Above: The Queen's Redoubt's magazine explodes, ensuring the capture of British Penscacola by Bernardo de Gálvez's allied Franco-Spanish forces, May 8, 1781

Santa Rosa, ca. 1700-1750 (Below)

Named for the Santa Rosa Pensacola colony (1723-1752) where several examples of the typology were recovered in the 1960s, this is a heavy and quite crudely made cast brass buckle form with a flat lateral profile, steeply beveled edges, and an elongated "Figure 8" configuration. Many examples exhibit file abrasion scars on frame edges and/or faces. The typology's frame elements have recurvate inner frame contours. The examples shown were recovered from sites in Florida and Louisiana.

Above: View of Santa Rosa Pensacola settlement in the 1740s. Located on Santa Rosa Island's Punta Sigüenza, the colony was all but totally destroyed by a hurricane in 1752.  Five years later, the population of Panzacola was officially ordered to relocate at its present site.

Unclassified Flared Buckle Form

A ca. 1720-1750 contemporary of the SANTA ROSA buckles shown above, this cast brass belt or strap buckle exhibits flared outer frame elements, steeply beveled edges, and smoothed abrasion marks on its edges and face. Its original flattened brass tine is intact. Displaying better than average workmanship and finishing characteristics, this may have been used by a commissioned or noncommissioned officer.

Punta Sigüenza, ca. 1730-1780

An example of the small cast brass strap fastener form shown at right was included in the assemblage of artifacts excavated at the site of Santa Rosa Pensacola (1723-1752); others have been recovered from wrecksites of the 1733 Spanish treasure fleet, the city of Pensacola, and the site of Gálveztown, Louisiana (established 1779). A very similar example was also recovered during excavations at the fortification of El Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1961.This buckle form is exceptionally well made and finished and imparts a deceptively later appearance than evidenced by its known and widely distributed provenances of discovery. The classification's members feature well-formed, rectangular outer frame configurations with recessed, rectangular center bars as shown in the lateral views presented. Examples studied do not bear evidence of the buckles ever having had tongues/tines, and in all probability served as sliding or adjustable friction fasteners rather than buckles in a conventional sense. The quality of their fabrication suggests peninsular Spanish manufacture.

Unclassified Ovoid Buckle Forms

Ovoid/ovalized "figure 8" or "spectacle" shaped buckle forms remained popular with the Spanish military establishment from the late medieval period into the 19th century. The forms shown here probably served as musket, fusil, or carbine sling buckles. The example on the far right in the illustration at right is of the ca. 1700-1750 period.  The example shown at far left, which is well finished on its outer surface but has coarse file abrasion scars on its reverse face like those seen on Gálvez type examples shown later on this page, is of the ca. 1780-1820 period.

Embellished Oval Strap Buckle

This presently unclassified double-frame Spanish strap buckle is a contemporary of the early beveled buckle forms shown at the top of this section and falls within a ca. 1700-1750 temporal range. Its incised embellishments, though simple, combine with its relatively skillful quality of fabrication and finishing characteristics to suggest that this may have been made for and used by an officer. Its center bar originally mounted an iron tongue. A virtually identical example was recovered from the wrecksites of the 1715 treasure fleet.

Heavy Cast Small Strap Buckles, Ca. 1700-1750

These robust forms may have served as harness strap/saddlery or small accoutrement buckles.  Concentrated in Spanish West Florida, the SAN MIGUEL (shown at far left and right in the accompanying photograph) features beveled inner and outer edges and a "Figure 8" configuration. The other, unclassified type at center is of the same period.

Nueva Orleans, ca. 1760-1780

Similar to some British belt and strap buckles of the period, these Spanish double frame buckles have one oval loop and one extended, "D"-shaped loop; these oval-D types appear to have been introduced just prior to or at the time that Spain evacuated Florida in 1763 and, soon thereafter, occupied Louisiana.  They were phased out of use during the period of the American War for Independence.

Cast Neck Stock Hasps, Ca. 1750-1790

These heavy cast brass adjustable hasps fastened the cravats or neck stocks of linen (or, more rarely, leather) that encircled Spanish soldiers' necks during the mid-to-late eighteenth century.  Secured to the ends of their neck stocks by the raised studs shown, these examples almost certainly (and uncomfortably) adorned the necks of enlisted men.  Officers' examples had articulated chapes (hinged hasp and tines/tongues) or were more delicately constructed.

Grenadero, Ca. 1760-1790

Named for the men who wore them, these buckles were worn on the wide shoulder straps of grenadiers in the Spanish military establishment.  Similar to other such buckles worn by other European armies, these examples bear more subtle than overt evidences of their Spanish pedigrees.  The buckle form shown here was phased out of use at or near the close of the eighteenth century.

Ca. 1730-1750s Shoe Buckle Frames

By the 1730s, Spanish military shoe buckles of the land services had assumed the configurations that they would retain for half a century, although they would increase somewhat in overall size as time passed. This classic Spanish military shoe buckle frame configuration featured a rounded rectangular to ovate outer buckle frame contour and a gently recurvate inner frame contour. The example at left is an officer's shoe buckle frame from the site of Santa Rosa Pensacola, while that at right is an enlisted issue version of the same general pattern and period of use.

Ca. 1740-1785 Shoe Buckles and Frames

Growing larger and heavier in construction through time, Spanish army shoe buckles varied from very crude to exceptionally well crafted in construction.  A complete and very crudely made example is at left; at right are shown a variety of Spanish military shoe buckle frames.  Particularly unusual is the lower left example from the site of Gálveztown, Louisiana (founded 1779) with knobby inner frame protrusions.

Above:   This subtype's iron or brass tine was mounted like those of most of its European counterparts: on the buckle's center bar, extending to its outer frame edge.  Large and small variations of this form are shown.  No small examples of the notched frame types shown at right have been observed, and it is possible that the small buckle type shown here was used in conjunction with all the Gálvez subtypes.

Gálvez, ca. 1780-1820

This family of belt and strap buckles consists of three closely related double framed subtypes separated typologically by their tongue placement configurations. Each has a rectangular outer frame with rounded corners and coarse abrasion scars on its reverse face, which is heavily beveled along its inner frame edges (see illustration at lower right).  Introduced by 1780, these Spanish regular military issue buckles remained in use until the end of the American colonial period.

The most commonly encountered subtype (above and below) has a single looped wire tine extending from a notch on its outer frame across its center bar.

The minority subtype above features two, rather than one, frame notches and wire tongues.

"Belly Box" Buckles, Ca. 1780-1820

The "belly box" was a waistbelt-mounted cartridge pouch worn during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  These rectangular buckles fastened Spanish military "belly box" assemblies.  Note the heavy guage plain wire tines on the example at right; this simple tongue form comprises a characteristic attribute of Spanish military buckle types for over a century, having seen use by the 1720s through the end of the Spanish colonial period.

Knee Buckle Varieties, Ca. 1740-1800

Knee buckles fastened cloth straps that secured the bottoms of the knee-length breeches that remained fashionable until the early nineteenth century in the Spanish military establishment.  A grouping of cast brass Spanish military knee buckles is shown at left; the most common form, classified as the SAN CARLOS type and shown in the illustration's upper left, upper right, and lower center positions, had squared to slightly rounded corners and iron articulating parts (which are nearly always absent from excavated examples).

Silver Knee Buckle, Ca. 1720-1750

Shown in enlarged scale to illustrate construction details, the components of this small, military pattern knee buckle were cast in solid silver and assembled utilizing a brass hinge pin. Recovered from a site that was subjected to intensive Spanish military activity immediately prior to and during General James Oglethorpe's 1740 invasion of Florida, the high platinum content of the metal (a characteristic of Mexican silver) suggests that this artifact may have been made in Mexico.

Small Strap Buckle Types

Shown here is a group of very small Spanish strap buckles of the eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries.  The examples shown at left and right in the bottom row are garter buckles which secured thin linen or leather straps that, worn just above or below the knee, held the knee or thigh-length stockings of the period in place.  The forms shown at left and center of the top row are most commonly encountered within ca. 1790-1820 contexts.

Sword Belt Buckle, Ca. 1808-1814

Missing one of its two identical oval belt retaining elements, this cast brass serpentine "S"-hooked buckle, though of Spanish usage, was almost certainly made by the English during the 1808-1814 period of the Anglo-Spanish alliance against the forces of Napoleonic France. These saw use by Spanish officers in Europe as well as throughout Spain's colonies in the New World. Some of these, captured from or left behind by Spanish forces in New Spain, were worn by Mexican military units as late as the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The example shown was recovered, along with numerous Spanish 1757 and 1789 pattern fusil parts, in construction debris in Pensacola, Florida.

Lion's Head Strap Buckle, Ca. 1808-1814

Probably serving as a sabretache buckle, this originally gilded cast brass accessory was recovered from a late Spanish colonial military occupation site in northwest Florida.  Only a small mound of corrosion remains of its original center bar mounted iron tongue. Like the sword belt buckle shown above, this was in all probability a product of English manufacture for the Spanish military establishment during the Napoleonic period.

Spanish Patriotic Buckle, Ca. 1780-1800

Closing this section is a unique, large Spanish patriotic knee buckle frame (or, possibly, a small shoe buckle frame) in the collection of the Pensacola Historical Society. Of stamped brass foil with a white metal alloy core, this example's edges are embellished with small text frames enclosing, in sections, the phrase "VIVAN Y PROSPEREN LAS ARMAS DE ESPAÑA" ("Live and Prosper the Arms of Spain").