Florida Naturally.com

DeSoto Landing 1539And it would be many years before the peninsula would become hospitable. In 1513, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, who had sailed with Columbus came from Puerto Rico to Florida, searching for gold and slaves. He sailed along Florida’s shores, stopping briefly at a place near present-day St. Augustine, and claimed the land for Spain. He named the territory , “Florida,” in honor of Spain’s Easter holiday, Pascua Florida , “feast of flowers.”

Ponce de Leon is officially attributed with the discovery of Florida but there is evidence to suggest that he was not the first. He was not welcomed by the native inhabitants.In fact they were downright hostile. Generally this was not the reception given to the Europeans on their first visits. However due to typical European bad behavior natives were almost always hostile on subsequent visits. One may presume other visits and Spanish cruelty had preceded Ponce de Leon to Florida.

For the next few years Florida was visited by other little known expeditions nearly every year. Ponce de Leon returned in 1521, to established a colony on the southwestern side of the peninsula. There the Indians were also unfriendly and he was wounded. Ponce de Leon died of his wounds and the latest efforts to colonize Florida were abandoned.

Other wanderings continued by the Spanish in Florida . These included Cabeza de Vaca, Hernando de Soto explored from present day Tampa Bay to Tallahassee In 1559, Tristan de Luna tried to set up a colony on Pensacola Bay, but hardships and hurricanes put an end to the struggles after only two years.. Within a few years of de Luna’s efforts, the French began exploring Florida. Rene Goulaine de Laudonniere established a little bastion, Fort Caroline, at the mouth of the great northward-flowing St. Johns River.

These French inroads challenged the Spanish to work even faster and harder. After nearly 50 years of trying, In 1565, Pedro Menendez de Aviles arrived on the northeast coast and established what would become the first permanent settlement in the present-day United States St. Augustine. In 1565, Spanish captain general Pedro Menendez de Aviles sailed to South Florida to make peace with the native peoples and settle the lands for his king. His fleet was caught in a storm, and the crew took refuge in a Tequesta village in Biscayne Bay. Menendez resumed in 1567 so that “the souls and natives thereof may be saved and his Majesty’s purpose be furthered, which is to prevent the [French] Lutherans from setting foot in that land, and to endeavor to implant the gospel therein.”

During this voyage, he established a mission, protected by 30 soldiers. The soldiers occasionally provoked acts of hostility, culminating with killing one of the uncles of the Tequesta chief. This enraged the Tequestas, who attacked and forced the missionaries to retreat. The Spanish continued to establish missions and forts along the Florida coasts to strengthen their hold on the New World. During this time, however, the and Calusas began to feel the decimating effects of slave raids and European diseases.

MenendezMenendez promptly set about removing the French, converting Fort Caroline into San Mateo, only to see it recaptured with much loss of life two years later. But Spanish progress continued across northern Florida in the form of a chain of forts and missions established to convert the Indians to Christianity. With the Spanish grip seemingly secure, the English steered clear of Florida.

They established their first colonies far to the north, away from the threat of Spanish power, although Sir Francis Drake did manage to raid struggling St. Augustine in 1586. By the early 1700s, English colonists began causing trouble for the Spanish, particularly in present-day South Carolina and Georgia. Little by little, they trickled south, laid waste the missions between St. Augustine and Pensacola, destroyed the little “first colony” and killed many of the Indians.

Meanwhile, the French had their eyes on Florida’s far western coast; they captured Pensacola in 1719. As Spain’s hold grew weaker, England’s desire for the territory strengthened. Finally, in 1763, following the devastating Seven Years’ War, Spain traded Florida for Cuba, abandoning the glorious dreams of eternal youth, gleaming treasure and religious conversion for which her explorers, settlers and missionaries had struggled. Meanwhile, the Spanish and the English were feuding. In 1588, when Sir Francis Drake beat the sails off the Spanish Armada, Britain gained sovereignty over the high seas. In 1763 Britain acquired Florida in a swap with Spain, which got Cuba.

Always a contrary lot, those few settlers living in Florida during the Revolutionary War sided with the British. When Britain lost, the Brits took one look at swampy, mosquito-infested Florida—and what it would cost to keep it—and tossed most of it back to Spain in exchange for the Bahamas, to which many of Florida’s Tory sympathizers judiciously fled