April 14, 1528 - Failed conqueror Pánfilo de Narváez comes ashore
As we know, not everyone who shows up in Florida to restart their lives actually succeeds. Case in point: Spanish explorer Pánfilo de Narváez. He got a taste of success helping to conquer Jamaica and Cuba for Spain in 1509 and 1511. Then his luck began to run out. He was tasked by the governor of Spain in 1520 to arrest Hernán Cortés and replace him as commander of Mexico. But Cortés instead turned most of Narváez's soldiers against him and put Narváez in prison for two years. After he was released and returned to Spain, Narváez secured a royal grant to conquer and settle Florida. But nearly a quarter of his soldiers deserted him in Hispaniola in 1527. The reduced forces landed in the Tampa Bay vicinity on April 14, 1528, planning to make their way to a land the Indians told them about, called Appalachen, which was supposedly teeming with gold. So after coming ashore, Narváez decides to take his 300 men and their 40 horses and head north. He orders his ships, which are carrying all of their supplies, back into the Gulf of Mexico and to sail to a harbor somewhere north, where they would all meet up later.
Well, instead of landing at the harbor Narváez described, the ships go to another harbor where they don't find Narváez, then spend a year sailing up and down the coast before turning back to Spain. Meanwhile, Narvaez and his men resume their northward journey, but with no supplies, resort to plundering Native American villages to survive. This angers the Indians, so when Narvaez and his team finally reach the village of Appalachen, near present day Tallahassee, they are met with hostility and violence. Well, yeah. OK, so now the remaining soldiers are growing weak, and Narvaez has given up the idea of ever finding their ships. They stop at a bay on the Gulf, probably present-day St. Marks, and build five barges out of pine trees. They sew their shirts together to make sails. In September, they set sail toward a Spanish settlement in Mexico. Uh oh, storm season. Yep, the five rickety rafts are torn asunder and fewer than 100 men actually make it to an island off the cost of Texas. Narvaez was not among them. The survivors decide to walk to Mexico City. Seven years later, four arrive and tell the story of the bumbling Pánfilo de Narváez. So buck up, Floridians. It could be a lot worse.
Read more about Pánfilo de Narváez and his ill-fated mission at the University of South Florida's Exploring Florida site
Read more about Pánfilo de Narváez and his ill-fated mission at the University of South Florida's Exploring Florida site