When you visit St Augustine, you will hear the word “Minorcan” many, many times. One of the questions I am most frequently asked is “What is a Minorcan?”
A Minorcan is a person or a descendant of a person associated with a large group of Mediterranean settlers who came to the New World in the summer of 1768 to populate and establish a community south of St Augustine now called New Smyrna Beach.
So how did the Minorcans end up at New Smyrna Beach?
In 1763, the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Seven Years’ War, traded possession of Florida from Spain to England in exchange for Havana. Thus began the 21 years in St Augustine’s history known as the “British Period.” In order to make St Augustine attractive to wealthy British settlers, The Crown offered 20,000 acre land grants to anyone who would move to Florida and work the land and establish businesses and plantations.
A certain Dr Andrew Turnbull, born in Scotland and who moved in high-society circles in London, heard of this wonderful opportunity and a plan formed in his head: Why not put together a group of investors, apply for a large land grant, and populate it with indentured servants instead of paying for slave labor to clear, plant and work that land?
So Turnbull applied for (and got) his land grant. He named it New Smyrna in honor of his Greek wife’s birthplace.
Turnbull had travelled extensively in the Mediterranean area and he knew it well. He had it in his mind that the people of the region would be perfect to populate and settle his new colony in Florida. He reasoned that Florida and the Mediterranean areas were similar in environment so he went there to recruit indentured servants for his venture. He intended to recruit 500 Greeks but had a surprise waiting for him when he arrived. Living conditions on the island of Minorca had been bad in the past few years, and hundreds of Minorcans were willing to take a chance and leave their home for a better life. Turnbull promised the people that if any became homesick or discontented with their new life, he would send them back to their home.
The people signed up. How could they lose?
They lost badly. Turnbull was prepared to bring back 500 settlers; he left Minorca with 1403 Greek, Italian and Minorcan men, women and children. He arrived in Florida with roughly 800 settlers, who became known collectively as “the Minorcans.” The group expected to find New Smyrna cleared and housing already in place as Turnbull had promised. However, the ship carrying the slave labor Turnbull had intended to do those tasks had gone down at sea and all souls were lost. Therefore, the New Smyrna colonists were rushed to build their own homes, clear the land, plant the land, gather and store enough food for the coming winter—and not necessarily in that order. To Turnbull, clearing and planting were paramount.
Several years passed, and as the terms of indenture began to be fulfilled for many of the colonists, it became clear that Turnbull was either unable to or had no intention of releasing them from their contracts. According to depositions given by some of the workers, he refused to return any of them to their homeland when requested. So, under cover of darkness and encouraged by their spiritual leader, Father Pedro Camps, three leaders of the community swam and walked to St Augustine to beg help from then Governor Patrick Tonyn. Governor Tonyn, no great friend to Andrew Turnbull, provided the requested help.
In 1777, the Minorcan colonists abandoned the New Smyrna settlement and walked to St Augustine to start over. Turnbull was left ruined and in enormous debt, while many of the Minorcan colonists did a quite respectable job of building new lives. Many of St Augustine’s residents today are descendants of those Greek, Italian and Minorcan peoples, and the influence of those colonists and their cultures are still seen and felt all over the city.
Opinions on Dr Turnbull, his motives, and his outcome are varied. Some believe he never had any intention of keeping his word to his workers in the first place. Others believe his timing was bad. He may have had the best of intentions, but bringing more than the 500 workers he’d planned for and losing the temporary slave labor he’d needed caused his downfall.
I’ve been fascinated with this story for years, and spent hours in the St Augustine Historical Society Research Library digging through piles of information about Dr Turnbull and about New Smyrna. I tend to lean toward the “best of intentions” theory. In context, I can see how the New Smyrna colony was doomed from the start, but the doctor had no way of knowing that until it was too late.
Again, in context, this was the time of no cell phones, fax machines, or email. This man thought he was sending four shiploads of people to a plantation with homes and the necessary infrastructure to support them. After all, he’d arranged for all that before he headed to the Mediterranean area. In a time before phones, text messaging, and email, he had no way of knowing his plans had fallen through until he actually arrived back in Florida after successfully recruiting so many workers. At that point, he was in over his head and had no choice but to salvage what he could. It is bitterly unfortunate that he did that at the cost of so many lives.
The history of St Augustine is rich with its Greek, Italian, and Minorcan influence. While it hurts my heart to think of what these people went through, it makes me smile to walk through my town and see the marks they left and still continue to leave there.
St Augustine is the town it is because of the hearts that have beaten within it for nearly 450 years. I’m grateful for the contribution of every culture and the marks that every person who ever lived there has left on it.