Diego de Rebolledo

Diego de Rebolledo y Suárez de Aponte, was the 21st colonial governor of Spanish Florida (La Florida), in office from June 18, 1654 to February 20, 1659. He is considered by historians to be one of the more controversial governors of Spanish colonial Florida. Rebolledo showed a marked lack of respect for the status of the Timucua chiefs as hereditary leaders and administrative intermediaries, an attitude that provoked a Timucuan uprising against Spanish rule. Rebolledo was a Knight of the Order of Santiago.

Governor of Florida Diego de Rebolledo, the son of a former royal treasurer of Cartagena, Spain, was appointed governor of the Spanish province of La Florida on March 24, 1653, and began his term on June 18, 1654, at Saint Augustine, the capital of the province. Food was scarce in Florida and prices were high during Rebolledo's administration, which circumstance benefited the governor directly. Contemporary documents indicate that Rebolledo sold wine and chocolate, among other items, at high prices to the local inhabitants.

Relations with the Indians

Rebolledo had little experience in colonial government when he arrived in Florida,

Royal treasurer Joseph de Prado took measures to assert his control of the King's alms to the Indians, the gasto de indios, and in December 1654, sent a letter to the Spanish Crown explaining that Rebolledo must cease this commercial activity and that the clothes given to the Indian chiefs should be donated out of the royal stores. Prado maintained that gifts should be distributed only by the quartermaster and should be independent of the treasurer's account in order to control costs. Nevertheless, Rebolledo asserted that the governor should oversee the distribution of gifts and that if he neglected to provide them, the Indians might rebel.

The fiscal, i.e., the royal attorney-general, of the Consejo de Indias (Council of the Indies) ruled in favor of Prado in 1656, finding that Rebolledo engaged in illegal activities to enrich himself during his administration, and exploited the Indians as well as the Spanish soldiers stationed in Florida. Rebollero bought goods in Havana and developed a barter trade with the Indians of South Florida, trading iron tools and other goods in exchange for amber which he sold in Havana, even paying the royal taxes. Thus the traditional diplomacy of giving presents to establish relationships with the various tribes was replaced by a commerce that personally benefited the governor. A royal inquiry noted in 1660 that Rebolledo had refused to offer a visiting chieftain the customary reception, and neglected to follow custom and invite him to dinner at the governor's. The former provincial governor, Pedro Benedit Horruytiner, criticized Rebollero for dealing only with the Indians of the coast, saying that he should offer gifts to all the Indian chiefs.

Timucuan Revolt When Rebolledo got news from the king in April 1656 of the British seizure of Jamaica the previous May; the king warned that they would next attack Florida, and ordered the activation of the Indian militias, summoning five hundred Indians from the Guale, Apalachee and Timucuan towns to help defend the Presidio of St. Augustine. The Timucua chiefs were so outraged that they organized a revolt against the Spanish in 1656. Unlike during previous Indian uprisings, no Franciscans were killed.

Governor Rebolledo led an expedition of Spanish troops and Indian warriors from Guale against the Timucua revolt to pacify the region,

In 1657, Governor Rebolledo ordered the removal of Indians from the remote towns of Ybica and Oconi to repopulate Mission Nombre de Dios, located at the spot where Pedro Menéndez landed when he founded St. Augustine. Its Indian inhabitants had tended the fields of the presidio until a large percentage of them died in a smallpox epidemic. Though the petition to erect St. Augustine into a bishopric went to Rome, the matter was never taken up, and Florida remained part of the Diocese of Santiago de Cuba until 1709. Although Rebolledo obtained the approval of the Council for Saint Augustine's erection, the city did not become an Episcopal seat.

On February 20, 1659, Rebolledo finished his term as governor of Florida, and was succeeded by Alonso de Aranguiz y Cortés.