Juan de Ayala y Escobar
| Juan de Ayala y Escobar | |
|---|---|
| 33rd Royal Governor of La Florida | |
|
In office 30 Oct 1716 – 3 Aug 1718 |
|
| Preceded by | Pedro de Olivera y Fullana |
| Succeeded by | Antonio de Benavides |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1635 Havana, Cuba or Córdoba, Spain |
| Died | May 28, 1727 |
| Profession | Politician and soldier |
Juan Francisco Buenaventura de Ayala Escobar (1635 – May 28, 1727) was a prominent Spanish soldier and administrator who governed Spanish Florida from October 30, 1716, to August 3, 1718. The succeeding governor, Antonio de Benavides, a zealous reformer, accused Ayala of trading in contraband with the English, and had him arrested and briefly jailed in the Castillo de San Marcos of St. Augustine. He was eventually exiled to Cuba, where he died in 1727, before he was exonerated and all charges dropped in 1731.
According to most historians writing in English, Ayala was born in Havana in 1635, although the Cuban historian Francisco Xavier de Santa Cruz states that he was baptized in the Cathedral of Córdoba in 1650. As a young man, Ayala sailed for two decades on Spanish merchant vessels in the Caribbean, where he learned established trade routes and how to navigate the channels and harbors of the islands and mainland coastlines. He eventually settled in Cuba, where he married the daughter of the adjutant to the sergeant major of the presidio of Havana and decided to join the Royal Spanish Army. In 1677 he was made a captain of infantry, and in 1683 he was made warden of the garrison at the presidio of St. Augustine, serving as lieutenant of the Castillo, with the honorary rank of reformado captain.
In September 1686, Ayala sailed to Spain to request more men to supplement the garrison in St. Augustine; the Junta de Guerra (Board of War) promised him 100 soldiers of infantry, although he returned to Florida with only 80 men. He took advantage of his official supply runs to Havana in the presidio's ship to purchase food and other supplies, which he resold in his own supply store in St. Augustine, as well as selling goods from his own home. In the years when the royal subsidy, or situado, was late in coming or never arrived at all, and the people of the city were on the verge of starving, he illegally obtained food from the English merchants of South Carolina to sell in his store at grossly inflated prices. Even the garrison soldiers were forced to buy meat and flour from him, paying with what little credit remained against their future wages.
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