Thursday, February 18, 2010

Historic Florida & The Europeans

The Everglades: River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas was profiled in an earlier blog.

Included in the book was a dose of European politics; "It was this Spain, not Columbus, that was to be the conqueror, administrator, spiritual lord and temporal master of the new world only slowly coming into view." Here's a map of early Spanish exploration.

A young shipwrecked Spaniard, Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda wrote a memoir after being rescued from his 17 year captivity and is credited for preserving what little is known of the Calusa language in Florida.

"In 1562 the Spanish ambassador to France frantically warned the Spanish crown of a fleet...under the command of Jean Ribaut, with the encouragement of the Huguenot admiral Coligny, and of the queen mother and her court." "...a little north of the present St. Augustine, Ribaut founded his colony, which lacked every means of survival." The French were slaughtered during an incident known as Mantanzas, led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles.

Fort Mantanzas

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