San Miguel de Gualdape

San Miguel de Gualdape was the first European settlement in what would become the continental United States, founded in 1526 by Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón. The settlers lasted only through three months of winter before abandoning the site in early 1527. History Records show that in 1521, de Ayllón, a wealthy sugar planter […]

Review: Anchieta, José do Brasil

Anchieta, José do Brasil is a Brazilian movie produced in 1974 about the interaction between a Spanish priest and the native Tupi Indians. There is evidence that Tupi Indians had also migrated to Georgia and South Carolina and were one of the tribes the first French and Spanish met. Since this film was very well […]

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 […]

The Relation of Pedro Morales

The relation of Pedro Morales a Spaniard, which sir Francis Drake brought from Saint Augustines in Florida, where he had remayned sixe yeeres, touching the state of those parts, taken from his mouth by Master Richard Hakluyt 1586. Three score leagues up from the Northwest from Saint Helena are the mountaines of the golde and […]

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 […]

New evidence of Spanish in Georgia

Conquistador Was Deep in U.S.: “Stunning” Jewelry Find Redraws Route? Ker Than, for National Geographic News, Published November 1, 2011 Under a former Native American village in Georgia, deep inside what’s now the U.S., archaeologists say they’ve found 16th-century jewelry and other Spanish artifacts. The discovery suggests an expedition led by conquistador Hernando de Soto ventured far […]