page_title: Jesse Fish
section_title: Mid-career
hierarchical_section_title: Jesse Fish / Mid-career
caption_attribution_description: English: Governors house, St. Augustine, Florida. November 1764
context_page_description: Jesse Fish was a shipmaster, merchant, and realtor who lived in St. Augustine, Florida under both Spanish and British rule, and is infamous in the town's history to this day. He was a schemer involved in contraband trade and illegal real estate deals, and operated as a slaver, smuggler, and usurer. By his slaver activities Fish introduced most of the bozales, or African-born slaves, registered in Spanish Florida during the decade preceding Spain's cession of Florida to Great Britain. He has been accused of spying for England and Spain as a double agent during the Seven Years’ War, but there is no evidence to support the claim.
  Little is known about Jesse Fish's life, although records of some of his business associations and dealings exist. He was born in Newtown on Long Island in New York, where his ancestors had acquired substantial property in the 1600s. His father, Capt. Thomas Fish, married Elizabeth Kip, daughter of Jesse Kip of Newtown, in 1717. Jesse was born in 1724 or 1726, and arrived in St.
context_section_description: When he reached adulthood, Fish worked for the Walton Company as a factor. The New York partnership won a contract to furnish Spanish Florida provisions and supplies when the Royal Havana Company of Cuba was unable to meet the province's demand for trade goods. Illegal trade with the English supplemented St. Augustine's scant agricultural production and the unreliable situado, or royal subsidy. By 1726, the Waltons were shipping staple items into the port, and Fish eventually became their agent. He and his employers prospered, and although loyal to his Protestant faith, Fish was a respected businessman in the Catholic town of St. Augustine.
  When Florida was ceded to the British in 1763, almost the entire Spanish population of St. Augustine emigrated to Cuba and elsewhere in New Spain, being promised restitution, new grants of land and employment opportunities. Many Floridanos believed that the Protestant English would not permit free practice of their Catholic faith, giving them a further incentive to leave. More than 3700 people embarked from the presidio of St. Augustine and its outposts between April 1763 and February 1764.
  The Floridanos were allowed by the terms of the Treaty of Paris to sell their property to English subjects within a period of eighteen months, but few buyers were found, leaving Spanish agents unable to dispose of St. Augustine properties. After the last of the emigrants had left, Juan José Elixio de la Puente, formerly chief official of the royal accountancy (Oficial mayor de la Royal Contaduria), returned to St. Augustine from Havana with an appointment to dispose of the remaining Spanish property.
  Because the incoming British soldiers had little money, and civilian settlers hoped to receive outright grants of land from the British Crown, few of them were interested in acquiring Spanish real estate. Under these conditions and with the uncertainty of future sales, Puente was eventually compelled to transfer all the unsold Spanish property to an agent who would represent its owners. In July 1764, most of the houses, lots, and lands, amounting to almost 200 estates in and around St. Augustine, were conveyed from Puente to Fish.
  This agreement with the Spaniards was fraught with peril for Fish; it was an illicit transaction, and as a British subject he could be charged with treason if it was discovered. Fish previously had been involved in another illegal enterprise: in the autumn of 1762, when St. Augustine was bereft of supplies, Fish, Puente, and John Gordon, the well-to-do Scottish Catholic merchant from Charles Town, had smuggled provisions in from South Carolina to prevent the settlement from starving. This was an act of treason for British subjects in a time of war between England and Spain. Even so, by 1765 Fish controlled most of the property in the city, holding more than one third of the lots and more than one-half of the private houses.
  Fish bought some of the properties for his own investment portfolio, paying low prices for the city plots he intended to sell later. Substantial property in St. Augustine was purchased in the names of Jesse's uncle, Jacob Kip, William Walton, and Enoc Barton, who had lived with Fish and his son as a youth.
  Most of the remaining houses and lots were purchased individually by English settlers needing homes for their families. Fish also acquired more than forty two acres of land outside the presidio, about one-fourth of the occupied area, while a few English speculators secured the rest of the available property surrounding the town for future sale. A total of 185 structures and lots were appraised at over 6,000 pesos; he obtained control of several church properties as well.
  In the confidential arrangement with Puente, Fish agreed to dispose of the unsold properties when immigration increased and after real estate prices recovered, even beyond the time constraints imposed by the Treaty of 1763. The proceeds, minus his realty expenses, were to be paid through Juan Puente. Fish's critics accuse him of failing to transmit some of the receipts and of charging ex
caption: Governors house, St. Augustine, Florida. November 1764
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