America grasped hands with our English friends on this occasion, when our American officers and sailors from the battleships Missouri and Illinois took a prominent part in the ceremonies.
At the close of this touching ceremony Ambassador Page, with our American officers and cadets, was extended a cordial reception from the thousands of persons who had assembled inside and outside the old parish church, whose register bears the name of the Indian princess.
To Florida belongs a romance not less fascinating and wonderful than that of Virginia’s Pocahontas. But alas, in the “manana” of the first Spanish invaders, much interesting history was lost to the world. Enough has been preserved, however, to excite the imagination and cause this age of research to go deep into embalmed records of centuries ago and revive the quaint philosophy of the old, entrancing Florida.
U-LE-LAH, THE POCAHONTAS OF FLORIDA.
With the extinction of the powerful Hirrihigua tribe passed the life story, tantalizing in its meagerness, of the Indian princess, U-le-lah. The full history of our lovely Florida princess, who was in very truth the first heroine of American romance, slumbers in the unwritten archives of forgotten history, yet one dramatic incident in her life has been preserved to us to give us the right to call her “the Pocahontas of Florida,” and in the heroism of this young Indian girl is a setting for as dramatic a story as has been given to history.
The old chroniclers tell us that the word Hirrihigua, which ethnologically considered, must be a mixture of both Spanish and Indian, was the name of the country first invaded by the Spaniard on Tampa Bay; the seat of government of a mighty tribe of aborigines, who, according to Bourne’s Narratives of De Soto, occupied a vast domain extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, and makes the history and romance of the Princess U-le-lah most fascinating and worthy of special commemoration.
FERDINAND DE SOTO.
When the cavalier of Spain in the person of the intrepid Ferdinand De Soto, landed in 1539 on Tampa Bay with all the pomp and pageantry of the Spanish court, he found himself at a loss for interpreters and guides to this wild and strange land.
Learning of a young Spaniard, Juan Ortez by name, who was the only survivor of the great De Narvaez expedition, and who had been captive of the Indians for ten years, De Soto quickly sought to find him in order to use him as a guide for his conquest.