"Mala Compra" (Spanish for "bad bargain" or "bad purchase") was formerly part of one of northeastern Florida's largest plantation systems (totaling 2,265 acres).Situated on the coast, it belonged to Joseph Marion Hernández (1788–1857), and was worked primarily as a cotton plantation from 1816 through 1836, when the Seminoles burned it down near the beginning of the Second Seminole War.