Anglo -Spanish rivalry and the development of the colonial Southeast, 1670--1720

This study investigates the role played by the rivalry between English Carolina and Spanish Florida in the history of the colonial Southeast from the mid-seventeenth century through the 1720s. It contends that, from standpoint of the local inhabitants, Native American and European, both the perceived and the actual threat that Spanish Florida and Carolina posed to one another was the dominant concern and motivation of the actions of both during the roughly fifty year period from the founding of Charleston to the final events of the Yamassee War. at the local level, government officials, Indian traders, Franciscan missionaries, the various Indian tribes, runaway slaves, and all others living in this borderland region contended daily with the rivalry between Carolina and Spanish Florida. Only with the resolution of this threat could Carolina and thus the British emerge as the dominant colonial power in the Southeast. The dissertation seeks to reanalyze the events of this period within the framework of this rivalry and to do so by blending comprehensive research in the available documentary evidence available for both South Carolina and Spanish Florida