Florida and The European Encounter

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Florida and The European Encounter
2
Spanish Conquistadors, French Huguenots and
English Pirates
3

• The Age of Exploration and the discovery for
  Europeans of hitherto unknown lands and peoples
  presented enormous challenges and dilemmas to the
  world view of European civilization.
• Even Columbus wavered between this fervent hope
  that he had discovered the Garden of Eden and his
  desire to exploit the riches and peoples of the
  New World.

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Hispanic Exploration and Conquest1492 -- 1542

• In one generation Hispanics explored and
  colonized over half the earth waters
• During the period of exploration, in one
  generation, approximately 300,000 Spaniards had
  emigrated to the New World
• They established over 200 cities and towns
  throughout the Americas.
• In one generation Hispanics acquired more new
  territory than Rome conquered in five centuries .

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Major HispanicExplorations and Conquests

• 1492- 1504 Columbuss 4 voyages to New World
• 1500 Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil
• 1501-02 Amerigo Vespucci (Italian) after
  accompanying Spanish conquistadors decided that
  what they had discovered was not Asia, but new
  continents
• 1508-21 Juan Ponce de Leon explored Cuba,
  Jamaican and Florida Cuban conquest 1508
• 1513 -Vasco de Nuñez de Balboa crossed the
  Isthmus of Panama and named the Pacific ocean

Detailed chronology of Spanish explorations and
conquests
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Major HispanicExplorations and Conquests

• 1519- 22 Ferdinand Magellan's crew ship,
  completed voyage of circumnavigation.
• 1519-21 Hernando Cortezs conquest of the
  Aztecs in Mexico
• 1531 Pizarros conquest of the Incas in Peru
• 1540 Vasquéz de Coronado explores California,
  Kansas, Arizona, New México, Texas, Oklahoma.

Detailed chronology of Spanish explorations and
conquests
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Spanish Conquistadors in Florida

• Ponce de Leóns Explorations 1513-1521
• Panfilo de Narvaezs Explorations 1527-28
• Hernando de Sotos Explorations 1538-1542
• Fray Luis Cancers failed missionary attempt
  1549
• Tristan de Luna created garrison at Pensacola
  1559-1561
• Pedro Menéndez de Avilés built a fort at St.
  Augustine and defeated the French at Fort
  Caroline 1565

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French Huguenots in Florida

• During the mid 1500s Europe was devastated by
  religious conflict. In France, the persecuted
  Protestants known as Huguenots decided to look
  for refuge.
• Admiral Gaspard de Coligny decided to establish
  both France and Protestantism in the New World.
• Coligny picked Jean Ribaut to head the
  expedition.
• Ribaut and his lieutenant, René de Laudonnière
  landed on the coast of Florida near Matanzas
  Inlet and explored the St. Johns River 1562
• Laudonnière founded Fort Caroline 1564

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English Pirates

• Sebastian Cabot, funded by Henry VIII, may have
  sailed into Tampa Bay 1496
• Sir John Hawkins, former slaver turned privateer,
  stopped at Fort Caroline and offered to return
  the unhappy French colonists across the Atlantic
  in exchange for the fort's cannons 1565
• Sir Francis Drake attacked and burnt St.
  Augustine to the ground 1586

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Ponce de León, who had accompanied Columbus on
his second voyage and had colonized Puerto Rico,
lost the Governership of that island to
Columbus's son. In recompense, the king granted
him rights to Bimini, legendary site of the
fabled Fountain of Youth. In his Elegias de
varonesillustres de Indias (1589), Juan de
Castellanos, a veteran of numerous Spanish
expeditions in the Caribbean and northern South
America, describes the questI return, then,
to Juan Poncestrong in the gifts of Juno and
Belona,in quest of greater undertakingsand
service to the royal crown.He never wished to
live in ease,although his station permitted
itand being free of his office,he wished to
seek out this tale.
Ponce de León
11
Castellanos relates the tale of the miraculous
waters at some length and with some humor
although he scoffs at the search for "such
foolish nonsense." Indeed Ponce de León never
found the Fountain of Youth, but he did bump into
the Florida peninsulaTo the north, then, they
turned their course,accompanied by great
difficulties,far indeed from the famed
fountainand the prosperous dwellers in its
landbut he discovered the peninsula which he
named Floridabecause he sighted it on Easter
Sunday.Having made this discovery, he
returnedand asked to be made its adelanto.
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It was on Easter Sunday (Pascua florida in
Spanish), 1513, that Ponce de León not only
named the peninsula, but by doing so, claimed it
and incorporated it into the body of European
knowledge..
13
The Gulf Stream

• An important discovery, unrecognized by Ponce de
  León, was the existence of a river in the ocean
  the Gulf Stream.
• The pilot, Anton de Alaminos, understood the
  importance of the discovery. By riding the
  current, the ships could be carried to a point
  where the winds would carry them back to Spain.
• Six years later, Alaminos proved his theory by
  bringing treasure from Mexico to the King of
  Spain with the aid of the Gulf Stream. This
  became the route of the later treasure ships.

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De Leons Voyages around Florida

• Along the southeast coast of Florida near the
  Indian River, they met the Ais Indians who tried
  to capture the Spanish ship, resulting in an all
  day battle between the two. From a captured
  Indian, they learned that the land was called
  Cautio by the Ais.
• The expedition sailed south around the Florida
  Keys, giving the name Los Martiers - now the
  Martyrs - to a group of those islands
• They sailed up the west coast of Florida, turned
  around and camped on an island, perhaps Mullet
  Key.
• Near the present-day Sanibel Island, the Calusa
  Indians, led by their chief, Cacique Carlos,
  lured the Spanish ashore. Again, there was an all
  day fight, ending in the Spaniards retreat.
• Turning southward across the Gulf of Mexico, the
  explorers came across a group of islands where
  they replenished their food supply with the
  turtles on the islands. They named them Tortugas,
  after the turtles.
• From there, they returned to Cuba, then back to
  the Bahamas, then Puerto Rico, seven months
  later.

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De León's Return Aborted Settlement

• The King of Spain knighted Ponce de León and made
  him governor of Florida. He also commanded him to
  settle the island and subdue the Carib Indians,
  who were raiding the natives of Puerto Rico.
• Ponce de León left Santa Domingo in 1521 with two
  ships carrying two hundred colonists and domestic
  animals. They landed near Charlotte Harbor.
• The Calusa attacked, and Ponce de León was
  wounded. The colonists got into their ships and
  left- Ponce de León, reached Cuba where he died
  of his wounds.

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The "gift" of European presence with its
civilizing and Christianizing impulses was not
easily conferred upon the Floridian peninsula.
The indigenous peoples resisted and held off
European settlements for the next fifty years
despite the numerous attempts of de León,
Narvaez, de Soto, Ayllon, Tristan de Luna, de
Villafañe, and Fray Luis Cancer.
17
Castellanos alludes to the difficulties faced by
the Spaniards who did not understand how to live
in this alien landscape
The land is tinted with green,and from afar with
good color adornedbut disappointment awaits you
if you tread therebecause victuals are
completely lacking.Its greater breadth is in
swamp,and there is no part that can be called
high.In these expanses and bywayswalnut trees
and pines abound.
18
The "Requerimiento"

• " We beseech and demand... that you accept the
  Church and the Superior Organization of the whole
  world and recognize the supreme Pontiff, called
  the Pope, and that in his name you acknowledge
  the King and Queen... his representatives, as the
  lords and superior authorities of these islands
  and main lands... If you do not do this, or
  resort maliciously to delay, we warn you that,
  with the aid of God, we will enter your land
  against you with force and will make war in every
  place and by every means we can and are able, and
  we will then subject you to the yoke and
  authority of the church and of their Highnesses.
  We will take you and your wives and children and
  make them slaves... And we will take your
  property and will do you all the harm and evil we
  can..."

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Panfilo de Narvaez

• Panfilo de Narvaez arrived near Tampa Bay in 1528
  with about 400 men.
• The Uzita were initially friendly.
• When the Spanish found a small amount of gold,
  they tortured the Indians in their search for
  more gold, silver, and enslaved natives to serve
  as guides and burden bearers.
• Unwilling or unable to reveal the location of any
  treasure, Chief Hirrahigua had been forced to
  watch as his Mother was torn to shreds before his
  eyes by fierce Spanish war dogs. Narvaez then
  ordered the nose of the chief to be cut off.

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Hunting for Gold

• The Indians told them that they could find the
  gold in the land of the Apalachee
• Narvaez made a grave mistake and divided his men,
  sending part of them by ships while he himself
  marched north by foot
• The four ships were told to coast north until
  another good harbour was found, finding nothing
  they returned to New Spain (Cuba).
• In June 1528 Narvaez reached the area of
  Apalachee-nation in Georgia--Florida border. All
  the villages in the area were deserted and the
  natives were hiding.

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Marooned

• Apalachees waged guerilla-war against Narvaez
  the march forward changed into a route
• Deciding to turn back, they built rafts and
  drifted along the coast of Florida, landing near
  Galveston.
• After eight years only three men survived,
  arriving in Mexico City Cabeza de Vaca, Oviedo,
  and Estevanico of Azamor

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• Cabeza De Vaca After a brief period of glory and
  renown, De Vaca returned to Spain and wrote a
  book which with vivid description and detail
  reports the entire de Narvaez-de Vaca adventure.
  But he fell out of favor and died in exile in
  Africa
• Estevanico of Azamor a black Muslim from
  Morocco, he mesmerized the Mexican natives. He
  led two great exploration expeditions into
  California, Arizona and New Mexico, but he
  finally overplayed his hand. On the second, he
  had become so arrogant in his treatment of the
  Indians, at one large town the inhabitants mobbed
  and lynched him.

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Juan Ortiz and Princess Hirrihigua

• In 1528, Juan Ortiz, a member of the expedition
  sent from Cuba to find Panfilo De Narvaez, was
  captured by Chief Hirrihigua, who hated the white
  men because of the violence of Narvaez.
• Juan Ortiz was condemned to death but princess
  Hirrihigua, eldest daughter of the chief, pleaded
  with her father and saved his life.
• Princess Hirrihigua saved Ortiz from death three
  times.
• IN 1539, Hernando De Soto rescued Ortiz who
  became his guide and interpreter.

The Original Pocahontas? The frieze of the
Rotunda of the United States Capitol
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Hernando De Soto

• Hernando De Soto had had been with Pizarro in
  Peru and wanted to find his own gold-country to
  conquer.
• In 1538, De Soto sailed from Spain with 600 men,
  weapons and livestock.
• In 1539, De Soto reached Florida, and made a
  landing at Tampa Bay. He immediately conquered
  the nearest village, and from there pillaged the
  whole area, attacking every village within his
  reach.
• In 1542, De Soto died of fever somewhere in
  Mississippi, and the remnants of his men finally
  managed to build boats and sail to Mexico.

The frieze of the Rotunda of the United States
Capitol
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(No Transcript)
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Fray Luis Cancer

• Not all Florida missions were economic in scope.
  The Government of Mexico financed a mission by
  FATHER LUIS CANCER, a Dominican priest. In 1549,
  Father Cancer, three other missionaries, and a
  Christianized Indian named Magdalene arrived on
  the beaches outside Tampa Bay--a poor choice of
  location.
• Cancer left two men and Magdalene on the beach
  while he searched for safe harbor inside the bay.
  When he returned he spotted only the Indian girl
  on the beach. Despite warnings by the crew,
  Father Cancer elected to go ashore.
• He was quickly surrounded by Indians who clubbed
  him to death. The survivors of the party returned
  to Mexico to quell any future missionary
  proposals for Florida.

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Hurricanes also hampered Spanish efforts to
colonize La Florida
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TRISTAN de LUNA

• In 1559 Don Luis Velasco, Viceroy of Mexico,
  decided that a Florida settlement on the Gulf was
  essential in helping shipwrecked sailors and
  discouraging the French.
• With an enormous force of thirteen ships and 1500
  soldiers, de Luna landed at Pensacola Bay.
• A storm destroyed five of his ships.
• With water-logged supplies, de Luna turned to the
  Nanipacna Indians for food,who remembering DeSoto
  stayed away.
• The colonizing effort was replaced with a
  desperate need to stay alive. After a winter of
  near starvation, the settlers gave up. The
  expedition was canceled.

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Jean Ribaut and the Timucuans

• The French sailed up the coast to where the St.
  Johns River empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Of
  the Timucuans Ribaut wrote
• "The most parte of them cover there raynes and
  pryvie partes with faire hartes skins, paynted
  cunyngly with sondry colours, and the fore part
  of there bodye and armes paynted with pretye
  devised workes of azure, redd, and black, so well
  and so properly don as the best paynter of Europe
  could not amend yt. The women have there bodies
  covered with a certain herbe like unto moste,
  whereof the cedartrees and alwaies covered."

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First Contacts

• The Timucuans, befriended the French.
• On a hill on the south side of the St. Johns
  River, Ribaut set up a column, claiming the land
  for the French.
• After two days of exploration, the party sailed
  north to present day South Carolina.
• On Parris Island, Ribaut set up a fort,
  Charlesfort, which was the first Protestant
  settlement in North America, fifty-eight years
  before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.
• The colony fell on hard times when no resupply
  ships arrived, and eventually the survivors
  returned to France

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Ribauts Travails

• When Ribaut returned to France, the Huguenots
  were under attack.
• He fled to England to try to interest Queen
  Elizabeth in underwriting a settlement in the
  territory he had explored.
• After expressing initial interest in the venture,
  Elizabeth was convinced by advisors that Ribaut
  was furthering French rather than English
  interests, and he was put into prison where he
  wrote an account of his explorations, The Whole
  and True Discouery of Terra Florida (London,
  1563).

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Rene de Laudonnière

• Laudonnière, Ribaut's lieutenant, led a second
  expedition back to Florida in June, 1564.
• They landed near St. Augustine and were received
  by the friendly Timucuans.
• Again they sailed north to the entrance of the
  St. Johns River. There the natives led them to
  the site of the column Ribaut had set up, where
  they found the natives worshipping it.
• Near this site on the St. Johns Bluffs, they
  built an "A" shaped fort they called Fort
  Caroline, in honor of Charles, the King of
  France.
• Historians speculate that the first European
  child born in the New World was probably born in
  Florida at Fort Caroline.

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As European explorers reached the North American
continent, the image of the lands and peoples
with whom they came into contact began to seep
into the literature and images of Renaissance
culture.
Theodore DeBry, Americae
34
Visions of the New WorldLeMoyne and De Bry

• In 1564, Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues was hired to
  accompany the expedition led by Laudonnière to
  draw a map of the Florida coast, and also to
  paint anything worth observing.
• Le Moyne's drawings accompanied by his
  commentary, and the interested observations of
  Ribaut and Laudonniere provide one of the first
  sympathetic and "anthropological" descriptions of
  indigenous American life.
• Published in the form of engravings by Théodore
  de Bry in 1591, Lemoyne's drawings constitute one
  of the most attractive representations of this
  part of North America during the initial phase of
  its discovery.

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Spanish Retaliation

• An experienced military leader, Pedro Menéndez de
  Aviléz was sent to Florida to counteract threats
  posed by the French colony.
• Menéndez landed on the coast at St. Augustine in
  1565.After establishing a base of operations,
  Menéndez sailed with five ships to Fort Caroline.
  
• When the Spanish sailed into the mouth of the St.
  Johns River, they found the French ships there
  and tried to board them.
• Unsuccessful at this attempt, they sailed
  southward back to St. Augustine, and began to
  build a fort.

36
Ribauts Last Hurrah

• Ribaut, finally released from his English
  imprisonment, landed near Fort Caroline on August
  28, 1565, with seven ships and 600 soldiers,
  sailors and settlers, the same day Pedro Menendez
  de Aviles entered the harbor he named San
  Augustín for the feast day on which he had
  arrived.
• Ribaut, against the advice of Laudonniere, who
  warned of hurricanes and feared leaving Fort
  Caroline unprotected, decided to attack the
  Spanish.
• A hurricane struck, Ribaut's vessels were
  shipwrecked, and Aviles took advantage of the
  situation.

37
Aviles marched his soldiers overland to Fort
Caroline, made a surprise attack, and massacred
all the inhabitants save those who declared
themselves Catholic, the muscians, and some of
the women and children. French soldiers,
including Ribaut and his shipwrecked sailors, who
later surrendered to Aviles, were also massacred
at Matanzas Inlet. This massacre put an end to
France's attempts at colonization in Florida
38
The first poem written by someone who had
actually lived in Florida comes from the
ill-fated Huguenot settlement of Fort Caroline

• 26 defenders managed to escape, including
  Laudonnière, Lemoyne de Morgues and a carpenter
  Nicholas Le Challeux.
• Le Challeux offers the curse of his own suffering
  upon any who wish to follow his example of
  visiting Florida he has returned half-starved,
  thirsty, and exhausted from the battle with
  Florida's humidity. His is the account of one
  who went seeking fortune and returned with only a
  souvenir.
• The bitter irony is mitigated only by his
  survival. Le Challeux's encounter with Florida
  is simply that -- an encounter, howbeit one
  fraught with difficulties and dangers.

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Octet, by the Author upon arrriving in his home,
in the town of Dieppe, hungry. Whoever wishes
to go to Florida,May he go where I have
been,And return as gaunt and dry,And as worn
out from rot.For all I have brought back isA
lovely white stick in my hand.But I am alive,
not defeatedIt is time to eat I am dying of
hunger. Nicholas Le Challeux, 1565 trans.
Maurice O'Sullivan
40
And, indeed, the French settlement at Fort
Caroline set the first example of a European
settlement in the Americas tolerating religious
freedom and encouraging cultural exchange with
the indigenous peoples on an egalitarian basis.
Its failure, as reflected in Challeux's poem, was
based on the French settlers inability to provide
for themselves and their naivete about the
Spanish determination to uphold their exclusive
rights in La Florida.
41
Aviles de Menendez, conqueror of the Huguenots
and founder of St. Augustine, was committed to
building a permanent settlement in Florida.
Ft. San Marcos in St. Augustinebegun 1672
42
In 1571, Bartolomé de Flores, wrote Obra
Nuevamente Compuesta, a poem of 375 lines
celebrating the victory of Menendez over the
French and extolling the virtues of the new
colonyAnd in order to better describe itI wish
to tell of the expanse,of the beauty and
lovelinessof this fertile paradise,of its
people and its nature.It is a new worldfull of
charms and comelywith many diverse colors,a
flowered and delightful meadowwith birds of a
thousand kinds.
43
At the opposite extreme in the description of
"the other" is Fray Escobedo's denunciation of
the "demonic" denizens of Florida. Fray Alonso
Gregorio Escobedo, a Franciscan friar, served at
Nombre de Dios mission in St. Augustine between
1587 and 1593. He sees the landscape and its
peoples through the harsh lens of a narrow
Catholic judgement It is so lost that the
Christian marvels,awed by its invincible
spirit,and with great reason moans and sighsand
heaven with his tears inflames,begging God to
cease his wrathif he wants to destroy
pagans,since all the peoples of the coastwalk
to hell along the post-road.The coast of Florida
is perilous,fenced by mountains and swamplands.
44
The people who live there are warlike,furious
foes of Christians,so that anyone who dares set
outfor the hill, heedless of pagans,if he
returns alive, will have a heartfull of arrows
and heartlessness.Although of an accustomed
ferocity,the infidel fakes great
piety.Gunpowder, rendering the treacherous
prudent,breaks their resolve.Powder, when it
lands on the headof the bravest, most spirited
mangives him virtue if he is insolent,and
obedience to the inobedient man.from La Floride
(c. 1598)
45
But it was the Spanish fort and town of St.
Augustine that became the first continuous
European settlement in North America.
46
However, Spanish domination was challenged from
the beginning. English pirates and privateers
plundered Spanish ships and ports and
occasionally touched upon Florida's shores. In
early August, 1565, Sir John Hawkins, former
slaver turned privateer, had stopped at Fort
Caroline and offered to ferry the hapless French
colonists across the Atlantic in exchange for the
fort's cannons. In 1586, Sir Francis Drake
attacked and burnt St. Augustine to the ground.
47
However, the first mention of Florida in English
poetry came 20 years before Drake's attack and a
year before Hawkins' visit. A poem entered in the
Stationers' Register in 1564, a year after
Ribaut's account Have you not hard of FlorydaA
countreé far by west?Where savage pepell planted
areBy nature and be hest,Who in the mold find
glysterynge goldAnd yt for tryfels sell With
hy!Ye, all along the water sydeWher yt doth eb
and floweAre turkeyse found, and wher alsoDo
perles in oysteres growAnd on the land do
cedars standWhose bewty do excell.With hy!
Wunnot a wallet do well?
48
The Europeans came looking for riches, which they
found and expropriated in such abundance from
Central and South America that the system of
capitalism, was funded for centuries to come.
They also came with missions to convert the
heathen, to find havens to freely worship, and to
escape the rigid hierarchies of feudal and
monarchic societies,
49
Spanish Missions
50
Spanish Missions

• In 1573 Menendez de Aviles arranged for
  Franciscan missionary friars to administer to the
  Timucua.
• Missions were intended to
• save the souls of the Indians
• transform the native people into loyal Catholic
  subjects of the Spanish crown
• who could be forced to labor in support of the
  colony..
• By 1595 the Timucuan population had shrunk to
  about 50,000, a 75 percent drop fueled by
  epidemic diseases introduced from Europe.
• Missionary friars moved systematically among each
  of the chiefdoms, founding a mission in each main
  town and in some outlying major villages.

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Spanish Missions

• If the 75-percent population decimation of the
  sixteenth century prior to the missions seems
  large, the figure for the seventeenth century is
  positively horrendous.
• From 1595 to 1700, the period of the missions,
  the Timucuan population suffered a 98 percent
  reduction, from 50,000 people to 1,000.
• When Spain relinquished Florida and St. Augustine
  to the British in 1763, only a single Timucua
  Indian is listed on the roster of native people
  shipped to the town of Guanabacoa in Cuba.
• Against the seventeenth-century backdrop of
  population erosion, the missions sought to
  incorporate the Timucua into the Spanish colonial
  realm. Indeed, the missions were colonialism. It
  was the missions that harnessed the Timucuan
  villagers to Spanish servitude. A system of labor
  quotas was organized through mission villages,
  providing native backs to serve St. Augustine.

52
The extended explorations served to spread the
diseases that decimated the native population in
the first hundred years of European incursions
into the Americas. The depopulation and
destruction of indigenous social structures
caused by the epidemics opened the doors to
widespread European immigration.In less than 200
years, eighty percent of the native population,
hundreds of thousands of natives, were killed by
"Old World" diseases, enslavement, and warfare
with the Europeans. By 1750 only a few remained
alive.
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Florida and The European Encounter