Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

Between the first and last visit of De Leon to Florida, several heroes of Central American discovery touched on the coast of the newly-found district, on their way to and from Mexico; and in 1518, Francis Garay, for some time Governor of Jamaica, cruised along the whole of the shores of North America bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, passing the mouths of the Mississippi, called by the Indians the Miche Sepe, or Father of Waters, and by the Spaniards the Rio del Espirito Santo, or the River of the Holy Ghost. Refraining from landing on account of the “little hospitable” appearance of the country, Garay contented himself with drawing a map of the coast-line, which he very accurately describes as “bending like a bow,” adding that a line drawn from the most southerly point of Florida to the northernmost headland of Yucatan “would make the string of the bow.”

The next European to visit Florida was Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, who set out with two ships from Cuba, in 1520, bound on a quest for a land called Chicora, said to exist to the north of Florida, and to contain within its limits a sacred stream, whose waters possessed powers similar to those of the Fountain of Youth. Landing between 32° and 33° N. latitude, De Ayllon was hospitably received by the simple natives, who crowded on to his vessels, and gazed with wondering, child-like eyes at all the new wonders before them. Leaving the poor creatures unmolested until he had gained their confidence, the crafty Spaniard amused himself for a time with excursions on the banks of a river to which he gave the name of the Jordan, and when he had induced 130 Indians to go on board, he suddenly returned to the ships, and gave orders for the anchors to be weighed, and set sail for Cuba.

The agony of the captives, when they saw the shores of their native land receding from before them, and realized that return was impossible, passed description. Only dimly did they understand that their fate was to work for the white men; and when a fierce storm arose, and one vessel was swallowed up, with all its inmates, by the waves, the survivors may perhaps have thought that the home from which their strange captors came was beneath the ocean. However that may be, but few of the Indians on the second ship lived to reach New Spain, and when there, their services were of little use to their master, who, disappointed in his first venture, lost no time in organizing a new and more formidable expedition, consisting of several vessels, having on board a force of some five hundred men.

HAVANA HARBOR (CUBA).

After much beating about on the coast north of Florida, during which one pilot is said to have gone mad with vexation at being unable to find the Jordan, De Ayllon landed at a spot near his first encampment, and, to his surprise, was received with enthusiasm by the Indians, who, proving themselves apt pupils of their first European teachers, feasted him and his men until they were completely deceived.

On the fifth day after the landing, when the white men were sleeping off the effects of their orgies, the Indians rose en masse and murdered them all. Then, turning their attention to the vessels lying at anchor, they attacked the sailors with their poisoned arrows, killing many of them, but failing to prevent the escape of a little remnant, who carried home the story of the ill-fated expedition. Whether De Ayllon himself perished on land or at sea is unknown; but it is certain that he never returned, and, to quote a quaint old chronicler whose narrative is among those preserved by the Hakluyt Society, “he was lost ... leaving nothing done worthy of memorie.”

After this tragic conclusion of an unworthy career, Florida and its people were left undisturbed for several years, though some further details of the configuration of its eastern coast were given in 1524 by Verrazano of Florence, who sailed from the point of the peninsula as far north as Cape Breton, and whose experiences on the Atlantic seaboard are given below. The brief respite enjoyed by the unfortunate natives was, however, but a lull before a more terrible storm of invasion than any with which they had yet had to cope, for in 1528, seven years after the death of De Ayllon, Pamphilo de Narvaez, inflamed by the exaggerated accounts given by the survivors of previous expeditions as to the wealth of Florida, obtained permission from Charles V. of Germany to take possession of it in his name.

Leaving Spain in the autumn of 1527, with five ships and a force of some 600 men, Narvaez arrived, after many delays, in the Bay of Tampa, on the west coast of Florida, in February, 1528. Landing with half of his forces, the leader at once commenced his march to the interior, in spite of the remonstrances of some of the chief officers, who feared that if he once lost sight of his vessels he would never see them again. Remembering the experience of Cortes, Narvaez hoped to find a second wealthy nation to plunder; but his disappointment and dismay may be imagined when, instead of any indications of advanced civilization, he met only with vast swamps and forests teeming with naked savages, who, though they melted away at his approach, and eluded his vengeance as if by magic, hung about in the rear of his army, harassing his every movement, and picking up the stragglers for private murder and tortures worse than death.

Buoyed up through all his miseries, however, by the rumors which met him at every turn of the existence in the north of a district called Apalachen, where gold was to be had for the asking, Narvaez still pressed on, to be rewarded at last, after months of weary marching by arriving at a miserable Indian village of some forty houses—supposed to have been somewhere near the mouth of the Apalacha river, flowing from the Apalachian mountains of Georgia—from which all the able-bodied inhabitants had fled. “This,” said the Indian guides—who, taken prisoners by the way, had been forced to give their unwilling services to the intruders—“this is Apalachen; it is here that the gold you long for is to be found.”