Spanish Florida

Spanish Florida, or la Florida, was a province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined boundaries, la Florida was a minor component of the Spanish Empire. Wide-ranging expeditions were mounted into the hinterland during the 16th century, but Spain never exercised effective control over la Florida outside of a band from what is now southeastern Georgia and northern Florida, and around a few ports on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Discovery and early exploration

In 1512 Juan Ponce de León, former governor of Puerto Rico, received royal permission to search for land north of Cuba. he equipped three ships at his own expense and sailed from Puerto Rico in 1513. In late March he spotted an island (almost certainly one of the Bahamas) but did not stop. Early in April Ponce de León reached the northeast coast of the Florida peninsula, which he assumed was a large island. He claimed the 'island' for Spain and named it la Florida, either because it was the season of Pascua Florida ("Flowery Festival", i.e., Easter) or because much of the vegetation was in bloom. He then explored south along the coast, around the Florida Keys and north on the west coast of the peninsula, before returning to Puerto Rico.

Popular legend has it that Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he discovered Florida. However, the first mention of Ponce de León searching for water to cure his aging came more than twenty years after his voyage of discovery, and the first that placed the Fountain of Youth in Florida was thirty years after that. It is likely that Ponce de León, like other conquistadors in the Americas, was looking primarily for gold, Indians to enslave, and land to govern under the Spanish crown.

Ponce de León probably was not the first Spaniard to reach Florida, although he was the first to do so with permission from the Spanish crown. It is likely that Spanish ships from the Caribbean were already secretly raiding Florida to capture Indian slaves. Indians of the east coast and the southwest coast of Florida were hostile to Ponce de León at first contact, and he encountered an Indian in Florida who knew some Spanish words.

Other Spanish voyages to la Florida quickly followed. Sometime in the period from 1514 to 1516 Pedro de Salazar enslaved as many as 500 Indians along the Atlantic coast of the present-day southeastern United States. Diego Miruelo visited what was probably Tampa Bay in 1516, Francisco Hernández de Cordova reached southwest Florida in 1517, and Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda sailed and mapped all of the Gulf of Mexico coast in 1519. In 1521 Ponce de León sailed in two ships to establish a colony on the southwest coast of the Florida peninsula. The Calusa Indians drove the colonists away; Ponce de León died of a wound he received in the attack after the expedition returned to Havana.

In 1521 Pedro de Quejo and Francisco Gordillo enslaved 60 Indians at Winyah Bay, South Carolina. Quejo, with the backing of Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, returned to the region in 1525, stopping at several locations between Amelia Island and the Chesapeake Bay. In 1526 de Ayllón led a colonizing expedition of some 600 people to the South Carolina coast. After scouting possible locations as far south as Ponce de León Inlet in Florida, the colony of San Miguel de Galdape was established in the vicinity of Sapelo Sound, Georgia. Disease, hunger, cold and Indian attacks led to the colony being abandoned after only two months. About 150 survivors returned to Spanish settlements.