Spain Attempts to Colonize Florida

Ponce de Leon to Pedro Menendez de Aviles

Mar 25, 2006

A study of the early history of Florida might well give the superstitious mind the impression that Florida was under a curse or was capable of placing curses on the first

A study of the early history of Florida might well give the superstitious mind the impression that Florida was under a curse or was at least capable of placing curses on the first Europeans to visit it.

Ponce de Leon came calling at Florida's shores on Easter morning in 1513. He was seeking gold and a fountain of youth. Still holding on to this double dream, he returned to Florida in 1521, with the intentions of starting a colony near where present-day St. Augustine would be built. However, he fell into a truckes with some Florida Indians. He was wounded and died later in Cuba of his war wounds.

Following in Leon's adventuring footsteps was Panfilo de Narvaez who landed, in 1528, at Tampa Bay. With him were four hundred men who marched with him on a trek northward into Florida's Panhandle. They also all marched into oblivion.

Eleven years later Hernando de Soto came along and didn't fare any better. He, too, died and was deposited in the Mississippi River.

Next to make an attempt to settle Florida was Tristan de Luna. Twenty years after Hernando's fatal attempt Luna tried unsuccessfully to establish a colony at Pensacola.

You would think that after all these disastrous attempts someone might get the word out to let Florida alone. Well, perhaps someone in Spain did and failed to let France in on the information because France was next in line to try a bit of colonization.

In 1564, a French colony was started on the St. John's River but the Spanish quickly made sure the curse continued. Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his armada sailed in and brutally destroyed the place. So now, in 1565, Spain once more had a foothold on Florida's unfriendly shores by founding St. Augustine.

So while the European colonials and pilgrims were setting up Jamestown, Virginia and Plymouth, Massachusetts, establishing themselves and slavery in the New World, and preparing to start a revolution Spain fought all comers to hold onto Florida. But that attempt, like all the others to establish Spanish rule in Florida came to an end in 1763 when Spain was forced to hand over the territory to the British.

Florida: Know Your America Program. Nelson Doubleday, Inc. Garden City, N. Y. 1973.

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