A fine sociological portrait… A very successful case-study of the East Florida governorship in the first six years of Spain’s return to the peninsular province. – American

Excellent… Recaptures the texture of life in the late eighteenth-century Florida with… an enthusiasm and ingenuousness… that should win over the most scrupulous critic. Florida history needs more indefatigable investigators like Tanner. – Florida Historical Quarterly

As East Florida’s first governor during the Second Spanish Period, Vicente Manual Zespedes y Valasco had to reshape colonial institutions to fit the Spanish mold and to redefine the relationship of his colony to the new United States, the French and English, and the Indians. At the same time he had to cope with myriad internal problems. In this informative and entertaining biographical history, Tanner skillfully interweaves historical narratives with intimate personal details of life in eighteenth-century St. Augustine.