A Minorcan Odyssey

A Minorcan Odyssey brings the Minorcan colonists’ struggle to life through the eyes of Malachi LaMarca, one of 1,255 Minorcan indentured servants who endured starvation, betrayal, and the collapse of the New Britain colony. Against all odds, he rose to become a leader following the turbulent British withdrawal from St. Augustine in 1784. Blending vivid historical detail with a deeply human narrative, this odyssey revives a silenced legacy—a story that nearly vanished, yet still echoes in the soul of a people who formed the largest British colony brought to America during the colonial era. For readers of historical fiction and heritage memoirs, A Minorcan Odyssey offers a hauntingly powerful portrait of endurance, identity, and the unbreakable will to belong.

Robert P. Jones, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, former St. Augustine bricklayer, and longtime fisheries association executive, is in his 93rd trip around the sun. He is passionate about telling the story of the Minorcans, who arrived at Andrew Turnbull’s colony in 1768—and, after nine harrowing years during which over half the colonists perished, walked seventy miles north to freedom in St. Augustine. His passion is personal. His late wife, Malinda Usina Jones, to whom he was married for 67 years, was a descendant of one of those original colonists. Her great-great-great-great-grandmother is among the 964 whose graves remain lost in the soil of New Smyrna Beach, Florida.