Francisco del Moral y Sánchez

Francisco del Moral Sánchez Villegas was the governor of Spanish Florida from mid-1734 to early 1737.[1]

Francisco del Moral y Sánchez
34th Royal Governor of La Florida
In office
May 21, 1734 – March 12, 1737
Preceded byAntonio de Benavides
Succeeded byManuel Joseph de Justís
Personal details
BornUnknown
DiedUnknown
ProfessionAdministrator (governor of Florida)

Government in Florida

Moral Sánchez was appointed governor of the Spanish province of La Florida in 1734, assuming office on May 21 of that year.[2]

In 1735 Moral Sánchez took steps to promote the production of naval stores, spars and masts to supply Cuban shipbuilders, but subsequent governors did little to continue this effort.[3] That same year, he complained to the viceroyalty of New Spain that the merchants of Puebla (in modern Mexico) made a fifty percent profit on all goods shipped to Florida.

The following year, the British captured a Spanish ship carrying supplies and money from New Spain to the Spanish soldiers of Florida. Due to the resulting shortage of food, Moral decided to pay them with rum to try to alleviate their hunger or at least make them forget it temporarily.[4]

During his administration, Moral Sánchez ordered Captain Rodrigo de Ortega to make a list of all the Native American provinces and towns, both Christian and unconverted, that once paid obeisance to the Spanish Crown.[1] By 1736, the widely dispersed Franciscan missions of Spanish Florida had been reduced to a few in the area around St. Augustine, and more Indians in the interior were beginning to exchange goods with British and French traders.[1] In the same year, Moral Sánchez reached a compromise with General James Oglethorpe, the governor of the British colony of Georgia,[5] and signed a treaty with his representative, Charles Dempsey, by which the St. Johns River was recognized as a boundary between the neighboring colonies.[6][7] Both parties agreed to control their Indian allies to try to avoid clashes each other.

Accepting the engineer Antonio de Arredondo's recommendations to improve St. Augustine's water and land defenses, in 1737 Moral Sanchez ordered the construction of two small wooden fortresses where the Indian trail to Apalachee crossed the St. Johns,[8] including blockhouses, barracks, storehouses and batteries. One was built at Picolata on the east side, and another, Fort San Francisco de Pupo, on the opposite bank.[9][10]

On March 12, 1737, Moral Sánchez was arrested, forced to leave the governorship,[11] and recalled to Spain;[12][13] he was replaced by Manuel Joseph de Justís.[2][14]

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References
  1. John E. Worth (4 February 2007). The Struggle for the Georgia Coast. University of Alabama Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-8173-5411-4.
  2. Worth, John E. The Governors of Colonial Spanish Florida, 1565-1763 Archived September 13, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. University of West Florida.
  3. L. Holmes, Jack; Ware, John. Juan Baptista Franco and Tampa Bay, 1756 - FIU Digital Collections.
  4. John J. TePaske (July 1958). "Economic Problems of Florida Governors, 1700-1763". The Florida Historical Quarterly. Florida Historical Society. 37 (1): 47. JSTOR 30139055.
  5. Trevor R. Reese (1 April 2010). Colonial Georgia: A Study in British Imperial Policy in the Eighteenth Century. University of Georgia Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-8203-3553-7.
  6. John Tate Lanning (December 1954). "The Legend that Governor Moral Sánchez was Hanged". The Georgia Historical Quarterly. Georgia Historical Society. 38 (4). JSTOR 40577544.
  7. Max Savelle (September 1974). Empires to Nations: Expansion in America, 1713-1824. U of Minnesota Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-8166-0781-5.
  8. George E. Buker; Jean Parker Waterbury; St. Augustine Historical Society (June 1983). The Oldest city: St. Augustine, saga of survival. St. Augustine Historical Society. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-9612744-0-5.
  9. Alan Gallay (11 June 2015). Colonial Wars of North America, 1512-1763 (Routledge Revivals): An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 966. ISBN 978-1-317-48718-0.
  10. David J. Weber (1992). The Spanish Frontier in North America. Yale University Press. pp. 180–181. ISBN 978-0-300-05917-5.
  11. Susan R. Parker (1999). The Second Century of Settlement in Spanish St. Augustine, 1670-1763. University of Florida. p. 138.
  12. David Lee Russell (1 January 2006). Oglethorpe and Colonial Georgia: A History, 1733-1783. McFarland. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-7864-2233-3.
  13. Jay Jordan Butler (15 January 2011). Agrarianism and Capitalism in Early Georgia 1732-1743. Barkhuis. p. 78. ISBN 978-90-77922-90-3.
  14. Amy Turner Bushnell (1987). David Hurst Thomas (ed.). Situado and Sabana: Spain's Support System for the Presidio and Mission Provinces of Florida. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History: The Archaeology of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale, No. 74. 68. University of Georgia Press. p. 212. ISBN 978-0-8203-1712-0.
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