De León Claims Florida: Spain's First North American Colony
Juan Ponce de Leon returned to Florida's coast on April 8, 1513, this time attempting to establish a permanent colony near Charlotte Harbor on the southwest coast. He brought 200 colonists, 50 horses, and supplies for farming. The Calusa people, a sophisticated maritime culture that built massive shell mound complexes and maintained a centralized chiefdom without agriculture, attacked immediately. They knew what Spanish colonization meant from their trading contacts in the Caribbean. A Calusa arrow wounded Ponce de Leon in the thigh. The wound became infected, and the expedition retreated to Havana, where he died in July 1521. Spain would not successfully colonize Florida for another 44 years, when Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine in 1565.
April 8, 1513
513 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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