Historical Collections Of Louisiana And Florida (1875)

Text extracted from opening pages of book: HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS Couieiana anb INOI/ UDINQ TRANSLATIONS OF ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS RELATING TO THEIR DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT, WITH NUMEROUS HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES BY B. F. FRENCH, MEMBER OF THE LOUISIANA, GEORGIA, PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JXRS3DT, NEW TOBK, AND MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. SECOND SERIES. tjistimcal Jtlemoirs anb WarratitJes, 1527-170S, ISTEW YORK: ALBERT MASON, PUBLISHER. 1875. LIEUTENANT G. W. COSTER, OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY, THIS VOLUME IS AS A TOKEN OP ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP, AND ADMIRATION OF HIS PROFESSIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC ATTAINMENTS, BY B. P. FEBHOH. No. 04 OLINTOK NEW YOBK, Sutiobuction. HE spirit of adventure which manifested itself in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was one of the clearest evidences of an approach ing moral and political regeneration. It indicated the first waking moments of mind from the torpor which had crept over it, and the struggle that ensued, though ill-directed and ill-regu lated, was yet active, energetic, and earnest working out into reality and fact, what had seemed before but the vagary of a dream. There was a movement in Europe, a progressive movement, whose vital energies were to be exhausted in new fields. Men were looking out for them selves, and indulging in airy fancies; they panted for new scenes and enterprises; they loathed the contracted empire which Nature had apparently assigned them, and strained their eyes across wide oceans for new countries. The spirit which had been awakened was to slumber no more there was hope for Europe and for the new continent which the Northmen and Columbus had discovered, and the fifteenth century opened away for the sixteenth. vi INTRODUCTION It was the fifteenth which produced Columbus, but the sixteenth and seventeenth carried out his noble conceptions, and filled the ocean with adventurers and explorers of dis tant lands. The country adjacent to the St. Lawrence, Hud son, Mississippi, and the savannahs of Florida, were soon reached by colonists from Spain, France, Holland, and England, thirsting for glory and gold, for liberty and equal ity. In 1513* Juan Ponce de Leon, a veteran cavalier and seaman, on Easter Sunday, Pascha Floridum discovered the coast of Florida, and landed at a place called the Bay of the Cross, where he took formal possession and planted a stone cross as a sign of the jurisdiction of Spam. He discovered Cape Corrientes ( Canaveral), and also the Tortugas and rocks called the Martyrs; he then entered the bay, sometimes called after his name, where he also landed, and took possession of the country in the name of the Cas tilian sovereigns, and returned to Spain, where, by much solicitation, he obtained the appointment of governor, to plant a colony in Florida; and on his return he was re pulsed by the natives in attempting to take possession of the country, and While suffering from the wounds received from the Indians he was compelled to return to Hispaniola, where he died. The voyages of Don Francisco de Garay, governor of Cuba, now began to throw new light on the discoveries of Ponce de Leon, and the coast of Florida became better known; and with motives of a more sordid nature, Luke Vasquez de Ayllon, in 1520, equipped two ships, and sailed INTROD UCTION vil from Hispaniola to explore the coast and capture the na tives. In a few days he made land in the Bay ofSt. Helena ( South Carolina), and landed on the banks of the l * Jordan river ( Combahee), in the country called by the Indians Chi chora, where he invited them on board and sailed to St. Domingo to sell them for slaves; but, as if to punish his perfidy, one of his ships foundered at sea, and both captors and the captives perished together. He again returned to Spain, and instead of being punished for his piracy, he was rewarded by Charles the Fifth with a commission as gov ernor of all the countries he should discover; and, in 1525, he went again to St. Hele