Susan Parker | Andres de San Miguel shares stories of time spent in St. Augustine

It was just at this time of the year 427 years ago on June 17, 1595, that Andres de San Miguel sailed out of St. Augustine on a frigate heading for Havana. The news article in The Record of June 16 about regulations to protect whales reminded me of San Miguel's voyage. Along the coast south of St. Augustine in the summer of 1595, San Miguel saw "a great many of the spinal bones of the whales which the Indians kill."

San Miguel had been in St. Augustine for a month, since the middle of May. He had been shipwrecked along the Georgia coast and made his way to St. Augustine. In our city he waited for passage on the ship that would sail to Havana, Cuba.

He wrote that, while in St. Augustine, he enjoyed fishing and clamming and eating oysters. Hmm. He sounds like a visitor of today.

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The ship carrying San Miguel southward to Havana hugged the coast. It sailed at a distance "never more than half a league (about 1.5 miles) off the shore." When the ship moved closer to shore, Native Americans came out in canoes, hoping to barter with the Spanish on board. San Miguel noted that the Native Americans rowed their canoes standing, using paddles about 6 feet long with blades about a half-foot wide.

San Miguel recounted that the Native Americans in the canoes would call out as the ship passed. "Lower the sails! Turtles, turtles! Fish, fish! Citron, citron!" He commented on how fast the canoes were and that they could usually catch up with the Spanish ship. Once on board the ship, the Native Americans traded their offerings for glass or metal items – fish for beads, needles and thread. They traded ambergris for knives, trinkets, machetes, axes and mirrors.

Ambergris was used in making perfume, although its source is not so pleasantly aromatic. Ambergris is produced in the digestive systems of whales. San Miguel wrote that the Native Americans believed that ambergris grew on the sea floor and was uprooted by strong waves. Either way, it came ashore with rough seas and the Native Americans collected the ambergris from the beach.

San Miguel did not witness the Native Americans hunt the whales. He was told that they did so with stakes and clubs, jumping atop the whale to disable it with their weapons. Then they waited for the sea to cast the whale ashore. They would cut the dead whale into strips and make jerked meat. These whale hunters ate the jerked meat themselves and also traded it with inland Native Americans. 

From his 16th century European perspective, San Miguel described the whale-hunting Native Americans of the area of Cape Canaveral in words that remind us of the Bible: "They neither sow nor gather, nor do they have any more concern for sustenance and clothing than do the beasts and the birds. They lack nothing and live to a very old age." He commented that "they are content with their lot." Or that was how he saw it.

San Miguel arrived in Havana 12 days after leaving St. Augustine. Now he was back in the Cuban city 111 days after he had sailed out of that harbor headed to Spain. His voyage turned into a shipwreck and shipwreck tale. His time spent in St. Augustine as a guest in the homes of soldiers here provides us with glimpses of our town when it was only 30 years old. He also talks about the St. Augustinians who he met — and fished with.

You can read Andres de San Miguel's journey for yourself and what he says of St. Augustine of long ago in the book “An Early Florida Adventure Story: The Fray Andres de San Miguel Account,” translated by historian John H. Hann.

Susan R. Parker holds a doctorate in colonial history.