Spanish had two main areas of interest in the North America. These were Florida and New Mexico. With Florida they ment in those times the whole area in the east side of Mississippi-river. There were three things that draw spanish to these areas. First of all they heard often rumours about great cities in the north, were streets were made of gold. They were searching these "seven cities of Cibola". Another reason was their will to secure their sea-routes. The most important route from new world to Spain w ent through Florida strait to the Atlantic. So Spain wanted to secure Florida to themself. Otherwise pirates might form bases there, and threaten comminications with Spain. This was also why Spain was in time to time interested about California. The third reason to go to Florida and New Mexico was converting natives. Catholic church was always looking for more souls, and urged the spanish crown to advance to new areas.
First spaniard to explore North American coast was Juan Ponce De Leon. He is said to have looked for the legendary fountain of the youth, which was supposed to be in an island called Bimini. But more likely reason for his expedition was that he was looki ng for gold, or maybe slaves to Caribian islands were they had shortage of labour. De Leon made his first trip in 1513. He explored the coast of Florida from St.Augustine towards south. He returned in the same year, and reported that all the indians had b een hostiles towards spanish. This is quite easy to understand, because they were living quite close to Bahama-islands, and had propably heard what had happened in there. And maybe they even had some refugees living with them. So local natives were very h ostile from the beginning.
De Leon lost his interest to Florida for many years. But when it was found out in 1521 that there were rich nations in the continent, when Cortes went to Mexico, De Leonīs interest rised again. He get the colonization rights to Florida, and set out with 200 soldiers. But when he landed to Florida, indians attacked him immediately, and De Leon was killed in the first battle. His men were driven back to their ships, and they returned to Santo Domingo.
Next attemp to conquer Florida was made in 1527. This time leader was Narvaez, and he was hoping to find a lots of gold from the area. He left from Spain in 1527 with 400 men, and reached Florida in april 1528. The place where he landed was most likely T amba Bay. He took the area formally to the possession of Spain. There was no immediate attack from the natives, but soon diificulties started to rise. Spanish couldnīt stay anyway, because there was not enough food for all of them. Beside, natives told th em that there was a lot of gold in the north. This might have been a trick to get the spanish away from their country, but it is also possible that natives were talking about creek-nation and their pearls. Anyway, Narvaez made a grave mistake and divided his men, sending part of them by ships while he himself marched north by foot. The ships and Narvaez never met again. It is a bit strange that just some years ago these same natives in Tamba Bay had attacked De Leon immediately, but now let Narvaez to cam e ashore. There certainly were no differencies in how De Leon and Narvaez treated natives, or if there were, it was to the disadvantage of Narvaez. And still natives let him be at first. No resource mentioned any reason for this, but there is one possibil ity. After De Leon had explored the shores, spanish traders started to visit the area. Maybe indians had had peacefull relations with them, and learned that spanish were not beasts after all. So Narvaez came, and natives thought they could get along with him just like with the traders. And they grew hostile only when they realised that food was getting scarce and spaniards were planning to stay.
So Narvaez marched to north, looking for gold. In june 1528 he reached the area of Apalachee-nation in Georgia--Florida border. All the villages in the area were deserted when spaniards arrived, and natives were hiding. Narvaez of course didnīt find any gold from the area. And he couldnīt get in contact with the natives so that he could capture their leaders or try some other tricks. Apalachees were now waging a furious guerilla-war agains Narvaez, who was loosing more and more men. Little by little the march forward changed into a route. And suddenly spanish realised that they were now fleeing for their lives. They fled towards west, and in the end build boats and tried to sail to Mexico. This however failed, and most of them died to starvation and dise ases. In the end only young officer called Cabeza De Vaca managed to return to Mexico with three others. So already another attempted conquest of Florida had failed, and this time it ended up in disaster.
And the third attemp had been already made, and it had also failed. Lucas De Ayllon had lead 500 men to the shores of what is a modern day Georgia in 1526. He was not going to ride around the country killing everybody. Ayllon was planning to form a colon y. He had a native slave who was from that area, and who had told great stories about the richness and fertility of that area. So Ayllon was trying to get in contact with this rich nation, and he was planning to do everything peacefully. First he tried to found a colony around Charleston, but this failed because soil was bad. So he sailed towards south, and the colony was build to modern day Savannah. Ayllon died almost at once, and settlers started to querrel with each other. At first natives were friend ly, but soon spanish started to cause troubles, and indians became hostile. Soon the colony was in desparate condition, and spanish evacuated it. Only 150 of them were still alive. This time the hostility of the natives together with a bad climate and poo r supply had destroyed the colonization attemp.
Next spaniard to try was Francisco De Coronado. And there was one thing that gave reasons to except success. He was very experienced conquistador, while the others had been mostly landowners from Caribian islands. So this time it was a professional exped ition. Reasons for Coronados expedition were usual. Cabeza De Vaca had brought with him rumours about golden cities in the north of Mexico. This rumour was immediately connected to the old legend about seven cities of Cibola. And spaniards had send a prie st, father Marcos, to investigate this rumour. And father Marcos had actually seen one of these cities, but never investigated closer. He just saw it from the nearby hill, and then immediately turned back to Mexico. But his report about city with golden w alls caused a great excitement in Mexico. And Coronado started to prepare his expedition. He started to move north in the beginning of 1540. And following the route of father Marcos he in the end saw the same city as Marcos had seen. It was Hawikuh, the s outhernmost city of the zuni-pueblos. There was immedietaly a fight with the zunis, and Coronado occupied Hawikuh. People of Hawikuh had already killed some people of the expedition of father Marcos. So they were hostile from the beginnig.
Coronado soon investigated all the zuni pueblos, but didnīt find any gold. All the other pueblos were friendly, and received spanish well. It seems that they too took spanish as some kind of semi-gods, as aztecs and others in the south had done. Even fro m far away pueblos came embassadors to wellcome Coronado and to invite him to visit them. Coronado didnīt stay with the zunis for a long. He marched north, and searched the hopi pueblos, and went as far north as Taos. All the time relations with the nativ es were peacefull, but during the first winter in New Mexico 12 pueblos revolted. Coronado quickly surpressed the revolt. Then he met in Pecos-pueblo an indian called The Turk. He was a slave of the local natives, and originally from the east. He told Cor onado about big cities and much gold in the east, in the land of Quivira. Coronado didnīt need much convincing, and soon he lead his men towards east, across the great plains. It seems that this was again one of the favourite responses of the natives. Fir st they tried to drive the spanish away, just like in Florida, but when they couldnīt do it, they send spanish away by telling these stories about gold in somewhere else. And it usually worked. But it might also be, that only The Turk was in the plot, wis hing to regain his freedom and and get back home. And spanish gave him the chance.
So Coronado marched eastwards. He visited Palo Duro Canyon, and went all the way to East-Kansas, where he met the wichita nation. This was the land of Quivira, and there was of course no gold or cities. All the natives in the plains wellcomed Coronado, b ecause Coronado obviously wasnīt coming to stay, and he had only so few men with him, that they didnīt exhauste the food supplies of the natives.But there was nothing interesting there for the spanish. So Coronado returned to New Mexico, and from there im mediately to Mexico.
In almost simultaniously there was another column of spanish in the North America. Hernando De Sota had had been with Pizarro in Peru, and he had a great reputation. But he wanted more. He wanted to find his own gold-country to conquer. And he believed h e could find it from Florida, heaven knows why when Narvaez had already been there. In 1538 De Soto sailed from Spain with 600 men. They were all picked soldiers, and the whole expedition was really experienced. In 1539 De Soto reached Florida, and made a landing at Tamba Bay. He immediately conquered the nearest village, and from there pillaged the whole area, attacking every village within his reach. But there was no gold in Florida, so De Soto started to march towards north, just like Narvaez before hi m. Fighting all the time, indians resisting his march, he advanced to apalachee-land, and spend the next winter there. And again local natives told him rumours about the rich land in the north. De Soto believed, and marched north to Georgia. He met the cr eek-nation. They didnīt have any gold, but instead there were river-pearls, and spaniards collected as much of these as they could. Creeks were friendly, and there were no clashes. But again there were rumours about rich land in the north. And so De Soto left the creeks and went to the cherokee-land. He marched as far north as Chattanooga. But there was nothing in there either, so De Soto returned to south, to Alabama. He marched through creek and choctaw countries, and was well received everywhere. Spani ards were now capturing the native leaders when they came to meet them, and then forced natives to feed them and give them bearers. So they promptly captured the leader of the choctaws as well. In the capital of choctaws natives surprised spanish and atta cked them. After really hard fighting De Soto conquered the place, losing 22 men dead and 148 as woundeds.
After that there was continuous war agains choctaws. De Soto was not yet ready to give up, so he decidet to look for gold in Mississippi valley, and headed towards north, away from dangerous choctaws. He reached the area of chickasaw nation, and was imme diately attacked by these, and lost 12 men in an ambush. De Soto quickly retreated towards west, and crossed the Mississippi river to caddo-land. All the indians were now against him. Maybe the word had spread, that chickasaws had driven them away from th eir land, and it was possible to beat spanish. In 1542 started towards south. De Soto died to fever somewhere in Mississippi, and the remnants of his men finally managed to build boats and sail to Mexico.
After this everything remained quiet in North America for a while. But the menace of the pirates was getting worse, and lotīs of ships were being lost in the Florida strait. So it became obvious that Spain had to have a base in Florida to protect the rou tes and rescue wrecked ships from the coasts. In 1558 Tristan De Luna was nominated as a governor of Florida. He left from Vera Cruz in 1559 with 1500 people, and landed in Pensacola Bay, West Florida. It was a great place for a base, but everything went wrong. At first a hurricane sunk most of the ships, and lots of supplies were lost. But natives were friendly, and a colony was founded. But soon it became evident that it was impossible to stay. There were not enough food in the area, and natives became hostile. The agriculture of the creek-indians in the north was not as good as it was supposed, and they werenīt able to feed the colony. After all kind of troubles the settlers returned to Mexico in 1561, but left a small garrison to Pensacola.
Spanish licked their wounds for a while. But when french tried to found bases to Florida, Spain had to act. They couldnīt allow their enemies to get a foothold in their America. In a brief war french were expelled from the area, and spanish founded their own colony, Santa Elena, in 1566. Other bases and garrisons were founded too, and another colony to St.Augustine. One other reason for founding the colonies was the wish to have a landroute to mines in Mexico, and convert the local inhabitants But everyt hing went wrong again. France lost itīs interest to the area, and so did Spain. It was no longer important to them without the threat from France. The garrisons started to die away. Indians were most of the time very hostile to spanish, and they destroyed some garrisons, while others were evacuated for the lack of funds or supplies. In 1573 only Santa Elena and St.Augustine were left, and they werenīt doing that well either. The decline of Florida continued. It was no interest to jesuits either, because i ndians were mostly at war with the spanish, so they couldnīt convert anybody. In 1589 Santa Elena was evacuated, and in the end of the century only totally useless St.Augustine was left. There was also an attemp from spanish to found a mission to Chesapea ke Bay in Virginia in 1570. Spanish brought with them an local indian slave, and he obviously warned his people about spanish, and all missionaries were killed.
The interest towards New Mexico revived in the end of 16th century. In 1540s spanish gave up their hope of looking for more gold, and instead started to look for gold-mines. This is why their first steps towards north from Mexico were taken. Some gold-mi nes were found to the North Mexico. So called mining frontier was formed, and the real frontier came far behind. This real frontier was lead by missionaries, who advanced from nation to nation conquering natives and then converting them. But this movement towards north was slow, because indians in here were used to be free from tribute, so they didnīt agree to pay anything to spanish, but simply fought to the bitter end. And they were living in small communities in the mountains, so it was almost impossib le for spanish to catch them. So the real frontier advanced only really slowly, and reached the New Mexico only in the end of spanish rule in America.
But as I said the mining frontier moved ahead. And there started to be rumours in Mexico about gold-mines in the north. In the same time missionaries were demanding loudly that natives of New Mexico should be converted. In 1581 a small group of spaniards was send to the area to investigate. They left three missionaries there, and returned. But in the next year a rumour told that all three had been killed. Another expedition was send, and they found out that it was true. These two expeditions raised more interest towards the area, and the roumours about gold-mines were stronger than ever. Two unauthorised expeditions left towards north, but the government stopped the other one. Other group get all the way to great plains, were natives killed almost all of them.
What finally made spanish to do something about the north was the arrival of british to the coast of California. Sir Francis Drake searched the area in 1579, and other pirates followed him. Spain was afraid that british would try to get the area to thems elf. So an expedition was send to New Mexico to conquer and settle it for Spain. The leader of the spanish was Juan De Onate, and he is often said to be the last conquistador. He left from Mexico in 1598 with 129 soldiers and 20 priest and lots of allied indians. The natives in New Mexico were friendly. Only battle was fought in Acoma-pueblo. The resources donīt mention it, but the reason for the fight were the holy geese of Acoma. Goose was a holy animal for these natives, and the streets of Acoma were f ull of these birds.When the spanish arrived, they were hungry so they ate couple of geese. And of course natives then attacked them. But Acoma was the only incident. The encomienda-system was forced to the area, and convertion started. But there was no go ld-mines anywhere. Again there were rumours about rich nations in the plains, and Onate went to investigate. But the resistance of the natives was fierce from the beginning, and Onate returned to New Mexico as quickly as he could. The new province wasnīt a success. It had a really bad reputation in Mexico, and it was impossible to get new settlers there. Thatīs why a new policy was adapted, and New Mexico consentrated only to convertion. It was a financial burden, and a total failure. In 1609 the city of Santa Fe was founded, and hardly any spaniards lived outside it.
It is interesting that pueblos were so friendly towards spanish when Onate arrived, although they had quite a bad experiences about Coronado, and they had killed all the missionaries before. The natives of the plains had also met spanish before, and aft er De Soto blundered their area they resisted the next two spanish expeditions as fiercely as they could, being quite succesfull. So why was it different for the pueblos. One important thing for us to remember is that the situation of the pueblos had only recently dramatically changed. New people had arrived from the north, the deneh nation. They had started their southward advance from the northern Canada around 1200. And is very likely that they reached the South West area only around year 1500. And whe n Coronado arrived deneh-nation had just divided into navaho and apache nations. They were new in the area, not yet a deadly threat to pueblos. But during next decades these new arrivals started to attack pueblos, who were almost defenceless against them. To the west of them were apaches, in north were navahoes, and in the east apaches. Pueblos were surrounded. And when Onate arrived, they propably realised that they could get protection from the spanish. So they didnīt resist the conquest. Otherwise it i s quite hard to explain the attitude of the pueblos.
So what have we found out. Mainly that the natives had quite many different ways to respond to the arrival of the spanish. The same nation could use different means in different occasions. The next nation act complitely differently, and natives in Florid a and the South West could sometimes use the same methods. When natives met the spanish for the first time, and hadnīt even heard about them before, they were curious and friendly. But usually troubles soon started, when natives realised that spanish were going to stay or there started to be a shortage of food. Often spanish themself decidet for the natives by attacking immediately, like De Soto did in Florida. But this wasnīt the first encounter. The natives of Florida were hostile from the beginning, mo st likely because they knew what the spanish had done in the Bahamas. Sometimes spanish took an native slave with them to North America, to secure good relation. But at least in two cases the native immediately escaped and led the natives against the span ish and warned them about what would happen if the spanish would stay. And when the resistance of natives often was useless, because they couldnīt defeat the spanish, they often used a trick that seems to be common in everywhere. They tried to make spanis h to leave the area by telling about great cities and riches in somewhere else. And it always worked, although in New Mexico Coronado left garrisons to their area anyway. Plains people were friendly towards Coronado, most likely because they hadnīt heard about spaniards before, and because Coronado had only small amount of men with him and he didnīt stay long in one place, but rather just travelled fastly across the area. But when De Soto came, he had serious troubles, mostly because he was moving slowly and staying for a long time in one place, and was constantly attacking the natives himself. To attacks natives naturally responded with attack. And in the north they didnīt met the spanish in the open fields, but rather tried ambushes and guerilla warfare . And this of course was the right tactic, and every time spanish had to retreat from Florida and plains for their lives. Only in South West, were people were living in permanent towns which they had to defend, could spanish achieve success. But they to w ere helpless against the apaches in the surrounding mountains. Surprisingly often the natives, especially powerfull apalachees and other creeks, abandoned their villages when spanish were closing, and returned only when they were gone. This proved to be a good tactic too. Spanish would eat all the food there was, but there was no indians to grow more grain or hunt, so in the end spanish had to leave to eat the food of some other village. This made it impossible for the spanish to remain in one area for a long. So actually the responses of the natives in North America were quite effective, and it had a lot to do with the failure of Spain in the area. They could only conquer New Mexico, and just because natives there were more advanced than in the east, and tried to meet them in open battle, or in the case of Onate, didnīt fight him at all, because they needed him as an ally against their strong enemies.
Resources:
Abbey, Kathryn Trimmer: Florida. Land of Change. The University of North Carolina Press. 1941
Bannon, John Francis: The Spanish Borderlands Frontier 1513--1821. Holt, Rhinehart and Winston inc. USA. 1970.
Horgan, Paul: Great River: The Rio Grande In North American History. Vol.1. Indians and Spain. Holt, Rinehart and Holt of Canada, Limited. 1968.
Sauer, Carlo O: Sixteenth Century North America. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1971
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