From Ponce de Leon to Sir Walter Raleigh: Early European Arrivals in Southeastern North America

by James F. Hancock

Overview

Few people know the events that occurred in the North American Southeast before the Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth Rock. By 1620, the coast of Atlantic America had been extensively explored and charted by dozens of Europeans and several colonies had already been attempted. This history covers all the Spanish expeditions into Southern Atlantic America and the Gulf Coast, and the early French and English infringements into what the Spanish would ruthlessly defend as their territory.

The unveiling of North America was often violent, as the Indigenous people valiantly fought to protect their cultures against the onslaught of Europeans. Interactions between the people of the two worlds generally started out friendly, but soon deteriorated as the Europeans took food and land from the local populations by force. European diseases would further decimate Indigenous populations, emptying their land for colonial farms and weakening their ability to resist the growing onslaught. Drawing extensively on eyewitness reports from the explorers themselves, this book reveals the full, complex story of the European discovery and settlement of Florida and the coastal Southeast.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476695785
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	04/24/2025
Pages:	191
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.38(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

James F. Hancock is a university distinguished professor (emeritus) at Michigan State University. He is the author of several books and lives in Scarborough, Maine.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: The Spanish Move into Eastern North America
One—Ponce de León’s ­Ill-Fated Conquest of Florida: 1513–1521
Two—A New Andalucía, Legend of Chicora: 1521–1525
Three—The Epic Voyage of Giovanni da Verrazzano: 1524
Four—The Fiasco of Pánfilo de Narváez: 1527–1535
Five—The Bloody Campaign of Hernando de Soto: 1539–1543
Six—The Luna Colony and the Coosa: 1559–1561
Seven—Jean Ribault and the French Attempt to Settle Florida: 1562–1565
Eight—Pedro Menéndez de Avilés Takes Charge of Florida: 1565–1566
Nine—Pedro Menéndez Struggles to Control Florida: 1566–1572
Ten—Spanish Florida Staggers Toward the Seventeenth Century: 1567–1586
Eleven—The First English Intrusion into the Southeast: 1584–1587
Epilogue: Southern Atlantic America in the Seventeenth Century
Bibliography
Index