Antonio Benavides Bazán y Molina (8 December 16789 January 1762) was a Lieutenant General in the Spanish Army who held administrative positions in the Americas as Royal Governor of Spanish Florida (1718–1734), Governor of Veracruz (1734–1745), Governor and Captain General of Yucatán province (1745 – 1750), as well as Governor of Manila in the Philippines (September 1750 – ?). Before his successive appointments to these various positions, he served with distinction in several campaigns of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1710, and perhaps saved the life of Philip V, the first Bourbon King of Spain, at Guadalajara.
During his term of office in Florida, Benavides jailed Juan de Ayala y Escobar, the previous governor, for dealing in contraband, and repelled several attempts by the English to invade Florida by land and sea. He secured the friendship of the neighboring Indian groups who had previously been inimical to the Spaniards, a state of affairs that continued without interruption while he governed the province. He defended the rights of the indigenous people and established the first black militia unit in Florida to defend St. Augustine, the capital of the province, from British attacks. Over the course of his various administrative appointments, Benavides apparently donated most of his income to the poor people of Florida, Yucatan, Veracruz and Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
Early years Antonio de Benavides was born at La Matanza de Acentejo, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands (part of Spain) on 8 December 1678, into a family of farmers. The son of Andrés Benavides, a captain in the provincial militia, and his wife María, he was the third of 8 siblings. In late 1698 a captain of the Bandera de la Habana (Flag of Havana) stayed at the Benavides family home while touring the island to recruit young men into the Spanish army for service in the New World colonies. According to Bernardo Cólogan Fallón, writer of the first biography of Benavides (1798), the officer saw military potential in the young Benavides, and asked his parents to allow his enlistment as a cadet. In 1699, at age 19, Benavides entered the Spanish army and joined ninety-nine other recruits in a regiment assigned to the garrison of Havana. He spent three years in the Cuban city, where he was promoted to second lieutenant in 1701.
After the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), Benavides went to Madrid as a member of one of the dragoon infantry regiments sent there as reinforcements for Philip V's troops. When Philip V's advisors told the king of the Canarian soldier who had gained fame as a sharpshooter in Havana, he ordered Benavides to accompany him on one of his hunting trips, after which the two hunted together frequently and became friends. Philip customarily hunted on the grounds of the royal hunting estate, the Casa de Campo, accompanied by the best marksmen in the Royal Guard Corps (Reales Guardias de Corps), which provided his personal security. Due to Benavides' exceptional skill as a marksman and the friendship that had developed between them, the king ordered him to be enrolled in the Corps – an unusual circumstance, since normally only the children of the nobility could join. Benavides was admitted to the second company of the unit, the most elite branch of the Royal Army, and joined the king in numerous other royal hunting parties. He distinguished himself in battle at Flanders and, most famously, at the Battle of Saragossa. He also participated in various actions at Salcedillo, Villareal and Iniesta, as well as the Battle of Balaguer at Barcelona and Tortosa, and Almahara and Peñalba.
War of the Spanish Succession
In 1710, Benavides fought in several battles of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). On 20 August 1710, he commanded a Guards of Corps cavalry squadron of the Bourbon Spanish forces in the Battle of Saragossa, and managed to seize the enemy's artillery in a surprise attack. The Bourbon troops suffered serious casualties, however, and after a disorderly retreat saw that further efforts were futile and conceded defeat.
Benavides possibly saved the life of Philip V, the first Bourbon king of Spain, on 10 September 1710, in the Battle of Villaviciosa at Guadalajara between the Bourbon and Habsburg armies. Seeing that the king was exposed to enemy fire as he sat astride his white horse, and that he did not have a spare horse to escape the perilous situation, Benavides offered to exchange his own horse with Philip, who accepted. A shell knocked Benavides off the royal horse and he lay senseless until the king, noticing that he was missing, ordered that he be sought among the casualties on the field. He was soon found, still unconscious, and treated by Philip V's personal surgeons. To reward his bravery the king promoted Benavides to colonel, and thereafter called him "Father" as a mark of affection and respect. After the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht and the end of the war, Benavides, considered an exemplary cavalry officer by his superiors, was appointed in 1814 to the rank of brigadier of cavalry in the Royal Guard Corps in recognition of his performance on the battlefield.
Administration in Florida
Arrival in Florida Philip V, wanting to utilize his services and repay his steadfast loyalty, appointed Benavides governor and captain general of Florida while he was convalescing in Tenerife from his previous injuries. Serious irregularities in local administration were a problem in St. Augustine, the capital of La Florida, and the governorship was considered a difficult assignment in a dangerous frontier. Benavides was sworn into office by the governor of the Canary Islands, rather than before the Royal Council in Madrid, so that he could establish his administration as soon as possible. He embarked from Tenerife in a squadron that included the frigates San Jorge and San Francisco and their escort, the San Javier, which would stop in Havana on the passage to Cuba.
Reform and early years as governor (1718–1821) The indefinite borders of Spain's province of La Florida were being challenged by other European powers at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries. Franciscan friars had established several missions in Apalachee Province, one of the four major provinces in the Spanish mission system of Florida. The Apalachee settlers of Mission San Luis de Apalachee, who were skilled agriculturalists, traded agricultural and livestock foodstuffs with Havana merchants throughout the 1600s, and built a thriving community. Meanwhile, the British had founded Charles Town in 1670 in Carolina, on territory the Spanish claimed, and with good reason considered St. Augustine the greatest threat to their security. Carolinian settlers moved southwards, bringing them into conflicts with long-established Spanish colonists. The Carolinian settlers and their Creek Indian allies raided the Franciscan mission settlements of convert Indians repeatedly, and by 1706 their expeditions had destroyed most of the Spanish missions in Florida. Under the previous administration of interim governor Juan de Ayala y Escobar, the territory of La Florida had been attacked frequently by these restive tribes and the British, who continued to harass the Spanish, hoping to hinder their trade and force them to abandon the province. An energetic and active administrator despite his improprieties, Ayala regained the loyalty of many of the Indian leaders who had switched their allegiance to the British.
The Spanish Crown needed a colonial administrator of demonstrated competency to assume the governorship, address these threats and maintain Spanish domination of the region. Benavides, with his distinguished record in the Spanish military and the support of Philip V, was appointed royal military governor of La Florida. While British forces periodically launched incursions into Spanish Florida by land and sea, British traders were constantly expanding their networks of trade with the Indians, and acquiring more influence with the colonial government in Charles Town. When Benavides, a zealous reformer, arrived at St. Augustine in late 1718 to take Ayala's place, he launched an investigation into his predecessor's entrepreneurial activities, and accused Ayala of having engaged in contraband trade with British merchants while still in office. Ayala was arrested, briefly imprisoned in the Castillo and exiled to Havana. The case was not settled until 1731, years after Ayala's death in Havana in 1727.
Benavides familiarized himself with the immediate area by visiting the six Native American settlements around the city, where he was informed of their available resources and present needs. He relied on his colleagues to help implement his policies, having appointed competent persons of his choosing to positions in his administration. In his periodic official reports to the king, he countered complaints from the disaffected and their possibly distorted interpretations of his actions, informing him of the colony's status and explaining what reforms were needed. The king approved his policy and he continued as governor.
Relations with the Indians and the French The Spanish had burned and abandoned Mission San Luis de Apalachee in 1704 to prevent the British and their Indian allies from taking it, and did not return to Apalachee until 1718, when Benavides dispatched Captain Joseph Primo de Rivera to build a sturdier wooden fort near the coast at San Marcos de Apalachee, about twenty miles south of the ruined Mission San Luis, for a stronger defense against attackers. Rivera was instructed to erect a structure large enough to house a garrison of one hundred men, a supply storehouse, and a powder magazine.
Benavides wrote the king that by repopulating the country with settler families and dispatching five hundred soldiers to refortify it, Spain might reclaim its lost territory. Events in Europe were affecting those in the Southeast as the European powers maneuvered to assert their claims to colonial lands. France declared war on Spain during the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720), and on 14 May 1719, Pensacola was captured by Governor Bienville of French Louisiana, with a fleet of ships and a force of Indian warriors that met only token resistance from the Spanish. The French occupied Pensacola until August 1719, when a large Spanish force arrived and compelled the small French garrison to surrender.Bense, Judith A. Archaeology of colonial Pensacola. University Press of Florida, 1999. P.14Marley, David. Wars of the Americas: a chronology of armed conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present. ABC-Clio, 1998. P.242 This Spanish occupation lasted until 1 September, when a French fleet arrived to reassert French control. The Spanish soldiers garrisoned at the rebuilt blockhouse in Apalachee were ordered to St. Augustine, leaving the natives who had settled nearby to their own devices. In 1722, Pensacola was officially returned to Spanish control, though the French garrison did not withdraw until 1726.
In 1719, Governor Benavides began the construction of a second line of defenses in St. Augustine, completed in 1721: the Cubo Line on the north, joining the Rosario line on the west and the south, facing the San Sebastián River.
Subsequent years governing Florida (1721–1734)