WPA History of the Spanish Land Grants
The Spanish Archives
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Archives in Tallahassee consists of dossiers, or expediente, containing
the papers filed in evidence before the United State Board of Commissioners;
books of record containing the minutes of the Boards; transcripts of
original papers and translations of some of the transcripts; maps, plats,
and surveys; and a large file of untranslated Spanish documents of a
miscellaneous character, labeled “Spanish Protocols, 1804-19”,
consisting of wills, deeds, titles, testimony, and bills of sale. Many
documents for claims in West Florida are unaccountably missing. The translator
often found dossiers of West Florida which contained only a survey and
a certificate from the Tallahassee land office for a patent.
Each separate
land claim, with its supporting documents, is encased in a manila jacket
on the outside of which appear the name of the claimant, his number
within the letter of the alphabet in which his name belongs, the number of
acres claimed, disposition of the claim, and page reference to American
State Papers. (3)
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3. This systematic arrangement was mace c. 1900 by Dr. S. B. Chapin, chief
clerk of the surveyor-general’s office, in R. L. Scarlett’s administration – C
27, Vol. II.
p. iv
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A few dossiers (4) within their jackets contain only one document;
others contain several, some as many as eighty-one. Especially is the
number of documents
large if the claim has been through the superior court of East of West Florida,
to the Supreme Court of the United States, and by it remanded to the court
of origin. A dossier may, therefore, contain: 1. a petition, or memorial,
to a governor for land; 2. the governor’s order for information concerning
the petitioner; 3. a list of members of the family and slaves, with their
ages; 4. a certificate of service from the petitioner’s former captain;
5. a grant by a governor, by the intendant of the army, or by the captain-general
of Cuba and the Two Floridas, or if an English grant, by a governor of East
or West Florida or the British Privy Council; 6. attest of the government
secretary or of the Havana College of Notaries, or, if an English grant,
the attest of the recorder in West Florida or East Florida; 7. attest by
the United States Trade Commissioner in Havana of copies of documents in
Cuban archives required by the United States Boards of Commissioners if the
grant was made by a higher Spanish official in Cuba, or attest by the United
States Minister to Great Britain if the grant was made during the British
occupation; 8. fiat of the English governor and attorney general in Florida;
9. warrant or precept or order of survey; 10. signed plats or unfinished
plats unsigned and without data; 11. testimony that conditions of the grant
were or were not fulfilled; 12. lease and release, under English law, by
which property was sometimes leased one day
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4. The term dossier rather than its Spanish equivalent, expediente, having
been employed by the translator is continued in the published volumes.
p. v
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for so many shillings a year and sold to the same party the following
day for so many pounds sterling “and one peppercorn when legally
demanded”; 13. instructions to notaries at a distance for taking
testimony of witnesses; 14. affidavit of character and tenure; 15.
deeds of sale, gifts, wills, bequests, exchanges; 16. reports on auctions
of land; 17. formal application to the United States Boards of Commissioners
for recognition of the claim and the decree of the commissioners, or
proceedings of United States courts; 18. translations and copies of
documents from Spanish archives in the United States or in Cuba (5).
American
court papers within a dossier are bound together with tape, a clip,
narrow ribbon, or pins. The pieces in a large Spanish dossier
are usually stitched
with linen thread; in the smaller ones they are pasted together or attached
by seals. The documents described are filed in steel cabinets in the vault of
the Field Note Division of the Florida Department of Agriculture in
the capitol at Tallahassee
where they are well protected from dust, vermin, and fire. They have not
always been so protected. Due to the ravages of vermin, highly acid ink,
much handling
and undesirable methods of filing in the past, they are exceedingly fragile
and some are undecipherable.
The path of the Spanish land grant archives in
reaching in permanent home in Tallahassee was a devious one. The second
article of the treaty
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5. Infra., Unc. A 9
p. vi
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of February 22, 1819, providing for the annexation of Florida to
the United States, required that the archives and documents relating
directly
to the property and sovereignty of that territory be left in possession
of officials of the United States. Two years prior to Spain’s
relinquishment of the Floridas a large number of such records were
removed to Havana. Even after the transfer Spanish officials continued
to remove documents contrary to the regulations of the treaty until
prohibited from doing so by officials of the United States. A determined
effort was made by the United States Department of State to have these
papers returned. Six agents – Colonel James Grant Forbes, Captain
James Riddle, Judge Thomas Randall, Honorable Daniel P. Cook, General
R. K. Call, and Jeremy Robinson – were sent to Havana over a
period extending from 1821 to 1834 in special missions for this purpose.
Each agent was prevented from achieving results by delays and corrupt
practices on the part Spanish officials and American land interests.
Finally a total of 45 documents was returned but they proved almost
worthless. (6a)
The following account of the early history of the documents
in East Florida (6b) was given by Antonio Alvarez in testimony in a
suit in
the
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6a. A. J. Hanna: “Diplomatic Missions of the United States to Cuba
to Secure the Spanish Archives” in manuscript.
6b. The provinces of East and West Florida were established and the dividing
line fixed at the Apalachicola River by the King of England in the Proclamation
of Oct. 7, 1763.
p. vii
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superior court of East Florida in 1833: The archives were forcibly
taken from the Spanish secretary’s office in St. Augustine by American
authority at the time of the cession and were stored at the old customs
house. A commission of five was appointed to examine them and select
those claimed by the United States under the treaty. As he recalled
the incident, the commission did not inventory the papers but made
only a list of the bundles. Three of the members of the commission,
according to Alvarez, were (Patrick?) Lynch, William Reynolds, and
Anthelm Gay. The papers were then stored in an office “in the
lower part of a building now occupied as a court house”, and
were cared for by Mr. (Edmund?) Law, (Lawyer and Notary). They next
went to Mr. (James S.?) Tingle, (later Clerk of the Circuit Court)
and in 1823 to William Reynolds, who the previous year, Alavarez said,
was appointed Keeper of the Public Archives by the Governor and the
legislature meeting in Pensacola. Some of the papers while in the possession
of Reynolds were delivered to Dr. Edward B. Gibson and Dr. (W. H.)
Simmons. From Reynolds the papers passed to (John or Thomas) Murphy,
and were
delivered to Alavarez himself in 1829 (as Keeper of the Public Archives),
in boxes, by the U.S. Marshal. Alavarez also received an inventory
made by Reynolds and himself. (7)
Alvarez seems to have been mistaken
with reference to the role of the state in the appointment of keepers.
In 1822, the Territorial
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7. G&S, VIII, 271-73. For sketch of Alavarez’ services to the
Spanish government, see Vol. II, Con, A 7.
p.viii
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Council passed an Act creating the offices of Keepers of the Public
Archives, appointments to be made by the governor. On July 3, 1823, the
Act was
amended. On January 1, 1825, when there was a blanket repeal of a number
of territorial laws, the Act of 1822 was continued in force, but on
November 23, 1828, it was repealed. (8) William Reynolds was notified
of his appointment as commissioner to have charge of the archives of
East Florida on April 5, 1823, by the U.S. Secretary of State, with
Antonio Alvarez as assistant. By Presidential appointment they were
superseded the next year by Edward R. Gibson and W. H. Simmons, also
appointed by the President. (9)
On March 3, 1825, Congress created the
offices of Keepers of the Public Archives, to be located in St. Augustine
and Pensacola. (10) To the
East Florida office
William Reynolds was restored by presidential appointment, with Antonio Alvarez
again as his assistant. (11) In 1829 Alvarez was appointed Keeper and held
the office until it was abolished in 1848. (12)
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8. Territorial Acts, 1822 pp. 64-67; Ibid., 1823, pp. 117-118; Ibid., 1825,
p. 303; Ibid., 1828, p. 208.
9. DG, III, 772; Minutes of the U.S. Board of Commissioners for East Florida – Ibid.,
IV, 290. The appointment of new commissioners may have been the result of the
charges which Alexander Hamilton made against Reynolds and Alavarez in 1824.—Infra.,
pp. xliv-xlv.
10. U.S. Sta. at Large, IV, 126-127.
11. Minutes of the U.S. Board of Commissioners for East Florida –DG,
IV, 280.
12. A photograph of Alvarez’ commission, signed by John Quincy Adams
as President and Henry Clay as Secretary of State, hangs on the wall of the “Oldest
House” in St. Augustine. The original is owned by Mrs. Reyes of St. Augustine,
who had it from a relative, Geronimo Llambias, who was the son of a sister
of Alvarez. – Information supplied by Miss Emily L. Wilson of St. Augustine.
p. ix
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The archives for West Florida which had not been sent to Havana
were taken in charge by Gen. Andrew Jackson at the time of the exchange
of flags and
were for some time handled in much the same way as the East Florida documents.
Certified copies of documents in the public archives pertaining to Spanish
land grants, and in some cases the originals, were used by the U.S. Boards
of Commissioners in East and West Florida and, with other documents in
possession of the Boards, were by law turned over to the respective
Keepers when the
Boards and their successors, the Registers and Receivers and the Land
offices in East and West Florida, had completed the work of adjudicating
land claims.
(13)
In 1844 Congress raised the question of dispensing with the offices
of Keepers of the Public Archives in Florida and transferring the records
to the office
of the Commissioner of the General Land Office or to some public office
in the Territory of Florida. The committee on public lands reported
adversely and the resolution was tabled. (14) Four years later, however,
in a deficiency
appropriation, the offices were abolished, (15) and the Secretary of
the Treasury,
through the Commissioner of the General land Office in Washington, on
October 16, 1848, instructed Antonio Alvarez and Joseph F. Caro, Keepers
for East
and West Florida respectively, to make schedule in duplicate of the archives
in their possession and delivered, each, one of the schedules and the
archives to Robert Butler, United
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13. U.S. Stat. at Large, IV, 126, 202-203, 204, 285, 406.
14. Report No. 140, H. of R., 28th Congress, 1 session.
15. U.S. Stat. at Large, IX, 2156.
p. x
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States Surveyor-General for Florida, whose office was in St. Augustine.
Each of the Keepers was to retain one schedule, signed by the Surveyor-General,
as a receipt. (16)
Neither of the late Keepers complied and on May 7,
1849, Commissioner Young of the General Land Office instructed Benjamin
A. Putnam, who
had succeeded
Butler, (17) to demand the archives for East Florida from Alvarez. (18) As
for the West Florida archives, the Commissioner stated that he would instruct
the clerk of the United States district court at Pensacola to demand and receive
them from Caro and hold them at Pensacola until either the surveyor-general
should be ordered by the Dept. of the Interior, which now had charge of the
matter, to take possession of them, or until some other disposition should
be made under the fifth section of the Act of Congress of March 3, 1849. This
Act, making appropriations for the civil and diplomatic expenses of the government,
directed, “That whenever it shall be shown to the President of the United
States that the State of Florida has by law provided for the safe custody of
the public archives, which were formerly kept at St. Augustine and Pensacola,
it shall be lawful for him to cause to be delivered to duly authorized officers
of the state, such of the archives as do not relate to grants of land which
remain unconfirmed or unsurveyed, provided that the President of the United
States may suspend the execution of this provision, if in
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16. Richard M. Young, Commissioner of General Land Office, to Robert Butler – “Letters
from Commissioner”. Col. V. 1847-49, p. 505, in Field Note Division,
Department of Agriculture, Tallahassee.
17. Ibid., p. 557
18. Ibid., pp. 583-87.
p. xi
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his judgment the public interest requires it.” (19)
The differences
in the disposition proposed at this time by the Commissioner for the
East Florida archives and those in West Florida was probably due in
part to the fact that the former were in a “safe building, the property
of the government,” as stated by the Commissioner in letter of October
16, 1848, which building in all probability was Government House, where the
Board of Commissioners had held its sessions, The commissioner authorized that
the office of the archives should, after the delivery, be considered a part
of the surveyor-general’s office.
Another and probably a stronger reason
for not insisting upon bringing the West Florida archives to St. Augustine
as at first proposed was the evident
opposition of state authorities to the plan. On January 11, 1849, the Florida
legislature provided by law for offices for the Spanish Archives at St. Augustine
and Pensacola, the appointment of Keepers for a term of two years to be made
by the Governor and Senate. As soon as Congress should provide for transferring
to the state the Spanish records and documents “which are now, or which
have been, in the office of the Keepers of the public archives in the said
cities of St. Augustine and Pensacola,” the Keepers to be appointed under
state law were “to ask for, demand and receive from the United Sates
the records…which now are or have
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19. Ibid.; U.S. Stat. At Large, IX, 370.
p. xii
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been in the office” in East and West Florida (20).
On January 15,
1849, Joseph E. Caro was commissioned, by the State, Keeper of the West
Florida Spanish Archives for a term of two years. (21) An act of
the legislature in 1861 authorized Filo E. de la Rua, Clerk of the Circuit
Court of Escambia County, “to hold, exercise and perform the duties of
the office of Keeper of the Spanish Archives at the City of Pensacola, to which
said office he has heretofore been appointed by the Governor and General Assembly
of this State.” (22)
In Ordinance Number 20 the Secession Convention of
January 1, 1861, abolished certain Federal offices and ordained “that
the Surveyor-General of the late Federal Government be instructed to deliver
over to the Register of Public
Lands at St. Augustine all the papers and property appertaining to said office,…” (23)
The Constitutional Convention, on October 28, 1865, repealed the ordinances
of the Secession Convention, including the one mentioned above. (24)
The archives for East Florida were delivered by Alvarez to the surveyor-general
in St. Augustine on June 5, 1849, and on June 7, 1849, the surveyor-general
reported the matter to Commissioner Young, stating that in accord with instructions
he had had the files and furniture, which belonged to Alvarez, appraised.
A requisition for $122 was issued in favor
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20. Florida Acts, 1849, Ch. 281.
21. “Commission Records,” Book D, p. 362, in office of Secretary
of State, Tallahassee.
22. Florida Acts, 1861, Ch. 1296, sec. 1
23. Journal of the Proceedings of the Convention of the People of Florida…1861 (Tallahassee, 1861), reprinted (Jacksonville, 1929), p. 119.
24. Harry B. Skillman, comp. The Compiled General Laws of Florida, 1927 (Atlanta,
1929), p. 163.
p. xiii
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of Alvarez by the Commissioner. (25)
On June 22, 1869, Joseph S. Wilson,
Commissioner of the General Land Office, Washington, instructed M. L.
Stearns of Quincy, Florida, newly
appointed surveyor-general
for the state, to remove the surveyor-general’s office to Tallahassee
from St. Augustine, “the location of the office prior to the commencement
of our late domestic difficulties in 1861.” Seven days later the surveyor-general
reported that he had arrived in Tallahassee on the 27th in his official capacity.
Instructed to obtain for his office the Spanish archives stored in St. Augustine,
Stearns found that the U.S. District Attorney, H. Bisbee, Jr. at Jacksonville,
had never had them in his possession and had no knowledge of them. Stearns
found them in the custody of J. H. Goss, Collector of Customs, Port of St.
Augustine, who turned them over to him. There were seven large boxes but no
invoice. (26)
When
in 1907, the Federal government made known its intention to abolish the office
of surveyor-general, a state law directed the Commissioner of Agriculture
to take charge of all field notes, surveys, maps, plats, papers, and records,
a part of which were those pertaining to Spanish land grants, and created
the Field Note Division as depository. (27)
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25. B. A. Putnam to Commissioner Young. – “Letters of Surveyor-General,” 1849-1853,
Vol. VIII, p. 10. Reply of Commissioner, “Letters from Commissioner,” Vol.
v, p. 641.
26. “Letters from Commissioner,” 1869-1873, Vol. IX, pp.3-4; “Letters
of Surveyor-General,” 1869-1881, Vol. XI, p. 3; Stearns to Wilson, Ibid.,
p. 9
27. Florida Acts, Ch. 5611, No. 16, Acts of 1907, approved May 22; Twenty-fifth
Biennial Report of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Florida:
Land and Field Note Division…1836-1838. Tallahassee, July 1, 1938.
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