Arnau History

Our Arnau ancestors originally came from Catalonia, the northeast area of Spain where the country merges with France. Around 1560, our ancestors settled in Minorca, one of the three Balearic Isles off the northeast coast of Spain. The family resided there for over two hundred years. In 1768, shortly after both Minorca and Florida had become English possessions, an English physician, Dr. Stephen Turnbull, decided to found a new colony in Florida as a commercial venture. Due to a significant food shortage in Minorca resulting from prolonged drought, Turnbull was able to recruit families from that island as indentured workers to found his new colony called New Smyrna about 70 miles south of St. Augustine, Florida. The main purpose of Turnbull’s colony was to grow and process indigo to make blue dye. Due to deprivation, disease and poor management on Turnbull’s part, the colony failed after nine years. Some interesting facts:

- 49 year old Francisco Arnau and his wife, Antonia Planells, of San Felipe, Minorca along with their six children sailed for Florida in April 1768 with the other indentured families. Antonia’s seventh child was born at sea during the voyage. Of the 1403 colonists that departed Mahon, Minorca in 1768, 11% (148) died during the three month voyage.

- At the colony of New Smyrna in 1770, Francisco and Antonia’s eldest son, Francisco Planells Arnau, married Clara Prats Pretos of Ibiza. Their first three children were born at the New Smyrna colony.

- As indentured workers, the colonists were not much above the level of slaves. (Turnbull actually employed former slave overseers from the Carolinas as supervisors.)

- When the colony failed in 1777, the approximately 600 survivors including offspring, moved to St. Augustine. Of the original 1,403 colonists that sailed from Minorca in 1768 and their ensuing offspring, 1112 had died during the nine years of the colony, primarily due to deprivation and disease,

- When they moved to St. Augustine in 1777, Francisco and Clara Arnau lived in a house just inside the city gates on the west side of St. George St. The site is now the wooded area just north of the “Oldest School House”. (The family remained in that house for at least two generations as shown in both English and Spanish census records).

- One of Francisco and Clara Arnau’s sons, Estevan Maria La Francisco, married Antonia Sabate. This couple had three sons, Estevan, Paul and Peter Arnau. Estevan and his wife, Francisca Garcia Pons, moved to Mayport, Florida where they created a large branch of the Arnau family. Remaining in St. Augustine, Paul served five terms as Mayor and Peter became the Superintendent of Schools.

- Another of Francisco and Clara Arnau’s sons, Francisco, married Martina Villalonga. This couple had seven children. In the late 1820’s to early 1830’s, five of these children, Clara Eusebia Rafaela, Francisco, Santiago, Alberto and Rafaela Antonia, moved to Key West, Florida where they began another branch of the Arnau family. Another of Francisco and Martina’s children, Miguel Marie Depalar Arnau, and his wife, Mary Ann Colboard, moved to Charleston, South Carolina creating a third branch of the Arnau family there.

Robert Arnau

March 11, 2002