Opechancanough, who reputedly led the revolt against the later English
colonists at Jamestown. That act was far in the future, but whoever killed
the Jesuits so disheartened the Spanish missionary movement as to clear
the way for the English colonists.
Spanish colonialism in the southeast of North America was not a major
success. The early explorers had found the area unsuitable. Hernando de
Soto reported that it was “full of bogs and poisonous fruits, barren, and the
worst country that is warmed by the sun.” Pedro Menéndez de Avilés cau-
tioned King Philip II that “Florida’s shoreline was too low and sandy, her
countryside too poor in resources, and her harbors too shallow to permit
practical settlement.” Fevers carried off more would-be colonists than the
Indians killed. Hurricanes worked havoc on shipping. And, finally, there
was no gold—the one thing that might have drawn a large settlement. As it
was, few Spaniards went; those who did were almost all men without
Spanish wives. Marriage or concubinage with Indian (and black) women
was common and was at least initially favored by the state. In marriage, as
in all aspects of life, the Spaniards regarded the Indians as a resource. If not
killed or driven away, they had to be refined, reduced, converted—and
bred. When the Indians tried to resist, they were flogged or starved, but
they were never fully cowed. They rebelled time after time; and finally,
between 1680 and 1706, the missions collapsed.
Saving the Indians was not enough to sustain the Spaniards’ interest,
and colonialism was rarely profitable, but the American Atlantic coast had a
strategic value that Spain could not afford to neglect. This coast was along
the route on which Spain conducted its main business in the New World:
shipping home gold and silver.
Gold and silver from Peru were carried to Nombre de Dios on the east-
ern coast of Panama and from Mexico to Veracruz; from these two ports, the
treasure was placed on ships and then taken to Havana, where, from the
1560s on, one or two convoys assembled each year. These convoys, which
the Spaniards called las flotas,caught trade winds and the Gulf Stream
through the Florida straits and sailed along the Atlantic coast up to the
Chesapeake. There they turned east, catching the trade winds to the Azores.
Since the flotaswere Spain’s economic lifeblood, they had to be protected at
almost any cost. The Spanish government thought of its attempts at colo-
Sugar, Slaves, and Souls 51