Zorayda Castle
[edit] Sister cities
[edit] Education
- St. Johns County School District operates local public schools
- Flagler College, a four year liberal arts college
- Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, a public residential school operated by the state of Florida, was founded in 1885 and is located in St. Augustine[10]
- St. Johns River Community College
- St. Joseph Academy, founded in 1866, is the oldest Catholic high school in Florida
[edit] Notable residents
- Jim Albrecht, World Series Of Poker Tournament Director, Commentator and Film Consultant
- Murray Armstrong, 5-time NCAA champion hockey coach
- Jorge Biassou Black General in 1790s
- Richard Boone, actor
- Willie Galimore, football player
- Dr. Robert B. Hayling, civil rights leader
- Richard Henry Pratt, soldier and educator
- Ray Charles, pianist
- Frederick Delius, composer
- Henry Flagler, industrialist
- William H. Gray, congressman and president of the United Negro College Fund
- Lindy Infante, professional football coach
- Stetson Kennedy, Author
- Scott Lagasse Jr., NASCAR racer
- John C. Lilly, dolphin scientist
- Johnny Mize, baseball player
- Prince Achille Murat, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte
- David Nolan, author and historian
- Osceola, Seminole War leader (held prisoner at Fort Marion, now Castillo de San Marcos)
- Scott Player, Punter NFL
- Tom Petty, rock musician
- Marcus Roberts, musician
- Tom Gabel, lead singer of Against Me!
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, novelist
- Steve Spurrier, College/Pro Football coach
- Jack D. Hunter, novelist
- Edmund Kirby Smith, Confederate General
- John M. Schofield Union general
- William W. Loring, Confederate General
- Edmund Jackson Davis, governor
- George McGovern, 1972 presidential candidate
- Martin D. Hardin, Union general
- Richard Aloysius Twine, pioneer Black photographer
- Travis Tomko, Pro Wrestler
- Gamble Rogers, folksinger
- Martin Johnson Heade, artist
- Zora Neale Hurston, novelist and folklorist
- Earl Cunningham, artist
- Willie Irvin, pro football player
- James Branch Cabell, novelist
- Doug Carn, jazz musician
- Idella Parker, author
- Felix Varela, Cuban national hero
- Tim Tebow, College football player
- Howell W. Melton, United States District Judge
- Howell W. Melton Jr., Managing Partner of Holland & Knight
- Debby Moore (Debbie McDade), jazz singer
- Peter Taylor, novelist
- Jacob Lawrence, artist
- Cris Carpenter, MLB player for the St. Louis Cardinals, Florida Marlins, Texas Rangers, and the Milwaukee Brewers
[edit] References
- ^ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. http://www.naco.org/Template.cfm?Section=Find_a_County&Template=/cffiles/counties/usamap.cfm. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
- ^ a b National Historic Landmarks Program - St. Augustine Town Plan Historic District
- ^ Table 4: Annual Estimates of the Population for Incorporated Places in Florida, Listed Alphabetically: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2004
- ^ Civil Rights Movement Veterans. "St. Augustine FL, Movement — 1963". http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963staug.
- ^ Civil Rights Movement Veterans. "St. Augustine FL, Movement — 1964". http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis64.htm#1964staug.
- ^ a b Branch, Taylor (1998). Pillar of Fire. Simon & Schuster.
- ^ National Hurricane Center. Hurricane Database
- ^ "US Gazetteer files: 2000 and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2005-05-03. http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/gazette.html. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
- ^ "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
- ^ Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind website
[edit] Additional Reading
- Abbad y Lasierra, Iñigo, "Relación del descubrimiento, conquista y población de las provincias y costas de la Florida" - "Relación de La Florida" (1785); edición de Juan José Nieto Callén y José María Sánchez Molledo.
- Colburn, David, Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980 (1985), New York: Columbia University Press.
- Deagan, Kathleen, Fort Mose: Colonial America's Black Fortress of Freedom (1995), Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
- Fairbanks, George R. (George Rainsford), History and antiquities of St. Augustine, Florida (1881), Jacksonville, Fla., H. Drew.
- Gannon, Michael V., The Cross in the Sand: The Early Catholic Church in Florida 1513-1870 (1965), Gainesville: University Presses of Florida.
- Graham, Thomas, The Awakening of St. Augustine, (1978), St. Augustine Historical Society
- Harvey, Karen, America's First City, (1992), Lake Buena Vista, FL: Tailored Tours Publications.
- Landers, Jane, Black Society in Spanish Florida (1999), Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
- Lyon, Eugene, The Enterprise of Florida, (1976), Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
- Manucy, Albert, Menendez, (1983), St. Augustine Historical Society.
- Nolan, David, Fifty Feet in Paradise: The Booming of Florida, (1984), New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Nolan, David, The Houses of St. Augustine, (1995), Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press.
- Porter, Kenneth W., The Black Seminoles: History of a Freedom-Seeking People, (1996), Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
- Reynolds, Charles B. (Charles Bingham), Old Saint Augustine, a story of three centuries, (1893), St. Augustine, Fla. E. H. Reynolds.
- Torchia, Robert W., Lost Colony: The Artists of St. Augustine, 1930-1950, (2001), St. Augustine: The Lightner Museum.
- United States Commission on Civil Rights, 1965. Law Enforcement: A Report on Equal Protection in the South. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
- Warren, Dan R., If It Takes All Summer: Martin Luther King, the KKK, and States' Rights in St. Augustine, 1964, (2008), Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
- Waterbury, Jean Parker (editor), The Oldest City, (1983), St. Augustine Historical Society.
[edit] Images
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: St. Augustine, Florida |
- Freedom Trail [1] information about the civil rights movement in St. Augustine and the Freedom Trail that marks its sites.
- St. Augustine Pics Daily pictures of St. Augustine, Florida.
- Twine Collection Over 100 images of the St. Augustine community of Lincolnville between 1922 and 1927. From the State Library & Archives of Florida.
[edit] External links
[edit] Government resources
[edit] Historical
- Castillo de San Marcos official website, U.S. National Park Service
- St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum
- Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP), maritime archaeology in St. Augustine
- History page (augustine.com)
- "St. Augustine Movement" in online King Encyclopedia (Stanford University)
- "St. Augustine Movement 1963-1964" at Civil Rights Movement Veterans website
[edit] Higher education
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