I don’t know that I’d ever given much thought to Pensacola before immersing myself in Florida’s colonial history prepping for my St. Augustine weekend a few years back, but reading those made me aware of how chaotic and interesting Florida’s history truly was — swapping hands between the Spanish and British, being invaded by Georgia, etc. I’m planning on visiting Pensacola in about a month and wanted to establish some background before I did. This attractive book is published by the University of West Florida, and features a lot of photos of archaeological finds. As we begin, the Spanish have a strong presence in La Florida, and another in New Spain, but there’s a vast gulf betwixt them with an alarming amount of English and French interest in the area. Early scouts vouched for both Mobile Bay and Pensacola Bay as potential areas to establish power, but an attempt to settle Pensacola in 1559 met with disaster as a storm destroyed the supply ships before the colony was even founded.It would be eighty more years before the Spanish returned to Pensacola Bay, distracted by wars and power plays in Europe. Pensacola would feature in those same struggles for power: established primarily as a military post, Pensacola fell to the British during the French and Indian War, but would return to the Spanish during the American Revolution — and remain Spanish until General Andrew Jackson attacked the city despite deliberately clear instructions from DC that he let sleeping dons lie. As mentioned, this is an archaeological history, and has no shortage of great color plates: reproductions of old maps, paintings of the bay and its people, archaeological finds like glassware, pottery, crucifexes, and the like. Most attractive. Interestingly, there are also recipes for colonial treats, like their version of punch which…golly, did they like their sugar. These, plus the margins, make this 200 page book read much more like a 100 page books, but it was a nice overview to early Pensacola. I’ll be staying downtown and plan on checking out the museum there: it will be interesting to see how many of its pieces show up here.

Related:
Florida under Five Flags
The Spanish Southwest

Blast from the Past II isn’t quite over — I’m doing another California Diaries post for sure — but the “normal” stuff will be filtering back in this week.