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Pensacola, 'America's First Settlement' remembers its Spanish founder |
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By Miguel Pérez
Some six years before Spanish conquistador Pedro Menendez de Avilés established St. Augustine on the east coast of Florida, another conquistador had established a Spanish town on the Gulf Coast. His name was Tristan de Luna, born in Borobia, Spain in 1519. In 1559, he lead an 11-ship, 1,500-person expedition from New Spain (today's Mexico) to settle Santa Maria de Ochuse in what is now Pensacola, Fl. St. Augustine started in 1565 and became the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the continental United States because Santa Maria did not survive. It was almost completely wiped out by a fierce hurricane soon after it was established, and its surviving settlers returned to Mexico. |
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Nevertheless, Pensacola considers itself "America's First Settlement" and honors De Luna in a beautiful plaza facing Pensacola Bay. Built in 2007, Plaza de Luna is centered by an impressive statue of this lesser known-conquistador, holding a sword and a flag and wearing a huge crucifix on his chest.
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A historical maker at Plaza De Luna notes that, "In August 1559, an expedition led by Tristan de Luna y Arellano arrived in Pensacola Bay to establish Santa Maria de Ochuse, a settlement that predated the founding of Jamestown by a half century and St. Augustine by a half dozen years."
To be clear: Although the first British colony, Jamestown, Virgina (1607), deceptively calls itself "America's Birthplace," St. Augustine (1565), was established 42 years earlier and remains the longest permanently occupied town in the country. However, Pensacola, (Santa Maria de Ochuse, 1559), rightfully claims the title of "America's First Colony," although it did not survive. |
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"Departing Veracruz (Mexico) on June 11, 1559, Luna was at the head of one of the most formidable settlement expeditions in American history: an 11-ship fleet carrying in excess of 1,500 persons, more than double the number of any previous Spanish expedition to Florida" notes the historical marker. "Though the settlement failed in 1561, it was the longest-lasting colonial settlement up to that date in what is today the United States."
Think about it! With an early Spanish foothold in the Gulf of Mexico, the course of American history might have gone in a different direction had it not been for a hurricane! Every time a see that a new hurricane is threatening the Pensacola area nowadays, I see it from that historical perspective. |
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"Shortly after arriving, and before a formal settlement could be established a hurricane struck Pensacola," according to an exhibit at the Pensacola Museum of History. "The fierce storm destroyed most of the fleet and the supplies still on board, dealing the stranded expedition a blow from which it could not recover. The last members of the expedition left Pensacola in 1561; it would be 137 years before the Spanish returned to Pensacola."
The museum features the anchor from one of De Luna's ships, recovered in Pensacola Bay by a team of Florida state nautical archaeologists in 1992. (See photo). "Two other colonization attempts by the French and Spanish in South Carolina failed in 1561-62," the museum exhibit explains. "Pedro Menéndez de Avilés eventually succeeded in establishing St. Augustin in 1565." |
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But the exhibit's conclusion is striking: "If the De Luna settlement had succeeded, the story of America would have been much different."
Yet, this is not the only time when the course of American history was diverted in Pensacola. In the Pensacola Museum of History, you also learn all about how the Spanish army, under General Bernardo de Gálvez, defeated the British at Fort George and turned the tide of the American Revolution. So let's visit Fort George, okay? Are you coming? |
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