Florida Franciscan Missions

We traveled to St. Augustine and Tallahassee, Florida, and visited Mission Nombre de Dios and Mission San Luis. The Spanish Franciscan missionaries were hard at work bringing Catholicism to the native Apalachee Indian populations in Florida long before the United States was formed as a country.

Mission Nombre de Dios — St. Augustine, Florida

The Mission of Nombre de Dios (Name of God) traces its origins to the founding of the City of St. Augustine — America's oldest city — in 1565. On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed and proclaimed this site for Spain and the Church. It was here that Menéndez knelt to kiss a wooden cross presented to him by Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, chaplain of his expedition.

It was on these grounds that Fr. López would celebrate the first parish Mass and begin the work at America's first Mission. It was at this sacred spot that the Spanish settlers would begin the devotion to Our Lady of La Leche that continues into the present day.

Mission San Luis — Tallahassee, Florida

Shortly after the founding of St. Augustine in 1565, missions were established along the Atlantic coastal plain and westward into north Florida. Native groups with initial sustained Spanish contact — the Timucuans and Guales — were the first to suffer dramatic population losses as a result of disease and overwork. In 1633, Pedro Muñoz and Francisco Martínez launched a formal mission effort in Apalachee Province.

For reasons not well understood, the Apalachees had requested friars as early as 1608. It is possible that since their closest tribal neighbors, the Timucuans, had created an alliance with the Spaniards, the Apalachees felt compelled to do the same.

Spanish Law and the Native Republics

Spaniards introduced a law code based on Roman law — not Anglo-Saxon — that clearly defined rights for slaves, freed persons, and women. Under Spanish law, all subjects of the Crown had access to grievance redress, property rights, and the right to testify in courts.

The Spaniards' specific construct for the governance of Spanish Florida was a system of two republics. The Spanish Republic functioned as one entity with its own institutional hierarchy, while the Native Republic recognized hereditary leaders, lands, and Indian vassals. Individual rights were accorded to everyone who rendered obedience to the Crown, thus becoming subjects of the King.