First Contact with Europeans

In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León led an expedition northwest from Puerto Rico. He and his men were looking for a land known as Bimini. According to rumor, Bimini was full of gold. It also was said to be home to the magical Fountain of Youth — a spring whose waters kept people forever young.

Ponce de León never located Bimini — at least, he found neither gold nor the Fountain of Youth. He did, however, become the first European to see Florida, as well as the first to meet the native people who lived there. As the explorers sailed north along Florida’s southwestern shoreline, they saw some Calusa people beckoning them to come ashore. Curious, the Spanish crew dropped anchor and sent several men in small boats to the beach.

This first encounter between Europeans and Indigenous Americans of the Southeast was far from peaceful. Intrigued by the supplies the visitors carried, the Calusas immediately began carting away tools, oars, and other equipment. When the outnumbered Europeans objected, a Calusa struck and wounded a Spaniard. A brief battle followed, during which two more sailors were injured. The men barely managed to escape back to the safety of the ship.  

Ponce de León resolved to return. In 1521, he made a second voyage to Florida. This time, he built a small colony on the shores of the west coast of Florida, the Gulf of Mexico. The Calusas there, however, were even less welcoming than the ones Ponce de León had met in 1513. Within a few months, the Calusa people attacked the colony, killed many of the Spanish — including Ponce de León — and drove away the rest.

Still, the Spanish persisted. In 1539, Hernando de Soto traveled through much of the Southeast, becoming the first European to visit the Indigenous American peoples of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. Unlike the Calusas, however, many of these tribes welcomed the explorers. One Creek ruler, for instance, spoke gracious words of friendship and courtesy while giving de Soto a beautiful string of pearls. Unfortunately, de Soto did not respond in the same manner. Backed by well-armed troops numbering six hundred, he forced the tribes to provide his men with food and shelter. De Soto also enslaved many Indigenous Americans. 

Like Spain, England and France also sent expeditions to the Southeast. The three countries soon began to build towns, forts, and trading posts on Indigenous American land. In 1564, the French built Fort Caroline near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. The Spanish settled St. Augustine, Florida, one year later. And in 1607, the English established a permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. Little by little, the Europeans were gaining a foothold in the Southeast.

Even when European settlement began, some Indigenous Americans were welcoming to the foreigners. Trade was one important reason for this acceptance. The Europeans brought with them metal tools, firearms, and many other objects unknown in North America. Southeastern Indigenous Americans were eager to trade their own resources for these new valuables.

Other tribes accepted the Europeans for political reasons. Powhatan, the leader of Virginia’s Indigenous Peoples, for instance, probably could have destroyed Jamestown soon after it was built, but decided against it. He hoped instead to make a military alliance with the newcomers and eventually defeat his own local enemies. 

There were Indigenous American tribes who were deeply suspicious of the Europeans, however. And as time went on, more and more Southeastern Indigenous Americans came to see the negative side of contact with Europeans. The English, French, and Spanish were not interested in sharing the land in North America with the Indigenous Americans who had been living there. Rather, the Europeans wanted to expand their empires, control the area’s resources, and drive the native peoples away. And, the Europeans’ advanced weaponry gave them an enormous edge in fulfilling these desires. Even the Indigenous Americans’ greater numbers could not make up for the Europeans’ firepower.

European contact brought other problems, too. New and unfamiliar diseases were spread among the Indigenous American populations. Because they had never been exposed to these illnesses and had no built-in immunity, the diseases swept through the tribes. In some parts of the Southeast, nine out of ten Indigenous Americans died of diseases ranging from measles to chicken pox.

By 1754, it was too late to stop the European advance. The first contact between the Calusa people and Ponce de León, two and a half centuries before, had ended with the Spanish being pushed out to sea. But the balance of power had changed. The destruction of the traditional southeastern Indigenous American culture was well under way.