#30 The Spanish on the Atlantic Coast and the Strange Story of Don Luis

The year is 1566. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés has founded St. Augustine and ejected the French from Florida. In this episode, we are going to look at the next Spanish moves in the region, all of which were designed to secure Spain’s treasure fleets and interdict French and English incursions into North America. These include Pedro Menendez’s exploration of Florida proper, which we will only touch upon, the expeditions of Juan Pardo into the Carolinas and Tennessee from 1566 to 1568, and the catastrophic failure of a Jesuit mission to the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay, not far from the future site of Jamestown.  None of these succeeded, but they provoked England’s anxiety and fueled her ambitions, which in turn catalyzed Francis Drake’s almost unbelievable mission of 1577 to 1580, Walter Raleigh’s failed colony at Roanoke Island on the Outer Banks in 1587, and even the settlement at Jamestown in 1607.  It all ties together!

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References for this episode

Gonzalo Solís de Merás (Author), David Arbesú (Translator), Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Conquest of Florida: A New Manuscript

Anna Brickhouse, The Unsettlement of America: Translation, Interpretation, and the Story of Don Luis de Velasco

Chester B. DePratter, Charles M. Hudson and Marvin T. Smith, “The Route of Juan Pardo’s Explorations in the Interior Southeast, 1566-1568”

Charlotte M. Gradie, “Spanish Jesuits in Virginia: The Mission That Failed”