Manuel de Cendoya

Manuel de Cendoya
24th Governor of La Florida
In office July 6, 1671 – July 8, 1673
Preceded by	Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega
Succeeded by	Nicolás Ponce de León II
Personal details
Born	early 17th century
Died	July 8, 1673 Saint Augustine, Florida
Profession	Soldier and administrator (governor of Florida)

Manuel de Cendoya (? – 1673) was a Spanish soldier who served as governor of Florida from mid-1671 to mid-1673. His administration is remembered primarily for initiating construction of the Castillo de San Marcos, a masonry fortress whose building had first been ordered by Cendoya's predecessor, Governor Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega, after the destructive raid of the English privateer Robert Searle in 1668. Work proceeded in 1671, although the first stone was not laid until 1672.

Manuel de Cendoya was born in the early 17th century. As a youth, he joined the Spanish army, where he learned military engineering. During his 22 years of service, he fought in several military campaigns to capture enemy strongholds in Extremadura, Guipúzcoa, Flanders, and Italy, eventually attaining the rank of Sergeant major

On July 6, 1671, when Cendoya was in Cadiz, Spain, he was appointed royal governor and captain general of Florida. He left Cadiz for Florida the same year with his wife and his two children.

Before assuming the governorship, Cendoya sailed to Mexico in November 1671 to receive the appropriated funds and consult with the Viceroy of New Spain, Sebastián de Toledo, and his military engineers about the construction of a new fort to defend the colony. The present one was a small structure with four bastions made of timbers that were being undermined by tidal waters. It was decided that Cendoya should build a second small wooden fort at the St. Augustine inlet of the Matanzas River (actually a tidal lagoon), and a third to prevent troop landings, as well as a large masonry fort to defend the capital of La Florida. To build all this would require thirty thousand pesos, but then news arrived of the establishment of Charles Town in the British colony of Carolina. Consequently, Cendoya suggested building a fourth fort at Santa Catalina de Guale as well to prevent British incursions southward. Cendoya gave orders the same year for surveying the grounds where the new blockhouses and the fortress would be erected.

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