The Spaniards landed at Cuba, where they delayed for nearly a year, and passed their time in a round of balls, tilting-matches and bullfights. After having enjoyed themselves to the full, they again embarked and headed for Florida, landing upon the beach at Tampa, where the American troops who were to wrest Cuba from the Spanish rule, set out for the harbor of Santiago, in the summer of 1898. All were cheerful and happy, eagerly looking forward to the not far distant time when they would find rich and populous cities to be sacked and looted in the same manner that they had despoiled the Peruvian and Mexican strongholds.
Fearing no enemy, about three hundred of them went ashore and encamped near the beach. They christened the bay, The Bay of the Holy Spirit; and yet they were to find no Holy Spirit nestling behind the solemn palm trees which grew almost down to the sand, for, as they lay in fanciful security, suddenly the thicket rang with the wild war-whoops of the native Floridians, and a horde of dusky forms rushed in among them, shooting arrows and striking with sharp, stone tomahawks.
All was now a scene of terror and confusion. A few of the Spaniards ran to the water’s edge, shrilly blowing upon their trumpets in order to attract those left upon the ships. Others cried loudly for help, and, piling into the longboats, their comrades hastened to their assistance, leaped upon the sand, and, with a fierce battle-cry, drove the Indians pell-mell into the sheltering palms. Thereafter the Castilians were most careful to establish a picket-post around their encampments, for they had suffered severely in this first encounter.
The boats were now unloaded, many of the larger vessels were sent back to Cuba, while the smaller craft, or caravels, were kept for the service of the army. A number of men were left on guard at Tampa, while the remainder set off into the forest, heading towards the northeast. They had not gone far before they came upon a white man, who was none other than a lonely survivor of a previous expedition, led by a Spaniard called Narváez. His name was Juan Ortiz. He had been with the Indians for a long time, as he had been very young when captured by the natives. They had spared his life because of the intercession of a chief’s daughter. Since this lucky proceeding, which was quite similar to that of Pocohontas and John Rolfe, he had lived with a neighboring tribe. The Spaniards were delighted to secure his services as a guide and interpreter.
When the followers of Pizarro had reached Peru they had immediately found gold among the natives. You know that this is what they were after and what they seized upon with greedy fingers. Not so in palm-studded Florida. For, as the mail-clad invaders pushed into this barren and sandy country, they found no gold and no splendid cities with temples filled with jeweled images. After marching for hours through interminable pine forests and floundering through dense swamps, where the natives shot at them with poisoned arrows from behind trees, and harassed and slew them as they splashed through the mire and deep water, they found nothing but deserted villages and a few aged Indians who were too decrepit to make their escape.
This naturally angered the adventurers. Those who had sold their property in order to join in this hazardous expedition, began to be sorry that they had ever left the peaceful soil of old Castile. Those who had sacrificed good positions to take a chance in the search of this El Dorado, began to bewail their coming, and to bemoan the fact that they had listened to the sweet strains of romance which had been woven over these expeditions into the unknown.
The fabled El Dorado could be no gilded chieftain, he was a gilded fool. Alas that they ever left the gray cobbled streets of ancient Seville!
Yet on, on, they toiled wearily, ever hoping to find the gold which never came to view. They finally approached a native village which was filled with warriors of mettle, for they were furiously attacked. A shower of arrows fell among them, but, little heeding these missiles, the Spaniards discharged their guns, and, rushing upon the patriotic Indians, easily routed them. Many of the poor redskins took refuge in a pond and swam out so that they could not be reached. The Spaniards immediately surrounded the water and awaited developments. A historian of the period says:
“Nine hundred Indians took to the pond, and, all day long, continued to swim around shouting defiance and mounting on each other’s shoulders in order to shoot their arrows. Night came, and not one had surrendered; midnight, and still not one. At ten o’clock the next day, after twenty-four hours in the water, some two hundred came out, all stiff and cold. Others followed. The last seven would not give up, but were dragged out unconscious by the Spaniards, who swam in after them, when they had been thirty hours in the water, without touching bottom. Then the humane invaders exerted themselves to warm and restore to life these unfortunate people.”
In spite of this kind treatment, the men from Castile put irons on many of these natives, and took them along with them, so that they would have slaves to transport their baggage, pound their corn, and serve them when in camp. A soldier, who has written of this journey, says that, upon one occasion, the enslaved prisoners rose against their masters and tried to massacre them, but the Spaniards crushed this attempt, brought the helpless Indians to the village square, and caused them to be hacked to pieces by their halberdiers, or swordsmen. You can readily see that these invaders were making no happy impression upon simple-minded Americans.