Abstract
There are few population censuses for colonial Florida. For Pensacola, there are two civil name censuses for the second Spanish period, 1781-1821; one prepared under the direction of Governor Arturo O’Neill in 1784, and another directed by Governor José Callava in 1820. Other censuses of a statistical nature also exist, but like the name censuses, they were taken only periodically. A third list of Pensacola names was found among the records in the Spanish archives; Bishop Cirilo de Barcelona’s report of his Santa Visita (Holy Visit) of 1791 contained ninety-seven names of Pensacola residents who had complied with the annual Easter precept of communion and confession. In addition, the confirmation lists for Pensacola and Fort San Carlos de Barrancas of 1798 from the archives of St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans provided several hundred more names of area residents. Until recently those four lists of names: 1784, 1791, 1798, and 1820, were the only convenient source of Pensacola names for the forty-year period between the Spanish occupation of Pensacola on May 10, 1781, and July 17, 1821, when the Spaniards officially turned the city over to Andrew Jackson.
Recommended Citation
Society, Florida Historical
(1982)
"Religious Censuses of Pensacola, 1796-1801,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 61:
No.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol61/iss1/7
