A Ramble into the Early History of Florida.
IN trying to ascertain the distribution of tribes during the early explorations of the Florida settlers, we feel as though the veil of obscurity had never been lifted. However, three divisions have been traced, with some degree of certainty, after the extinction of the original Caribs, or Cannibals, whose works are seen so extensively on the St. John’s and sea-coast of Florida. In the northern part lived the Temuncas, on the eastern coast the Ais, and the Cobooras on the south-western. It was these Indians who were found occupying the soil when the Spanish and French explorers first landed on the new continent. Their presence in this country was, and still continues to be, an unsolved mystery. Different tribes have their peculiar legends, which date back for centuries. Some of them say their ancestors walked out from a cave; others, that they came from the clouds, consequently were of heavenly origin.
Whatever may have formerly been the difference of opinion in regard to the first discoverer of Florida, the honor is now awarded to Sebastian Cabot, who was born in Bristol, England, A.D. 1477. He was the son of John Cabot, a Venetian pilot, who in the pursuit of his vocation spent a portion of his time in Italy, but his home was in England; hence the erroneous statement made by writers that he was a Venetian. The fact has been well authenticated that the continent of America was discovered by Cabot, 1497, although Columbus first landed on some of the islands. England poorly requited Cabot for the great discovery of the New World. Henry VII.—whose ruling passion was parsimony—then being king, could not comprehend the magnificent prize which lay within his grasp by right of discovery. It is stated Cabot died about 1557, aged eighty years. During his last illness, just before his spirit took its flight, his mind being illumined with the radiance of another existence, he remarked that “Divine revelation was an infallible method of ascertaining the longitude he could then disclose to no one.” After this great discovery of Cabot the adventurers returned with tales of the wonderful, before which fiction paled into insignificance. They all thirsted for riches, and the wildest fantasies of the imagination could not keep pace with their golden dreams, to be realized in this far-away El Dorado. The sojourners at home seized upon the information with the same avidity as the explorers.
The discovery of Florida has usually been given to a companion of Columbus, Ponce de Leon, a daring cavalier, whom fortune had favored in all his undertakings. Having been promoted to the highest official position on the island of Porto Rico, his declining strength was a bitter potion, which remained in the cup of his closing life. Failing in the realization of his golden dreams in the new country, he afterward heard of an immortal fountain toward the setting sun, called Bimini, whose waters not only gave youth and beauty, but a perennial existence. It was before this much-coveted prize the glory of all earthly honors faded into shadows. The traditions of these wonderful rejuvenating waters had lived among the Carib Indians for many years, and from the fact that those who journeyed thither had never returned, the conclusion was inferred that they were roaming through the newly-found Elysian Fields, so delighted they did not wish to leave their new home, never imagining they could have perished by the hand of violence. Ponce do Leon had no difficulty in obtaining companions for this visionary voyage. He fitted out three vessels for the expedition, which sailed from the port of St. Germain, March, 1512, when, steering westward, they landed a little to the north of St. Augustine, March 27, 1512, on Palm Sunday, naming the country Pascua Floridas, which it still retains. Ponce was much charmed with the general appearance of every thing he saw. The number of streams which he drank from is unknown, but as none of the fabled waters imparted fresh vigor to his worn, battered body, made thus from age and toil, he returned home, if no younger, wiser on the subject of adventurous enterprise. After his arrival in Cuba he reported his discovery to Ferdinand, who conferred on him the title of Adelantado, which would immortalize him on the records of history after death, if no rejuvenating waters could affect him while living. Hardly had he returned and recovered from the toils of his discovery before information was received that the Caribs were encroaching upon the island of Porto Rico, capturing the Spaniards and carrying them away, and, as they were never seen afterward, it was inferred they had been eaten by these cannibals. An expedition was soon sent out to conquer them, commanded by Ponce de Leon. He landed first on the island of Guadalupe, when he sent his men on shore for wood, and the women to wash their clothes. The hostile Indians made a descent on them, killing the men, and carrying off the women prisoners to the mountains. This movement was a heavy blow to the ambitious Ponce, whose health and spirits both commenced declining. The squadron, on his return from Porto Rico, was taken charge of by one of his captains. After remaining on the island for several years, still retaining the office of governor, he was told the land he had discovered was not an island, but portion of a large unknown country. The fame of Cortez, who was then winning laurels in the conquest of Mexico, reached the ears of Ponce de Leon, who, not wishing to be considered the least among the conquerors, fitted out another expedition of two ships at his own expense, which sailed from Porto Rico, 1521, for the purpose of making farther explorations in the new continent. A bird of ill omen appeared to perch on his pennons from the time he left port. Heavy seas assailed him on every side, tossing his frail bark like a feather on their creamy crests, threatening destruction at every moment. He finally landed at the nearest point on the coast of Florida, being in the vicinity of St. Augustine, where he proclaimed himself governor and possessor of the soil. The Caribs, thinking themselves unauthorized in the recognition of any power outside of their own race, met him with fierce opposition, showering their arrows upon the astonished Spaniards, killing several of them, and mortally wounding Ponce de Leon. He was carried to the ship in a helpless condition, and from thence to Cuba. A Spanish writer makes the following remark upon the visionary scheme in which this unfortunate adventurer had embarked: “Thus fate delights to reverse the schemes of men. The discovery that Juan Ponce flattered himself was to be the means of perpetuating his life, had the ultimate effect of hastening his death.” The last undertaking closed his earthly career, and found for him a grave on the island of Cuba. The following is a correct copy of the epitaph placed upon his tomb, translated into Spanish by Castellano:
Aequeste lugar estrecho
Es sepulchro del varon
Que en el nombre fue Leon,
Y mucho mas en el hecho.
When rendered into English, means, In this sepulcher rest the bones of a man who was a lion by name, and still more by nature.
The failure of Ponce de Leon did not deter other explorers, thirsting for glory and gain, from trying their fortunes in this unexplored paradise. These, like many settlers in a new country the present day, had miscalculated the toils and privations to be endured, the dangers to be faced, the labors performed, the foes, whose cunning in the use of death-dealing missiles would take their lives with the same freedom they did the snake that sung the siren song of death to the thoughtless victim that crossed his pathway. The names of De Ayllon, Miruello, Cordova, Alaminos, Verazzano, Pamfilo de Narvaez, and Cabeca de Vaca, all come to us covered with defeat and loss of life while attempting to inhabit a country so uncivilized that they had never been able to imagine even its real condition. Mountains of gold, mines of silver, and rivers of pearls, was the Aladdin’s dream that lured them from home, and left them to perish on the sands of an inhospitable shore. Nearly twenty years had elapsed since the demise of Ponce de Leon, when Hernando de Soto, an officer second in rank to Pizarro the Conqueror, having accompanied him during his Peruvian conquests, had entered the temples of the Incas, whose brightness was only eclipsed by the great luminary of day, while the Aztecs rendered him the honor that belonged to their gods. De Soto still thirsted for conquest, and Florida was a new field for the gratification of his adventurous schemes and visionary enterprises. He consumed much time on the island of Cuba in recruiting soldiers and sailors who were willing to serve under him, and follow where he would lead. Finally, after his preparations were completed, he sailed, on the 15th of May, 1539, under the ensign, “Possunt quia posse videntur” (They are able, because they seem to be able), arriving at Espiritu Santo Bay on Whitsunday, May 25, with a larger fleet, than had ever landed on the shores of Florida before. De Soto was certain he had found “the richest country in the world,” where the cupidity of his companions could be gratified to satiety; where precious metals lined the temples, and more precious gems sparkled from their high altars, before which the priests, clad in robes of royal purple, chanted their orisons in the presence of worshiping crowds who, free from solicitude for all worldly possessions, poured their surplus riches from their well-filled coffers into the store-house of the Great Spirit, as an expiatory offering for their misdeeds. It cannot but be conceded that a more industrious, ubiquitous traveler than De Soto ever entered Florida. We are certain, if the courage of his men was unfailing, that their fine, costly apparel, becoming the knighthood of a chivalric age and people, was much shorn of its distinguished ensigns; also, the richly-caparisoned horses of their gaudy trappings, while exploring the wilds of Florida. Each day their hopes were renewed by something they saw, or heard from the Indians, who, being anxious to get rid of their troublesome intruders, entertained them with tales of unexplored territory containing vast treasures just beyond them. Thus they traveled from Tampa to Ocala, thence to Tallahassee, Rome, Georgia, the Cumberland, in Tennessee, finally crossing the Mississippi River near Memphis. Worn out with wandering, disappointed in not finding the El Dorado of his ambition, he calmly met and faced his last foe on the banks of the great Father of Waters, as one writer has remarked, “finding nothing so wonderful as his own grave.” Thus ended the career of a man, representing himself to be a child of the sun, in search of the fairest land in the world, and himself the greatest lord that ruled this unexplored region.