Hernandez, Joseph M. (Joseph Marion), 1788-1857

<p>José Mariano Hernández or Joseph Marion Hernández (May 26, 1788 – June 8, 1857) was an American politician, plantation owner, and soldier. He was the first Delegate from the Florida Territory and the first Hispanic American to serve in the United States Congress. A member of the Whig Party, he served from September 1822 to March 1823.</p>

<p>José Mariano Hernández was born in St. Augustine, Florida during Florida's second Spanish period. His parents were Minorcans who had originally come to the region as indentured servants in Andrew Turnbull's New Smyrna colony. Prior to the American acquisition of Florida, Hernández owned three plantations south of St. Augustine (in what was then East Florida), San Jose, Mala Compra, and Bella Vista, the last of which is now Washington Oaks State Gardens.</p>

<p>He married the widowed Ana María Hill Williams on February 25, 1814 in St. Augustine. Ana María Hill was born on June 6, 1787 in St. Augustine, and was the daughter of the South Carolinian merchant Theophilus Hill, and his wife Theresa Thomas. The Hills had immigrated from South Carolina by the 1780s, Hernández and his wife had at least one child, Dora Hernández and several daughters of the family married into the Sánchez de Ortigosa family.</p>

<p>When Spain ceded the Floridas to the United States in the Adams–Onís Treaty in 1819, Hernández pledged his allegiance to the U.S. After the organization of the Florida Territory, he was elected Florida's first Delegate to the United States House of Representatives, and was approved by President James Monroe on September 30, 1822. He thus became the first Hispanic ever to serve in the U.S. Congress. He served for six months, leaving office on March 3, 1823.</p>

<p>Joseph Hernández, the first Hispanic Member of Congress and the first Territorial Delegate to represent Florida, bridged his state’s cultural and governmental transition from Spanish colony to U.S. territory. Hernández fought first for Spain and later for the United States; he also earned—and lost—a fortune that included three plantations and numerous slaves. His complex life and career as a slave-owning, Indian-fighting politician cut from Jacksonian cloth embodied conflicting attitudes toward statehood, representation, and territorial conquest. Though brief, his service to the territory set an effective precedent, prompting the Washington City Gazette to declare, a “compliment is due to the zeal and industry of the honourable delegate from Florida, who during the session, appeared at all times attentive to the objects connected with the prosperity of his constituents and the interests of the Territory.”</p>

<p>José Mariano Hernández was born on May 26, 1788, in St. Augustine, Spanish Florida. He was the third of 10 children and the first son of Martín Hernández, Jr., and Dorotea Gomila, immigrants from the island of Minorca. The Hernándezes settled in St. Augustine in 1784, living in the northern section of the city, dubbed the Minorcan Quarter. Local residents earned their livelihoods by farming, fishing, and making handcrafts. Although the Hernándezes were not among St. Augustine’s elite families, Martín Hernández was a skilled laborer and a slave owner, indicating that the family had some wealth. José Hernández attended local schools run by Catholic priests and worked with his father in carpentry. As an adolescent, he was educated in Savannah, Georgia, and Havana, Cuba. He returned to East Florida in 1811 after studying law, most likely in Cuba.</p>

<p>During the Second Spanish Period (1783–1821), Spain regained territory lost to the British in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763). At that time, the Florida peninsula was divided between East and West Florida. One historian describes Spanish East Florida as a “province virtually devoid of people, a place rich in land but poor in inhabitants.” By 1811 the population numbered barely 4,000. St. Augustine and Fernandina, both coastal ports, were its only urban centers. The remainder of East Florida was “a scattering of forts, cotton and rice plantations, citrus groves, farms, cattle-ranching operations, sawmills, and lumber camps.” Many of the colonial properties were nestled along the St. Marys, Nassau, and St. Johns Rivers. The area’s major landmarks were military installations that guarded important routes on the rivers. East Florida society was a “small, somewhat self-contained world, one in which Spanish officials had to carefully balance Crown prerogatives against local needs and … defend Spanish interests with limited resources. Political life revolved entirely around the governor in his dealings with various factions of settlers.” As a result of East Florida’s physical isolation, small tax base, and limited funding from the Spanish government, local officials sought regional trade opportunities. In the 1790s, East Florida increased its trade with neighbors such as Mexico, Cuba, and the United States. However, territorial ambitions, economic competition, and distinct cultural differences between East Florida and its northern neighbors in Georgia and the Mississippi Territory poisoned their relations and plunged the region into armed conflict. In 1790 the king of Spain spurred increased settlement—and possible conflicts—by offering homestead grants to U.S. citizens.</p>

HERNÁNDEZ, Joseph Marion, a Delegate from the Territory of Florida; born in St. Augustine, Fla. (then a Spanish colony), May 26, 1788; transferred his allegiance to the United States; upon the formation of Florida Territory was elected as a Delegate to the Seventeenth Congress and served from September 30, 1822, to March 3, 1823; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Eighteenth Congress in 1823 and Nineteenth Congress in 1825; member and presiding officer of the Territorial house of representatives, 1824-1825; appointed brigadier general of Volunteers in the war against the Florida Indians; entered the United States service and served from 1835 to 1838; commanded the expedition in 1837 that captured the Indian chief Oceola; appointed brigadier general of Mounted Volunteers in July 1837; unsuccessful Whig candidate for the United States Senate in 1845; moved to Cuba and engaged as a planter in the District of Coliseo, near Matanzas; died at the family's sugar estate, ``Audaz,'' in the District of Coliseo, Matanzas Province, Cuba, June 8, 1857; interment in the Junco family vault in San Carlos Cemetery, Matanzas, Cuba.