This is a second and more extensive version of the captivity and rescue of the Spaniard Juan Ortiz who lived among the Indians of La Florida for 12 years. This version by El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega is considered the first piece of literature written by someone born in the Americas. El Inca was […] 
When Hernando de Soto landed in southwest Florida to begin his exploration of the Southeast, he did so without the aid of his local native interpreters who had escaped upon sighting land. This would certainly have doomed the expedition but as luck would have it De Soto found a Spanish captive named Juan Ortiz who […] 
If the French fort of La Caroline was actually on the Altamaha River in Georgia and not the St. John’s River in Florida then from where did the Spanish launch their assault on the fort? Clearly this attack could not have been launched from modern-day St. Augustine, Florida because the distances involved are too great […] 
Original Source: “The Founding of St. Augustine.” In Old South Leaflets Volume IV. Boston: Directors of the Old South work. Old South Meeting House. MEMOIR OF THE HAPPY RESULT AND PROSPEROUS VOYAGE OF THE FLEET COMMANED BY THE ILLUSTRIOUS CAPTAIN-GENERAL PEDRO MENEDEZ DE AVILES, WHICH SAILED FROM CADIZ ON THE MORNING OF THURSDAY, JUNE 28TH, FOR THE […] 
Spanish eyewitness accounts of the tactics used by Indian tribes when attacking their outpost of St. Augustine give a fascinating new view of Native American life at the time of first contact. The typical view is that Native Americans were outmatched by the European’s superior weapons and tactics but these eyewitness accounts contradict these views. It […] 
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society (January Meeting, 1894, pp. 416-468) Florida. Years 1565 and 1566. F. 14. D. N° 40. Seven letters written to the King by the General Pero Menendez de Aviles, from the 13th of August 1565, to the 30th of the next January, giving a report to him of the success […] 
Does a newspaper account from 1817, rediscovered in 2010, reveal the location of the original Fort St. Augustine as being in Georgia not Florida? As I noted in my article “Quest for Fort Caroline,” all of the written eyewitness accounts of the location of Fort Caroline suggested it was on the Altamaha River in Georgia […] 
If the true location of the French Fort Caroline is on the Altamaha River near Darien, Georgia and not the St. Johns River near Jacksonville, Florida (as I argued here and here) then this presents a question: where was the original Fort St. Augustine? According to the Spanish general Pedro Menendez, it required two days […] 
Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda (c. 1536 – after 1575, dates uncertain) was a Spanish shipwreck survivor who lived among the Indians of Florida for 17 years. His memoir [version 1] [version 2], written in 1575, is one of the most valuable contemporary accounts of American Indian life from that period. Around 1549, when Fontaneda was […] ANN ARBOR—The remains of the earliest European fort in the interior of what is now the United States have been discovered by a team of archaeologists, providing new insight into the start of the U.S. colonial era and the all-too-human reasons spoiling Spanish dreams of gold and glory. Spanish Captain Juan Pardo and his men […] 