After sending his report and application to the King, and without awaiting any further authority, Garay seems to have deemed it prudent to secure a footing in the territory; and in 1520 sent four caravels under Diego de Camargo to occupy some post near Pánuco. The expedition was ill managed. One of the vessels ran into a settlement established by Cortés and made a formal demand of Cortés himself for a line of demarcation, claiming the country for Garay. Cortés seized some of the men who landed, and learned all Camargo’s plans. That commander, with the rest of his force, attempted to begin a settlement at Pánuco; but the territory afforded no food, and the party were soon in such straits that, unable to wait for two vessels which Garay was sending to their aid, Camargo despatched a caravel to Vera Cruz to beg for supplies.[813]
In 1523 Garay equipped a powerful fleet and force to conquer and settle Amichel. He sailed from Jamaica at the end of June with the famous John de Grijalva, discoverer of Yucatan, as his lieutenant. His force comprised thirteen vessels, bearing one hundred and thirty-six cavalry and eight hundred and forty infantry, with a supply of field-pieces. He reached Rio de las Palmas on the 25th of July, and prepared to begin a settlement; but his troops, alarmed at the unpromising nature of the country, insisted on proceeding southward. Garay yielded, and sailed to Pánuco, where he learned that Cortés had already founded the town of San Esteban del Puerto. Four of his vessels were lost on the coast, and one in the port. He himself, with the rest of his force, surrendered to Cortés. He died in Mexico, while still planning a settlement at Rio de las Palmas; but with his death the province of Amichel passed out of existence.
Thus the discoveries of Ponce de Leon and of Garay, with those of Miruelos, made known, by ten years’ effort, the coast-line from the Rio Grande to the St. John’s in Florida.
The next explorations were intended to ascertain the nature of our Atlantic coast north of the St. John’s.
In 1520 Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, one of the auditors of the Island of St. Domingo, though possessed of wealth, honors, and domestic felicity, aspired to the glory of discovering some new land, and making it the seat of a prosperous colony. Having secured the necessary license, he despatched a caravel under the command of Francisco Gordillo, with directions to sail northward through the Bahamas, and thence strike the shore of the continent. Gordillo set out on his exploration, and near the Island of Lucayoneque, one of the Lucayuelos, descried another caravel. His pilot, Alonzo Fernandez Sotil, proceeded toward it in a boat, and soon recognized it as a caravel commanded by a kinsman of his, Pedro de Quexos, fitted out in part, though not avowedly, by Juan Ortiz de Matienzo, an auditor associated with Ayllon in the judiciary. This caravel was returning from an unsuccessful cruise among the Bahamas for Caribs,—the object of the expedition being to capture Indians in order to sell them as slaves. On ascertaining the object of Gordillo’s voyage, Quexos proposed that they should continue the exploration together. After a sail of eight or nine days, in which they ran little more than a hundred leagues, they reached the coast of the continent at the mouth of a considerable river, to which they gave the name of St. John the Baptist, from the fact that they touched the coast on the day set apart to honor the Precursor of Christ. The year was 1521, and the point reached was, according to the estimate of the explorers, in latitude 33° 30′.[814]
Boats put off from the caravels and landed some twenty men on the shore; and while the ships endeavored to enter the river, these men were surrounded by Indians, whose good-will they gained by presents.[815]
Some days later, Gordillo formally took possession of the country in the name of Ayllon, and of his associate Diego Caballero, and of the King, as Quexos did also in the name of his employers on Sunday, June 30, 1521. Crosses were cut on the trunks of trees to mark the Spanish occupancy.[816]
Although Ayllon had charged Gordillo to cultivate friendly relations with the Indians of any new land he might discover,[817] Gordillo joined With Quexos in seizing some seventy of the natives, with whom they sailed away, without any attempt to make an exploration of the coast.
On the return of the vessel to Santo Domingo, Ayllon condemned his captain’s act; and the matter was brought before a commission, presided over by Diego Columbus, for the consideration of some important affairs. The Indians were declared free, and it was ordered that they should be restored to their native land at the earliest possible moment. Meanwhile they were to remain in the hands of Ayllon and Matienzo.