Spain’s “La Florida”

Exploring the Early Americas The Jay I. Kislak Collection

Pre-Contact America | Explorations and Encounters | Aftermath of the Encounter

Languages and Religion | Competition for Empire | Documenting New Knowledge

La Florida included the vast territory claimed by Spain on the basis of the explorations by Juan Ponce de León (1460–1521) in 1513 and 1521. Encompassing lands from the Gulf Coast of Texas to the Chesapeake Bay, Spanish Florida existed from 1565 to 1763, when Florida (by then reduced in size to today’s Florida and parts of Alabama and Georgia) came under British control. Spain regained possession of Florida from 1784 until 1821 when the territory became part of the United States.

Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae [Brief narrative concerning Florida of America]. Frankfurt: Ioan[n]is Wecheli, 1591
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (109)

Early Illustrations of Florida

From 1590 on, Theodor de Bry and his sons produced some of the earliest and most influential illustrations of the peoples of the New World. His drawings for Florida were copied and continued to be reproduced through the eighteenth century.

Abraham Ortelius.
“La Florida/Guastecan from Peruuiae avriferæ regionis typus.…”
Antwerp: Christophorum Plantinum, 1584.
Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress (110.1)

La Florida Map

This is one of three separate areas printed on a single sheet for Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (the other areas are Peru and the gold-producing areas, and Guatemala). The map includes a vast area from present-day Virginia to New Mexico and is the first separate printed map of Florida. It was created for Ortelius by Geronimo Chiaves and was based, in part, on information derived from Hernando De Soto’s 1539–1543 exploration of the region. It was widely imitated or copied by mapmakers for many decades.

Cornelis van Wytfliet.
Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum… [Descriptions of Ptolemy Increased…].
Louvain: Tijpis Gerardi: Riuij. 1598.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (110)

The Spanish Concept of Florida

Secretary to the Council of Brabant (Flanders), Cornelis van Wytfliet was also much interested in geography. His Descriptionis, considered to be the first atlas devoted to the Americas, includes nineteen maps of the region. His map designating “Florida” and “Apalache” is based on an earlier map by Jernimo de Chaves and reflects the Spanish concept of Florida as an extensive portion of southern North America rather than being merely an appendage or peninsula.

René Goulaine de Laudonnière (ca. 1529–1574).
L’histoire notable de la Floride [The Noteworthy History of Florida].
Paris: Guillaume Auuray, 1586.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (108)

The First Description of Florida Indians

This sixteenth-century history of Florida, in its original binding, includes the first description of Florida Indians. It also describes the 1564 Spanish attack on a Huguenot (Protestant) colony in which most of the French Huguenots were massacred and affixed with this inscription, “Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics.” The author of this work escaped the attack and returned to France. He wrote this book describing the voyage of Captain Dominque de Gourges to Florida in 1576 to avenge the murder of his countrymen. De Gourges and his men captured two Spanish forts and hanged eight of the Spanish Catholic prisoners, marked with the inscription, “Not as Spanish, but as assassins.”

Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (ca. 1490–ca. 1557).
Relación y comentarios del Governador Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [Account and commentaries of Govenor Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca].
[Valladolid: Francisco Fernández de Cordova, 1555].
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (107)

Spaniards Enslaved by Indians

This account tells how four men of the 600-member Narváez expedition to Florida—Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, two other Spaniards, and an African slave, Esteban—survived a seven-year trek on foot from Florida through Texas to Mexico City. The four survivors arrived in Mexico in 1536, having survived hardships, privation, Indian attacks, and even enslavement.

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