Draft:Don Juan McQueen

Don Juan McQueen was a revolutionary war veteran and later Spanish naval officer and privateer in Florida. He founded plantations along the St. Johns River close to modern day Jacksonville, Florida.

Early Life
Born John McQueen in 1751 in Philadelphia, he would later move to Charleston, South Carolina, where he later became a land speculator. When the Revolutionary War began, he became a captain in the South Carolina Navy. While in the Navy he regularly was in contact with men such as the Marquis de Lafayette.

Move to Spanish Florida
By 1789 John McQueen had obtained a small plantation in Georgia with his wife Anne. However, he did continually have immense tax debts that he could not pay. This led him to flee across the border to Spanish Florida. He then Converted to Catholicism and changed his name to Don Juan McQueen. His wife would never join him in Florida as she refused to convert to Catholicism.

He then spent his career defending Spanish Florida from American expansionism with diplomacy and military skill. He was awarded various lands in Florida concentrated in the Northeast, where he built the plantation house at what later became known as Kingsley Plantation.

Urban Legends
McQueen's swashbuckling legend has led to many urban legends in the First Coast region of buried treasure, especially on Ortega Island where he once had a plantation.