La Florida ― Imperial Spain Invades Indian Chiefdoms of North America 1513-1543

For three decades, Imperial Spain attempted to annex this new land of La Florida to its rapidly growing New World empire. Neither Juan Ponce de Leon, Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, Panfilo de Narvaez nor the honored conquistador Hernando de Soto would succeed. Where Spain ultimately faltered was in failing to recognize the unrelenting opposition of North America’s Indians to this Spanish invasion of their homeland. In this region were no empires centrally controlled by a godlike emperor as found among the Aztec of Mexico and Inca of Peru. In its stead, Spain found well organized chiefdoms held together by strong bonds of family, kinship and culture - a blend of customs that Spanish armies could not conquer. “La Florida: Imperial Spain Invades Indian Chiefdoms of North America” seeks to fill-in those lost decades with extraordinary tales of world changing events not commonly recounted in popular media: Spaniards, the first Europeans to travel inland into North America, a location recorded on maps for almost two centuries as “Spanish Florida;” the first contact between southern American Indian tribes and Spanish conquistadors; and (unlike the Aztec and Inca) the southeastern Indians intrepid resistance to this invasion that prevented imperial Spain from establishing permanent colonies. It is this last event that left the door open to a different future for the yet to be United States of America, after England and France arrive. Who were these world-changing conquistadors of the sixteenth-century? What motivated Spain to be in the Americas at this particular time? How did Spain so quickly conquer the Caribbean Islands, Mexico and Central America, and yet, fail to conquer the Indian chiefdoms of North America? In 1513 an “island” would be claimed as La Florida (the land of flowers) by the Governor of Puerto Rico, Ponce de Leon, who never realized that this land was only the tip of a continent yet to be called North America. His attempt to found a colony on the Gulf Coast near Tampa Bay failed in 1521 as local Indians attacked and mortally wounded Ponce de Leon. Not until years later did La Florida Governor Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon succeeded in establishing the first North American colony, San Miguel de Gualdape, on South Carolina’s coast; however disease, starvation and a bitter winter forced its few survivors to return to Santo Domingo. Soon thereafter a new La Florida governor, Panfilo de Narvaez, sailed from Cuba to land near Tampa Bay with a large military expedition to secure this land for future colonists, but this too failed as hostile natives once again forced these Spaniards out of their homeland. Narvaez would be followed by Captain Hernando de Soto’s remarkable four-year military expedition (1539-1542) across southern North America, which had little consequence in securing this territory for Spain. After these calamities, King Charles I will go to his grave believing that North America was not fit for Spanish occupation. Not until his son, Philip, inherits the throne will new strategies and a new generation of conquistadors offer a glimmer of hope (which almost succeeds) that Spain could bring North America into its global empire.