Pablo de Hita y Salazar
[1] Hita y Salazar joined the Spanish army as a youth, serving in Flanders, Germany, Mexico and in the Cambray War over the course of forty years.
[2] Hita y Salazar's performance at San Juan de Ulúa and his experience in the Flanders war led to this appointment as Governor of Florida.
Once he became governor, plans were made to construct a new masonry fortress, the Castillo de San Marcos, to replace the series of wooden structures that had previously defended the presidio.
He also explained that he thought any attacker who arrived in St. Augustine would try to conquer it and hold Anastasia Island, cutting off resupply fleets and bombarding the castle.
To protect the island and prevent an invasion, Hita y Salazar decided that its engineers should build a four-armed redoubt, to be placed on the coast near the El Pinillo inlet (which no longer exists) of the Matanzas River, guarding access to St. Augustine.
It seemed that many of Hita y Salazar's decisions may have been influenced by a false idea that there was an army on Anastasia Island that could bombard the castle and cut off supply lines.
[4] Hita y Salazar sent a plane to the Viceroy of New Spain, Payo Enríquez de Rivera, explaining the state the Fort was in and that his advance, foundations, tanks and bastions that were being built.
On October 14, 1676, the Real Accounts sent another letter to the crown that indicated a long list of expenses, changes and delays made by the Governor Hita y Salazar, including the wages paid to workers, even when they had done nothing significant.
On November 30, of that year, with the arrival of the new governor of the province, Juan Márquez Cabrera, Hita y Salazar gave him a report that included a detailed outline of the progress made by in the city up until that time.
In this report, he explained the many changes he made in the castle (which he considered insufficient) and included the plans of Apalache, Guale and San Marcos, as references on what he had done.
Governor Cabrera made a series of investigations that concluded the numbers of materials and structures carried out in St. Augustine by Hita y Salazar, and those that he indicated to have done in the castle.
Cabrera's engineers found many errors in the structures that Hita y Salazar had ordered to be built, especially some walls and bastions which were unstable because their bases were incomplete.
The former Governor Hita y Salazar blamed the discrepancy on his engineer, Lajon Lorenzo, who he said had provided him the data to produce these pieces.
