History of Saint Augustine, Florida:
Saint Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European and African-American origin in the United States. Historians credit Juan Ponce de Leon, the first governor of the Island of Puerto Rico, with the discovery of Florida in 1513, some 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
Governor Gonzalo Méndez de CanzoMenéndez set foot on the shores of Florida in 1865. In honor of the saint whose feast day fell on the day he first sighted land, Menéndez named the colonial settlement Saint Augustine. He removed the French garrison and proceeded to consolidate Spain’s authority on the northeast coast of Florida. Saint Augustine was to serve two purposes: as a military outpost, or Presidio, for the defense of Florida, and a base for Catholic missionary settlements throughout the southeastern part of North America.
The Treaty of Paris in 1763, ending the French and Indian War, gave Florida and St. Augustine to the British. Saint Augustine came under British rule for the first time and served as a Loyalist (pro-British) colony during the American Revolutionary War. A second Treaty of Paris (1783), which gave America’s colonies north of Florida their independence, returned Florida to Spain, a reward for Spanish assistance to the Americans in their war against England.
The Adams-Onîs Treaty, negotiated in 1819 and concluded in 1821, peaceably turned over the Spanish colonies of East and West Florida and, with them, St. Augustine, to the
United Sates. Florida became a territorial possession of the United States. The Territorial Period (1821-1845) was marked by an intense war with native Indians, the so-called Second Seminole War (1835-1842). In 1845 was Florida accepted into the union as a state.
In 1861, the Civil War began. Florida joined the Confederacy, but Union troops quickly occupied Saint Augustine and remained in control of the city throughout the four-year long war, thus being one of the few places in the United States where Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1862, actually freed any slaves.
Catholic Places of interest in Saint Augustine, Florida:
Cathedral Basilica of Saint Augustine