Fort Picolata

Tensions had been growing between the Spanish and the British after James Moore, the governor of Carolina, invaded La Florida in 1704 and 1706. Fort Picolata, along with Fort Pupo on the opposite side of the St. Johns, was built in 1734 by order of Governor Francisco del Moral y Sánchez in anticipation of more attacks by the English and their Indian allies.{{cite book|author=David J. Weber|title=The Spanish Frontier in North America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KOPdX2qaVrkC&pg=PA180|year=1992|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-05917-5|page=180}}

When Gen. Oglethorpe, the governor of the British Province of Georgia, invaded Florida in late December 1739 and early January 1740 with his force of Scottish Highlanders and Indian allies, the Indians captured and burned Fort Picolata; Oglethorpe then laid siege to St. Augustine. The Spanish rebuilt the fort in 1755 using native coquina shell rock.{{cite journal |author1=Verne E. Chatelain |title=Spanish Contributions in Florida to American Culture |journal=The Florida Historical Quarterly |date=January 1941 |volume=19 |issue=3 |page=221 |url=https://palmm.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/ucf%3A22343 |publisher=Florida Historical Society}} There is no historical record that its sister fort, Fort San Francisco de Pupo, was ever rebuilt by the Spanish.{{cite journal |author1=John M. Goggin |title=Fort Pupo: A Spanish Frontier Outpost |journal=The Florida Historical Quarterly |date=October 1951 |volume=30 |issue=2 |url=https://palmm.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/ucf%3A22343|access-date=15 June 2018 |publisher=Florida Historical Society|pages=140–142, 156}}

In a letter to King Philip dated January 31, 1740 (O.S.) Governor Montiano wrote that forts Picalata [sic] and Pupo "were constructed solely for the purpose of defending and sheltering from the continual attacks of Indian allies of the English, the mails that go to and come from Apalachee."{{cite book|author=Manuel de Montiano|title=Letters of Montiano: Siege of St. Agustine [sic]|url=https://archive.org/details/lettersofmontian01mont|year=1909|publisher=Georgia Historical Society|location=Savannah, Georgia|page=[https://archive.org/details/lettersofmontian01mont/page/39 39]

}} When the British acquired Florida after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, they soon recognized the value of Fort Picolata as part of the defenses of St. Augustine, and continued to maintain a garrison there as the Spanish had done. Important congresses between British colonial officials and the Indians took place at Picolata in 1765 and 1767.{{cite book|author=Paul E. Hoffman|title=Florida's Frontiers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5xS7FoD3cSAC&pg=PA213|date=11 January 2002|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0-253-10878-0|page=213}}

The first Picolata Conference, held November 15–18, 1765, between British officials and a delegation of Lower Creek and Seminole leaders, was organized by John Stuart, Indian superintendent of the Southern Department,{{cite journal |author1=Robert L. Gold |title=The East Florida Indians under Spanish and English Control: 1763-1765 |journal=The Florida Historical Quarterly |date=July–October 1965 |volume=44 |issue=1–2 |url=http://palmm.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/ucf%3A22402}} and summoned by Governor James Grant, to negotiate the boundaries between Indian and British lands.{{cite book|title=Record in the Case of the United States of America Versus Fernando M. Arredondo and Others|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2-mOHyvwyYgC&pg=PA60|year=1831|publisher=Duff Green|page=60}}{{cite book|author=Kathryn E. Holland Braund|editor=Nancy Everill Hoffmann |editor2=John C. Van Horne|title=America's Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram, 1699-1777|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C9X4663giukC&pg=PA129|year=2004|publisher=American Philosophical Society|isbn=978-0-87169-249-8|page=129|chapter="The Congress Held in a Pavilion": John Bartram and the Indian Congress at Fort Picolata, East Florida}}{{cite book|author=Joseph P. Ward|title=European Empires in the American South: Colonial and Environmental Encounters|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u6YzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT195|date=8 September 2017|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-4968-1220-9|page=195}} A treaty was signed at the congress, by which the Indians ceded over two million acres of land in northeast Florida to the British, stretching thirty-five miles from the coast westward past the St. Johns, and including all the tidewater land on the rest of the peninsula, extending up to ten miles inland from the coast. The conference was attended by the American botanist and explorer John Bartram and his son William.{{cite book|author=William Bartram|title=William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=26s5vVEommMC&pg=PA4|year=2002|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=0-8032-6205-1|pages=4–5}}

In his Travels, William Bartram wrote that he had visited Fort Picolata in April, 1774, and found it "dismantled and deserted". This is not what actually occurred; the misstatement may be attributed to the fact that it had been 18 years between his visit and the publication of his journal in 1792. In a report made in 1774 to his patron, Dr. John Fothergill (Fothergill was the agent in England for William’s father, John Bartram),{{cite web |title=Bartram's Travels |url=https://georgiahistory.com/education-outreach/online-exhibits/featured-historical-figures/william-bartram/the-bartram-trail/ |website=georgiahistory.com |publisher=Georgia Historical Society |access-date=14 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151221081820/http://georgiahistory.com/education-outreach/online-exhibits/featured-historical-figures/william-bartram/the-bartram-trail/ |archive-date=December 21, 2015 |date=2015}} Bartram wrote that he had stopped "at Picolata Fort. which I observed was newly repared [sic]."{{cite web |author1=Daniel L. Schafer |title=The Journal of John Bartram|url=http://www.unf.edu/floridahistoryonline/Bartram/December_1765/23dec1765.htm |website=www.unf.edu|publisher=University of North Florida |access-date=14 August 2018 |date=2014}}

In his memoirs, then first-lieutenant William T. Sherman notes being stationed at Picolata during the Second Seminole War, between 1841-1842. He stated that, at that time, Picolata consisted of two buildings, one "which had been built for a hospital, and the dwelling of a family named Williams."{{cite book |last1=Sherman |first1=William |title=Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman |date=1990 |publisher=The Library of America |isbn=0940450658 |page=26 |edition=2nd}}

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Category:Government buildings completed in 1737

San Francisco de Pupo

Category:Pre-statehood history of Florida

Category:1737 establishments in the Spanish Empire