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Spanish Florida

Discovery and early exploration

In 1512 Juan Ponce de León, former governor of Puerto Rico, received royal permission to search for land north of Cuba. He equipped three ships at his own expense and sailed from Puerto Rico in 1513. In late March he spotted an island (almost certainly one of the Bahamas) but did not stop. Early in April Ponce de León reached the northeast coast of the Florida peninsula, which he assumed was a large island. He claimed the 'island' for Spain and named it la Florida, either because it was the season of Pascua Florida ("Flowery Festival", i.e., Easter) or because much of the vegetation was in bloom. He then explored south along the coast, around the Florida Keys and north on the west coast of the peninsula, before returning to Puerto Rico.

Popular legend has it that Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he discovered Florida. However, the first mention of Ponce de León searching for water to cure his aging came more than twenty years after his voyage of discovery, and the first that placed the Fountain of Youth in Florida was thirty years after that. It is likely that Ponce de León, like other conquistadors in the Americas, was looking primarily for gold, Indians to enslave, and land to govern under the Spanish crown.

Ponce de León probably was not the first Spaniard to reach Florida, although he was the first to do so with permission from the Spanish crown. It is likely that Spanish ships from the Caribbean were already secretly raiding Florida to capture Indian slaves. Indians of the east coast and the southwest coast of Florida were hostile to Ponce de León at first contact, and he encountered an Indian in Florida who knew some Spanish words.

Other Spanish voyages to la Florida quickly followed. Sometime in the period from 1514 to 1516 Pedro de Salazar enslaved as many as 500 Indians along the Atlantic coast of the present-day southeastern United States. Diego Miruelo visited what was probably Tampa Bay in 1516, Francisco Hernández de Cordova reached southwest Florida in 1517, and Alonso Álvarez de Pineda sailed and mapped all of the Gulf of Mexico coast in 1519. In 1521 Ponce de León sailed in two ships to establish a colony on the southwest coast of the Florida peninsula. The Calusa Indians drove the colonists away; Ponce de León died after the expedition returned to Havana of a wound he received in the attack.

In 1521 Pedro de Quejo and Francisco Gordillo enslaved 60 Indians at Winyah Bay, South Carolina. Quejo, with the backing of Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, returned to the region in 1525, stopping at several locations between Amelia Island and the Chesapeake Bay. In 1526 de Ayllón led a colonizing expedition of some 600 people to the South Carolina coast. After scouting possible locations as far south as Ponce de León Inlet in Florida, the colony of San Miguel de Gualdape was established in the vicinity of Sapelo Sound, Georgia. Disease, hunger, cold and Indian attacks led to the colony being abandoned after only two months. About 150 survivors returned to Spanish settlements.

Narváez expedition

In 1527 Pánfilo de Narváez left Spain with five ships and 600 people on a mission to explore and the settle the coast of the Gulf of Mexico between the existing Spanish settlements in Mexico and Florida. After storms and delays, the expedition landed near Tampa Bay on April 12, 1528, already short on supplies, with about 400 people. Confused as to the location of Tampa Bay (Milanich notes that a navigation guide used by Spanish pilots at the time placed Tampa Bay some 90 miles too far north), Narváez sent his ships in search of it while most of the expedition marched northward, supposedly to meet the ships at the bay.

Intending to find Tampa Bay, Narváez marched close to the coast, through what turned out to be largely uninhabited territory. The expedition was forced to subsist on the rations they had brought with them, until they reached the Withlacoochee River, where they finally encountered Indians. Siezing hostages, the expedition reached the Indians' village, where they found corn. Further north they were met by a chief who led them to his village on the far side of the Suwannee River. The chief, Dulchanchellin, tried to enlist the Spanish as allies against his enemies, the Apalachee.

Seizing Indians as guides, the Spaniards traveled northwest towards the Apalachee territory. Milanich suggests that the guides led the Spanish on a circuitous route through the roughest country they could find. In any case, the expedition did not find the larger Apalachee towns. By the time the expedition reached Aute, a town near the Gulf coast, it had been under attack by Indian archers for many days. Plagued by illness, short rations, and hostile Indians, Narváez decided to sail to Mexico rather than attempt an overland march. Two hundred and forty two men set sail on five crude rafts. All the rafts were wrecked on the Texas coast. After eight years four survivors, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, reached New Spain (Mexico).

De Soto expedition

Hernando de Soto had been one of Francisco Pizarro's chief lieutenants in the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, and had returned to Spain a very wealthy man. He was appointed adelanto of la Florida and governor of Cuba, and assembled a large expedition to 'conquer' la Florida. On May 30, 1539, de Soto and his companions landed in Tampa Bay, where they found Juan Ortiz, who had been captured by the local Indians a decade earlier when he was sent ashore from a ship searching for Narváez. Ortiz passed on the Indian reports of riches, including gold, to be found in Apalachee, and de Soto set off with 550 soldiers, 200 horses, and a few priests and friars. De Soto's expedition lived off the land as it marched. De Soto followed a route further inland than that of Narváez's expedition, but the Indians remembered the earlier disruptions caused by the Spanish, and were wary when not outright hostile. De Soto seized Indian men to serve as guides and porters, and Indian women to serve as consorts for his men.

The expedition reached Apalachee in October, and settled into the chief Apalachee town of Anhaica for the winter, where they found large quantities of stored food, but little gold or other riches. In the spring de Soto set out to the northeast, crossing what is now Georgia and South Carolina into North Carolina, then turned westward, crossed the Great Smoky Mountains into Tennessee, then marched south into Georgia. Turning westward again, the expedition crossed Alabama, where they lost all of their baggage in a fight with Indians near Choctaw Bluff on the Alabama River, and spent the winter in Mississippi. In May 1541 the expedition crossed the Mississippi River and wandered through present-day Arkansas, Missouri and possibly Kansas before spending the winter in Oklahoma. In 1542 the expedition headed back to the Mississippi River, where de Soto died. Three hundred and ten survivors returned from the expedition in 1543.

Ochuse and Santa Elena

Although the Spanish had lost hope of finding gold and other riches in Florida, it was seen as vital to the defense of their colonies in Mexico and the Caribbean. In 1559 Tristán de Luna y Arellano left Mexico with 500 soldiers and 1,000 civilians on a mission to establish colonies at Ochuse (Pensacola Bay) and Santa Elena (Port Royal Sound). The plan was to land everybody at Ochuse, with most of the colonists marching overland to Santa Elena. A tropical storm struck Ochuse a month after the fleet's arrival, sinking many ships along with the supplies that had not yet been unloaded. Expeditions into the interior failed to find adequate supplies of food. Most of the colony moved inland to Nanicapana, where some food had been found, but it could not support the colony and the Spanish returned to Pensacola Bay. In response to a royal order to immediately occupy Santa Elena, Luna sent three small ships, but they were damaged in a storm and returned to Mexico. Angel de Villafañe replaced the discredited Luna in 1561, with orders to withdraw most of the colonists from Ochuse and occupy Santa Elena. Villafañe led 75 men to Santa Elena, but a tropical storm damaged his ships before they could land, forcing the expedition to return to Mexico.

French challenge

The French began taking an interest in the area, as well, leading the Spanish to accelerate their colonization plans. Jean Ribault led an expedition to Florida, and established Charlesfort on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina in 1562. René Goulaine de Laudonnière founded Fort Caroline in what is now Jacksonville, in 1564, as a haven for Huguenot settlers. The garrison at Charlesfort abandoned it and moved to Fort Caroline the same year.

Also in 1562, the English adventurer Thomas Stukley persuaded the recently-enthroned Queen Elizabeth I to support his own scheme of founding a colony in Florida. The Queen provided a ship of 100 tons (including 100 men, plus sailors) to supplement Stukley's fleet of five vessels. However, Stukley never crossed the Atlantic - finding it more profitable to use his ships for privateering in Ireland - leaving the arrival of English-speaking settlers in Florida for a later time.

The Spanish founded San Agustín (St. Augustine in English) in 1565. Settled by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it was the first permanent European settlement in what is now the continental United States and the oldest that has been continuously occupied. Menéndez de Avilés quickly set out to attack Fort Caroline, traveling overland from St. Augustine. At the same time, the French sailed from Fort Caroline, intending to attack St. Augustine from the sea. The Spanish overwhelm the lightly-defended Fort Caroline, sparing only the women and children, although some 25 men were able to escape. The French fleet was driven off course by a storm, many wrecking on the coast south of St. Augustine. When the Spanish found most of the French shipwreck survivors, Menéndez de Avilés ordered all of the Huguenots executed. The location became known as Matanzas.

The Spanish renamed Fort Caroline Fort San Mateo. Two years later, Dominique de Gourgues recaptured the fort from the Spanish and slaughtered all of the Spanish defenders.

Missions and Conflicts

In 1566 the Spanish established the colony of Santa Elena on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina. Juan Pardo leads two expeditions (1566-7 and 1567-8) from Santa Elena as far as eastern Tennessee, establishes six temporary forts in interior. Santa Elena was abandoned by the Spanish in 1587.

In 1586, English sea captain Sir Francis Drake plundered and burned St. Augustine.

In 1567 Jesuits begin establishing missions to the Indians in la Florida, but withdraw in 1572. In 1573 Franciscans assumed responsibility for missions to the Indians, eventually operating more than 100 missions to the Guale, Timucua and Apalachee tribes.

In 1656 the Timucua Indians rebeled, disrupting Spanish missions, ranches and food supplies for St. Augustine.

Throughout the 17th century, English settlers in Virginia and the Carolinas gradually pushed the boundaries of Spanish territory south, while the French settlements along the Mississippi River encroached on the western borders of the Spanish claim. Starting in 1680, English soldiers from the Province of Carolina and their Indian allies repeatedly attacked Spanish mission villages and St. Augustine, burning missions and killing and enslaving Indians. In 1702, English Colonel James Moore and the allied Creek Indians attacked and razed the town of St. Augustine, but they could not gain control of the fort. By 1707 the few surviving Indians were resettled around St. Augustine.

In 1696 the Spanish founded Pensacola near the former site of Ochuse. In 1719, the French captured the Spanish settlement at Pensacola.

It was during this period that the peoples who would become the Seminoles began their migration to Florida

Possession by Britain

The expanded West Florida territory in 1767.

In 1763, Spain traded Florida to Great Britain in exchange for control of Havana, Cuba, which had been captured by the British during the Seven Years' War. Almost the entire Spanish population departed the area, along with almost all of the remaining indigenous peoples who had been converted to Catholicism at the Spanish missions. The British divided the territory into East Florida and West Florida, and began aggressive recruitment programs designed to attract settlers to the area, offering free land and backing for export-oriented businesses. See West Florida Controversy.

In 1767, the British moved the northern boundary of West Florida to a line extending from the mouth of the Yazoo River east to the Chattahoochee River (32° 22′ north latitude), consisting of approximately the lower third of the present states of Mississippi and Alabama.

During this time, there was a migration of Creek Indians into Florida, leading to the formation of the Seminole tribe. The tribe was made up of mostly Lower Creeks from Georgia, Mikasuki-speaking Central Musckogees, and escaped African American slaves (see Black Seminoles), and, to a lesser extent, whites and Indians from other tribes. The aboriginal peoples of Florida had been devastated by war and disease, and it is thought most of the survivors accompanied the Spanish settlers when they left for other colonies in 1763. This left wide expanses of territory open to the Lower Creeks, who had been in conflict with the Upper Creeks of Alabama for years. The Seminole originally occupied the wooded areas of northern Florida, and eventually spread as far south as the Everglades, where many of their descendants remain today.

Britain retained control over East Florida during the American Revolutionary War, but the Spanish, by that time allied with the French who were actively at war with Britain, recaptured most of West Florida. In 1783, at the end of the American Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Versailles (1783) between the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Spain returned all of Florida to Spanish control, but without specifying its boundaries. The Spanish favored the expanded boundary, while the United States, which received control of the lands to its north, recognized the old boundary at the 31st parallel. In the Treaty of San Lorenzo of 1795 with the United States, Spain recognized the 31st parallel as the border.

Second Spanish colony

Spanish Florida in 1810.

In the early 19th century, Spain offered generous land packages in Florida as a means of attracting settlers, and colonists began to settle in substantial numbers, both from Spain and from the United States. After settler attacks on Indian towns, Indians based in Florida began raiding Georgia settlements, purportedly at the behest of the Spanish. The United States Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminole by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. Following the war, the United States effectively controlled East Florida.

The Adams-Onís Treaty was signed between the United States and Spain on February 22, 1819 and took effect on July 10, 1821. According to the terms of the treaty, the United States acquired the Florida Territory, and, in exchange, renounced all its claims to Texas.