Presidios (or garrisoned military installations) were a prominent feature of Spanish colonial policy and administration, from the Philippines and North Africa to Mexico and the Spanish borderlands of La Florida and New Spain. These garrisoned forts emerged in the final years of the fifteenth century as a bulwark against further Muslim attacks in and around Morocco following the end of the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula. Presidios were transformed significantly over the next three centuries as they were created strategically in other newly established Spanish colonial territories. This attractive and important volume by Judith A. Bense focuses on a key area of West Florida and the tumultuous period of presidio creation, destruction, reconstruction, and abandonment between 1698 and 1763. Synthesizing nearly four decades of documentary and archaeological research, Bense and her colleagues, students, and dedicated volunteers have transformed our understanding of presidios and the contexts in which they emerged around Pensacola, and in La Florida generally.
The book begins with a short introduction to West Florida as a region, its wider connections with colonial historical trends (both locally and more globally) between the late sixteenth and late seventeenth centuries, and a brief summary of the four successive presidios established in the Florida panhandle over a period of 65 years. The next four chapters provide a detailed exploration of each of the four presidios. In a format designed for easy comparison between sites, each of these four chapters follows a similar schema, starting with a targeted historical summary of major trends and events bearing on the creation, use, and abandonment of each presidio; the events leading to the discovery of these sites; and a very clear, concise, and illuminating discussion of their archaeological excavation and interpretation.
Although historical documents and archaeological evidence are discussed under separate general headings, the interplay between these different sources of evidence is both constant and seamless. Discussions beginning with historical summaries, documents, maps, and illustrations soon connect with the raw materials and architectural attributes used in constructing presidial and associated structures—the size and status of individual structures, demographic and administrative records of ethnicity and occupations, and the specific composition of archaeological assemblages (e.g., specific events such as hurricanes, documented attacks, creation of missions, and the relocation of refugee Indigenous and other communities). In several cases, these details come together to allow for unusual insights and precision—for example, connecting presidio-related housing to particular individuals (e.g., the identification of Captain Luis Ullate's residential compound at Fort San Miguel), or the composition of Indigenous ceramics suggesting a different chronology (and possibly different ethnic groups) for the grog- and shell-tempered assemblages from Santa María and Santa Rosa, respectively. Other unexpected developments emerging from the documents—and supported in the archaeological record of the Pensacola sites—include the illicit trade between the Spanish presidios and rival French-occupied settlements in Mobile Bay, as well as the relative demographic continuity between the population of one abandoned presidio and the individuals resettling the new, subsequent one.
Each detailed historical or archaeological facet of this complex and fascinating record is explored by Bense as if we are unfolding an intricate origami—each “fold” and nuisance revealing some intersecting link with others, and ultimately forming a composite, well-structured whole. The well-designed and well-placed use of maps, illustrations, photographs, tables, and graphs all help to support and enhance each of the case studies presented. Important, too, is that the work Bense presents in these four chapters is the product of considerable leadership, imagination, dedication, and teamwork, and she is both appreciative and generous in incorporating the considerable efforts of her colleagues and supporting volunteer organizations (many of which she helped to encourage).
Two summary chapters bring together the history of Pensacola's presidios (Chapter 6) and their significance in a wider historical and geographic context (Chapter 7). These syntheses are clear, concise, and thoughtful, and they make a valuable contribution to our understanding of each theme they address: demography, settlement patterns, material culture, social organization, ethnogenesis, and subsidization. It is also useful that Bense looks forward to where this research may move to productively in the future—in particular, the comparison of ethnogenesis in three main geographic regions of the Spanish borderlands (Alta California, northern New Spain, and the Spanish borderlands of Florida).
This is a work of considerable consequence, and it will be welcomed widely by students and scholars of many different disciplines allied with anthropology, archaeology, history, ethnohistory, and geography. It is already a well-thumbed favorite on my bookshelf!
