After the successful founding of St. Augustine in 1565, the Spanish established a string of missions along the coast. Collectively called La Florida, this territory was a strategic location, offering Spanish galleons returning to Europe protection from privateers and pirates. It also provided a base to explore the interior of North America, as there was a belief that at least one of the rivers in the region would connect La Florida to the Gulf of Mexico or even the Pacific Ocean – a connection that would open the peninsula to the global market and to the gold and silver mines that it lacked.

La Florida’s 16th-century boundaries extended far beyond modern state limits. When Menéndez signed his contract, La Florida’s geographical limits, while still poorly understood, encompassed most of what are now the modern U.S. states of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and parts of Tennessee and Alabama.

External supply was difficult during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, leaving the citizenry of St. Augustine with many impoverished military families and not enough farmers to work the land. To ameliorate this, St. Augustine relied heavily upon an elaborate exchange network through which Native populations channeled their surplus food and labor into the colonial capital.

"By pledging allegiance and obedience to Spanish officials, Indigenous Timucua, Mocama, and Guale chiefs annexed a powerful military ally in the Spanish garrison at St. Augustine. In the process, the paramount chiefs of Spanish Florida not only created a new market for their agricultural surplus, but they also gained access to new tools and technologies to improve their yield. The caciques also readily converted their surpluses into Spanish goods (such as cloth, tools, beads, and such) and they received tribute from both the Spanish and their own people. The paramount chiefs thus continued to employ ostentatious displays of wealth and status items as a way to reinforce their hereditary status (Francis and Kole, 2011)."

The Spanish presence in La Florida wasn’t motivated solely by economics, however. The crown also wanted to save souls by converting the Indigenous population. In fact, conquistadores and explorers were required to include priests on their expeditions.