Princess Ulele Statue Returns

Ulele statue in Tampa
Princess Ulele, known a Florida’s Pocahontas, is a local legend in Tampa, Florida thus it was quite the surprise when a statue of her was removed from the Tampa riverwalk in the dead of night back in 2018. (This was the same year I published my first children’s book, Uleyli- The Princess & Pirate: Based […]

Relation of Nicholas Burgoignon

 The relation of Nicholas Burgoignon, aliâs Holy, whom sir Francis Drake brought from Saint Augustine also in Florida, where he had remayned sixe yeeres, in mine and Master Heriots hearing. This Nicholas Burgoignon sayth, that betweene S. Augustine and S. Helen there is a Casique whose name is Casicôla, which is lord of ten thousand […]

On the Nature of the Apalachites

“Digression on the Nature of the Country of the Apalachites, their Manners, their Ancient and Their New Religion” from Histoire Naturelle and Morale des Antilles de l’Amerique by Rochefort. The Caribbians were originally Inhabitants of the Septentrional part of America, of that Country which is now called Florida: They, came to Inhabit the islands after […]

Hernando D’Escalante Fontaneda

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 […]

Quest for Fort Caroline

Current academic consensus holds that the French settlement of Fort Caroline was located on the St. Johns River in modern-day Jacksonville, Florida. Yet details in both French and Spanish written accounts as well as details in drawings left behind by the colony’s resident artist, Jacques Le Moyne, have always contradicted this location. These accounts suggest […]

Review: The Apalachee Indians and Mission San Luis

The Apalachee Indians and Mission San Luis is without question one of the most beautiful history books ever produced about a Native American tribe in the Southeastern United States. This book is devoted to telling the story of the Apalachee Indians, a tribe in northwest Florida, and their interactions with Spanish conquistadors and colonists. It […]

Review: Painter in a Savage Land

In 1564 the French attempted the first permanent settlement in what would later become the United States of America. They brought along with them a painter named Jacques le Moyne de Morgues. He was the first European artist to step foot in America and created the first artwork depicting Native Americans and their lifeways that […]

Florida Indians Gallery

On their second voyage to the New World the French arrived  off the coast of Florida on Thursday, June 22, 1564 around three or four o’clock in the afternoon. They landed about thirty leagues south of the St. Johns River. In his own words, Captain Laudonniere states: “Having reconnoitered the river, I landed to talk […]

Narrative of Le Moyne

AN ARTIST WHO ACCOMPANIED THE FRENCH EXPEDITION TO FLORIDA UNDER LAUDONNIERE, 1564. Introduction The Spaniards, having made several disastrous expeditions into Florida, had left it for a time unmolested. The French Protestants, attempting to colonize under Ribaud, built Charlefort at Port Royal in 1562, and Fort Caroline under Laudonniere, at the River May (now St. John’s, Florida), in 1564. […]