Mauricio de Zúñiga

Mauricio de Zúñiga
(1st) 9th Spanish Governor of West Florida
In office
July 1812 – April 1813
Preceded by Francisco San Maxent
Succeeded by Mateo González Manrique
(2nd) 12th Spanish Governor of West Florida
In office
March 1816 – 15 Sep 1816
Preceded by José de Soto
Succeeded by Francisco San Maxent
Personal details
Born 18th century
El Prat de Llobregat, in Baix Llobregat (Barcelona Province, Catalonia, Spain)
Died 1816
Profession Military and Administrator (governor of Florida)

Mauricio de Zuñiga (? - 1816) was a Spanish military officer who served as governor of West Florida from 1812 to 1813, and again in 1816.

Early years

Mauricio de Zuniga was born in the 18th century, probably in El Prat de Llobregat, in Baix Llobregat (Barcelona Province, Catalonia, Spain). As a youth, he joined the Spanish army, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.[1][2]

Political career

In July 1812, Zúñiga was appointed governor of West Florida,[3] and moved to its capital, Pensacola. He served in that office till April 1813.

In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British Royal Marines established what became known as the Negro Fort on Prospect Bluff along the Spanish side of the Apalachicola River.[4] The garrison initially included around 1,000 Britons and several hundred African-Americans. Shortly after the end of the war in 1815, the British withdrew from the post and left the black population in occupation. Over the next few years the fort became a colony for escaped slaves from Pensacola, St. Augustine, and Georgia.[5]

After Zuñiga resumed the governorship of West Florida in March 1816, Andrew Jackson, commander of the Southern Military Division of the United States,[6] wrote him and demanded that the Spanish authorities immediately intervene to destroy or remove the denizens of the fort and the surrounding community of escaped slaves and Indians.[7][8] Although Zúñiga did not have enough troops to deploy[9] and drive them out, he did send Captain Sebastián Pintado to investigate the matter and recover any runaway slaves who belonged to the Spanish.[8]

Zuñiga, who wanted to maintain good relations with the Native Americans of Florida (who would be outraged if the Negro Fort was attacked) and, at the same time, wanted to avoid a military invasion by Jackson, replied that he also was concerned about the fort, but awaited instructions from his superiors what to do about the matter. Soon afterward, however, someone from the fort fired shots at an American supply ship. This gave Jackson the excuse he needed to order the attack and destruction of the fort by General Edmund P. Gaines on July 27. 1816, in which almost all of its residents were killed.[10] Nevertheless, the number of runaway slaves from Georgia who subsequently fled to Florida was still significant.[11]

Zúñiga's term as governor ended on 15 September 1816, and he died near the end of that year.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Vázquez Cienfuegos, Sigfrido (2007). Comportamiento de las tropas veteranas e Cuba a principios del siglo XIX (In Spanish: Behavior of veteran troops and Cuba in the early nineteenth century). Universidad de Sevilla. Number 19, p. 98.
  2. ↑ Richard K. Murdoch (July 1964). "A British Report on West Florida and Louisiana, November, 1812". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 43 (1): 45.
  3. 1 2 Ben Cohoon. U.S. States F-K.
  4. ↑ J. Sean McCormick; University of Florida (April 2007). "A Guide to the General Duncan Lamont Clinch Family Papers". uflib.ufl.edu.
  5. ↑ Jane G. Landers (1 December 2007). Richmond F. Brown, ed. Coastal Encounters: The Transformation of the Gulf South in the Eighteenth Century. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 109–110. ISBN 0-8032-1393-X.
  6. ↑ Carol H. Behrman (1 September 2002). Andrew Jackson. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-8225-0093-3.
  7. ↑ Deborah A. Rosen (6 March 2015). Border Law. Harvard University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-674-96761-8.
  8. 1 2 MEMORIA Y SOCIEDAD (In Spanish: MEMORY AND SOCIETY). Jane Landers.
  9. ↑ Jane Landers (1 February 2010). Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Harvard University Press. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-674-03591-1.
  10. ↑ Albert Marrin (16 December 2004). Old Hickory:Andrew Jackson and the American People: Andrew Jackson and the American People. Penguin Young Readers Group. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-101-12685-1.
  11. ↑ Liz Sonneborn (1 January 2009). The Acquisition of Florida: America's Twenty-seventh State. Infobase Publishing. pp. 48–49. ISBN 978-1-4381-1979-3.
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