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HISTORICAL I NTRODUCTION T HE story of the expedition of Tristan de Luna y Arellano to La Florida is a chapter in the history of the attempts by Spain to affinn its tenure of North America in the area. outside of that held by sedentary tribes of Indians, whose stage of culture was best adapted to the colonial institution developed during the early years of the Conquest. It was the initial step in the policy developed by Philip II. of carrying expansion into the heart of the continent as a means or repelling the aggressions of his European rivals, of whom the most notable at the time were the French. By and large, the detennining factor in the success or failure of Spain's colonization was the stage of culture previously attained by the natives who were subjugated. Success in sedentary areas, with seriously limited achievement in the nomadic ones, was the general rule. It is true that physical impediments, such as inhospitable shores, angry seas, poor sailing facilities and communica .tions, and lack of indigenous foods or food preservation, were concomitants of the struggle. Besides these handicaps and those incident to European rivalry, there was much administrative incapacity and ignorance, along with personal rivalries and rancors, which bear a share of blame for partial success wherever conquest of nomads, who would not be exploited, was tried. The Florida coastline, that is, the Atlantic shore from the later-styled New England region southward, and the Gulf coast throughout its entirety, were known to the Spaniards before the conquest of the sedentary area was fairly begun. The early voyagers, possibly among them Vespucius, produced maps of the coastline dotted with names which indicate explorations anterior to those of the known records. The earliest credit for the discovery is still given to Juan Ponce dc Le6n, whose voyage to the upper mainland was entircly an accidental one, it having been brought about by the occurrence of a storm, whicb drove Ponce from his allegOO quest of the fabulous island of Bimini Lo the firm land. His voyages and attempts at discovery and colonization extended through the years 1512-1521, with the well-known tragic rcsult of the loss of nearly two hundred Spanish lives. The voyage of Diego de :Miruelo in the year 1516 or 1519 for the purpose of barter with the Indians led to the discovery of the Gull coast northward from the base of the peninsula and westward toward the Mississippi without extending to that stream. xx HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION Miruelo returned to Santo Domingo without charting his discoveries , and later, as pilot for Lucas Vazquez de Ayll6n, was so chagrined at his inability to relocate his early happy findings that he became insane and died.I In 1519 AloDSO Alvarez de Pineda, as advance agent of Francisco de Garay, coasted the entire Gulf from La Florida to the Panueo region. Garay's grant to the province of Amichcl, lying between Panueo and the Florida peninsula, was to result in his undoing, for he was defeated by Cortes in 1528 at Panueo, and rued of pneumonia in Mexico. About the same time, Lucas Vazquez de AyBon, judge of the audiencia of Santo Dominga, fanned in 1524 a company of seven wealthy men of his city. to send out two ships to hunt for Indians for slaves. On their voyage in 1526, his mariners were stormdriven to Cape Santa Elena, so named then for the day of its discovery. Ay1l6n was intrusted with the government of the area, which he named Chicora, and set out to colonize on the present Carolina coast, when> his force was massacred by natives. This enterprise had been preceded by the voyages of Pedro de Quexos and Francisco Gordillo in 1521-1522, made under the mixed motives of slave-hunting, discovery, and barter. In 1525 the voyage of Estevan G6mez completed the Spanish discovery of the Atlantic shores of La Florida. The advance into the interior began with the ill-fated and oft retold exploration of Panfilo de Narvaez (1528) with its sequel in the novelesque wanderings of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions (1528-1536). The excitement aroused by this cross-continental journey led to the exploration by Marcos the friar of Nice, and this in turn to the attempt to conquer the famed Seven Cities of Cfbola by Francisco de Coronado, whose second in command was none other than the person whose experiences in La Florida form the subject of the...

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