Florida.
Before this, however, the first serious attempt of which we have incontrovertible evidence was made to connect these discoveries in the north with those of the Spanish in the Antilles. As early as 1511 the map given by Peter Martyr had shown that, from the native reports or otherwise, a notion had arisen of lands lying north of Cuba. In 1512 Ponce de Leon was seeking a commission to authorize him to go and see what this reported land was like, with its fountain of youth. He got it February 23, 1512, when Ferdinand commissioned him "to find and settle the island of Bimini," if none had already been there, or if Portugal had not already acquired possession in any part that he sought. Delays in preparation postponed the actual departure of his expedition from Porto Rico till March, 1513. On the 23d of that month, Easter Sunday, he struck the mainland somewhere opposite the Bahamas, and named the country Florida, from the day of the calendar. He tracked the coast northward to a little above 30° north latitude. Then he retraced his way, and rounding the southern cape, went well up the western side of the peninsula. Whether any stray explorers had been before along this shore may be a question. Private Spanish or Portuguese adventurers, or even Englishmen, had not been unknown in neighboring waters some years earlier, as we have evidence. We find certainly in this voyage of Ponce de Leon for the first time an unmistakable official undertaking, which we might expect would soon have produced its cartographical record. The interdicts of the Council of the Indies were, however, too powerful, and the old lines of the Cantino map still lingered in the maps for some years, though by 1520 the Floridian peninsula began to take recognizable shape in certain Spanish maps.
PONCE DE LEON'S TRACK.
Bimini.
Just what stood for Bimini in the reports of this expedition is not clear; but there seems to have been a vague notion of its not being the same as Florida, for when Ponce de Leon got a new patent in September, 1514, he was authorized to settle both "islands," Bimini and Florida, and Diego Colon as viceroy was directed to help on the expedition. Seven years, however, passed in delays, so that it was not till 1521 that he attempted to make a settlement, but just at what point is not known. Sickness and loss in encounters with the Indians soon discouraged him, and he returned to Cuba to die of an arrow wound received in one of the forays of the natives.
1519. Pineda.
It was still a question if Florida connected with any adjacent lands. Several minor expeditions had added something to the stretch of coast, but the main problem still stood unsolved. In 1519 Pineda had made the circuit of the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and at the river Panuco he had been challenged by Cortes as trenching on his government. Turning again eastward, Pineda found the mouth of the river named by him Del Espiritu Santo, which passes with many modern students as the first indication in history of the great Mississippi, while others trace the first signs of that river to Cabeça de Vaca in 1528, or to the passage higher up its current by De Soto in 1541. Believing it at first the long-looked-for strait to pass to the Indies, Pineda entered it, only to be satisfied that it must gather the watershed of a continent, which in this part was now named Amichel. It seemed accordingly certain that no passage to the west was to be found in this part of the gulf, and that Florida must be more than an island.