A GLIMPSE AT SPAIN AND EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY 1493-1795

Did you know...?

• In 1493, Spanish explorers were the first known Europeans to reach what is now the United States of America when Christopher Columbus visited Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. .
  
  
• In 1513, Juan Ponce de León was the first to reach the present-day US mainland, when he disembarked on the northeast coast of a place he named La Florida..
  
  
• From 1528 to 1536, nearly three centuries before Lewis and Clark, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and three other Spaniards were the first known humans to cross what would one day be the United States. After surviving a shipwreck in Florida, they set out on foot for New Spain, and eventually reached California and the Pacific Ocean. They then continued down to Mexico City. Cabeza de Vaca and one of the other men eventually returned to Spain, but the other two remained. One of those, a Black man named Estevanico (Esteban), is believed to have later died in what is now New Mexico. He has been referred to as the first African-American.
  
  
• In 1529, cartographer Esteban Gómez drew the first map of the Eastern coast of North America, and did so almost perfectly. He named the river that empties into New York City the San Antonio River, a name it retained for about 80 years. It was not until Englishman Henry Hudson explored the river in 1609 that it was renamed the Hudson River.

• In 1533, the name California was first applied to what is now the west coast of North America, during a Spanish expedition led by Diego de Becerra and Fortun Ximenez. The name California comes from a 16th-century novel, Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Exploits of Esplandian) by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. Set on an island populated by Black female warriors who use gold for tools and weapons, and ruled by Queen Calafia, the book describes it as being east of the Asian mainland and “near the side of Terrestrial Paradise.”

• In 1540, Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive exploration of what today are Georgia, The Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.

• In 1540, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Native Americans across today's Arizona-Mexico border. Coronado traveled as far as central Kansas, close to the exact geographic center of the continental United States. In September of that year, a group dispatched by Coronado, led by García López de Cárdenas and guided by Hopi Indians became the first Europeans to reach the Grand Canyon. The first Europeans to navigate the Colorado River were also on missions of the Coronado expedition, one led by Hernando de Alarcón, the other by Melchior Díaz. Colorado means 'red colored' in Spanish.

• In 1541, Hernando de Soto became the first European to reach the shores of the Mississippi River. This was near the current city of Memphis, Tennessee, an event that is depicted in a painting on display in the US Capitol building in Washington D.C.
  

   
  
•  In 1542, Cabeza de Vaca published the first book about what would one day be the United States, specifically the US Southeast and Southwest. The book, originally titled La relación de Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (The Account of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca), details his travels from Florida to California and Mexico.

• In 1542, the first Europeans explored the California coast as far north as what today is Mendocino County. This sailing expedition was led by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo.

• In 1543, Spaniards were the first Europeans to visit what is today the state of Oregon. The earliest evidence of the etymology of the name Oregon points to Spanish origins. The term "orejón" appears in the 1598 historical chronicle La Relación de la Alta y Baja California (The Account of Upper and Lower California), written by Rodrigo Montezuma, who used the word in reference to the area around the Columbia River.

• In 1565, Pedro de Aviles founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously
  

  

  inhabited European-founded city in the 50 United States. The city celebrated its 450^th anniversary in 2016, with the King and Queen of Spain, Felipe and Leticia, as honored guests. (The oldest continuously inhabited European-founded city anywhere in the US is San Juan, Puerto Rico, while the oldest town of any origin anywhere in the US is Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, which has been inhabited by Native-Americans since 1144. Hilo, Hawaii is also believed to date back to the 1100s, but there is no firm date for its establishment.)

• In 1565, the first documented Christian marriage performed in what is now the US took place in San Augustine. The ceremony joined Miguel Rodríguez, a White man born in Segovia, and Luisa de Abrego, a Black woman originally from Seville.

• Canarian-Americans, also known as Isleños, are Americans with ancestors from the Canary Islands, Spain. Their forbears were among the first settlers of North America. The first of these arrived in Florida in 1569. Over the next 250 years they were followed by thousands of Canarian immigrants, with the biggest wave occurring in the 18^th century. Most settled in what today is Louisiana, but Florida and Texas also had significant Canary Island immigration.

• In 1587, the first known Asians to set foot in North America were Filipino sailors who arrived in Spanish ships at Morro Bay, in what today is San Luis Obispo County, California.

• The modern rodeo (which means 'round up' in Spanish) grew out of the practices of Spanish ranch hands, called vaqueros ('cowboys'). Originally a mixture of cattle wrangling and bullfighting, it dates back to the 16^th century. These events gained popularity throughout the Viceroyalty of New Spain and became even more prevalent after these lands emerged as Mexico and the Western United States.

• In 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno was sent to map the California coast. Arriving on his flagship San Diego, he surveyed the harbor at what are now Mission Bay and Point Loma. He named the area for Saint Didacus, a Spaniard more commonly known as
  

  San Diego de Alcalá. 

• In 1607, New Mexico's second Spanish governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, founded Santa Fe, originally called La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís ('The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi). In 1610, he designated it as the capital of the province, which it has almost constantly remained, making it the oldest state capital in the United States.

• In 1610, the oldest church in the continental US was built in Santa Fe. The original adobe walls and altar of San Miguel Chapel were built by members of the Tlaxcalan tribe. Much of the structure was rebuilt in 1710.

• In 1613, Juan Rodriguez, a native of what today is the Dominican Republic, became the first known immigrant to reach the shores of Manhattan. He was born in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo to an African mother and a Portuguese father. Rodriguez took it upon himself to gain the friendship of the natives, set up a trading post, and live comfortably on Manhattan Island. He is, therefore, also considered the first person of African heritage, the first person of European heritage, the first Spaniard, the first Latino, the first Dominican, and the first merchant to settle in Manhattan. He arrived there 12 years before the Dutch established the colony of New Amsterdam and 52 years before the British renamed the settlement New York.

• In 1654, the first group of Spanish and Portuguese Jews arrived in New Amsterdam. After being initially rebuffed by the leader of the colony, these 23 individuals were finally given official permission to settle there in 1655 and that year they founded the Congregation Shearith Israel. Although they were not allowed to worship in a public synagogue throughout the time of Dutch rule, nor during the first years of the British period, the Congregation did establish a cemetery in 1656. In 1730, they were finally able to build a synagogue of their own, which resulted in the first synagogue in Manhattan. Shearith Israel is now the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, although its present building dates from 1897.

• In 1706, Albuquerque was founded as La Villa de Albuquerque in the provincial kingdom of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico. It was originally a farming and shepherding community, and a strategically located trading and military outpost along the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. The Camino Real was a historic 2,560-kilometer-long (1,590 mile) trade route between Mexico City and Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico from 1598 to 1882. Long before Europeans arrived, the various indigenous tribes and kingdoms had established the route as a major thoroughfare for hunting and trading.

• In 1716, Luis Moises Gomez, a Jewish community leader from New York City, purchased 1,200 acres with river access in what is now Marlborough, NY. Gomez, a Sephardic Jew, had come to America to escape his family's persecution in Spain, France and then England. He and his sons built a home on the Hudson Highlands, where several Indian trails converged, and it served as a frontier trading post. Other pioneers, fleeing tyranny and cruelties in Europe for the promise of a new life, followed his lead to settle in the Hudson Valley. His house was continuously inhabited for 280 years before it was bought by the Gomez Foundation, an organization established by his descendants. It is the earliest known surviving Jewish residence in the country, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is now a museum.

• In 1718, Father Antonio de San Buenaventura founded the mission of San Antonio de Valero in what was then the Spanish Province of Texas. Today this mission is better known as The Alamo.

• In 1731, sixteen Spanish families (56 people) from the Canary Islands arrived at the Presidio de San Antonio de Bexar fort. Joining a military and religious community that had been in existence since 1718, they established the first regularly organized civil government in Texas, and founded the city of San Antonio. 
  
  

  

   

• In 1738, Francisco Menendez, a slave from a plantation farm in South Carolina, escaped to the Spanish territory of Florida to regain his freedom. He established Fort Mose near St. Augustine, the first settlement for freed African Americans in North America. Today the site is the location of the Fort Mose Historic State Park.

• In 1750, a Spanish galleon sank off the coast of Virginia and Maryland. Some of the horses onboard managed to swim from the shipwreck to the shores of Assateague Island. Their descendants still roam freely there and are known as the Assateague Wild Horses.

• In 1752, the rancher who would become known as the first "Cattle Queen" of Texas was born. After Rosa María Hinojosa de Ballí married, her husband and father applied jointly for a large land grant near what is now La Feria, Texas. Both men had died by the time the grant was approved in 1790, and her husband's will specified that she was to inherit his share of the twelve leagues (55,000 acres). When she took over the estate it was heavily encumbered with debts, but she she skillfully managed her property, made extensive improvements to it, and acquired large herds of cattle, sheep, goats and horses. Taking full advantage of opportunities that widows enjoyed in Spanish society, she continued to apply for additional land grants and to purchase property in order to increase her ranch's size. When she died, she owned more than one million acres of land in what is now the Rio Grande Valley and her holdings extended into the territories of present-day Hidalgo, Cameron, Willacy, Starr, and Kenedy counties.

• In 1759, building commenced on what today is the oldest synagogue in the US: Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. The congregation was founded in 1658 by the descendants of Jewish families who had fled persecution in Spain and Portugal, and who themselves later left the Caribbean seeking the greater religious tolerance of Rhode Island. Services in the current building began in 1763.

• In 1762, in order to pay a war debt, France transferred possession of Louisiana to Spain through the Treaty of Fontainebleau. After this, significant Spanish immigration into the territory began. Among many traditions Spain brought to Louisiana, one had to do with commemorating the arrival of the Three Kings in Jerusalem. To this day, Louisianians and Spaniards alike enjoy a festive-looking pastry on the Epiphany: a circular cake with a small gift inside. What Americans call a King Cake is known as a Roscón de Reyes in Spain. (Roscón means 'ring shaped cake' and Reyes means 'kings.')

• Although early European residents of New Orleans were mostly from France, the architecture of the French Quarter is actually Spanish. During Spain's rule of Louisiana (1762-1801), fires and hurricanes destroyed most of the city's original structures and, therefore, much of the trademark charm of the area can be credited to the Spanish rebuilding effort. The flat-tiled roofs, tropical colors, and ornate ironwork of the French Quarter are all Hispanic. To prevent fires, the new government mandated that stucco replace wood as the major construction material. It also required buildings to be placed closer together and nearer the street. Under French rule there were yards and open spaces around buildings, but the Spanish made the Quarter more intimate, with continuous facades, arched passageways, and patios hidden from passersby.

• In 1763, Filipino Americans established their first recorded North American settlement in St. Malo, Louisiana after jumping ship to escape the forced labor and enslavement of the Spanish galleon trade. Other settlements appeared throughout the Louisiana bayous, with St Malo on Lake Borgne and Manila Village on Barataria Bay being the largest. In 1870, the Spanish-speaking residents of St. Malo founded the first Filipino social club, called Sociedad de Beneficencia de los Hispano Filipinos. Saint Malo was destroyed by the 1915 New Orleans hurricane, while Manila Village was leveled by Hurricane Betsy in 1965. The Town Hall of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana is located on Manila Plaza, which has historical markers acknowledging the area's Filipino-American history. Part of this community's legacy is the production of dried shrimp. In Louisiana today, dried shrimp are often added to gumbo, to add an intense salty flavor. They can also be eaten as a snack by themselves, and are commonly found in snack-size portions in South Louisiana's stores.

• In 1768, Eulalia Perez de Guillen was born a Spanish citizen in Loreto, Baja California. A Californio (Hispanics native to California), the Los Angles Times has described her as “an extraordinary woman with stubborn faith who survived a major earthquake and carved out a niche as the mother of California’s soft drink industry.” When her soldier-husband was transferred north in the early 1790s, they moved to Mission San Juan Capistrano where they survived a massive earthquake on Dec. 8, 1812 that killed 40 people. They eventually moved north again, and she ended up working at Mission San Gabriel, initially as a cook and eventually as the manager of the mission, supervising the nursing, soap & candle making, kitchen, winery, and olive oil presses. While there, Eulalia concocted a tasty beverage from the lemons growing in the area. Demand was so great that she began bottling it for the friars to sell. Soon they were shipping it to Spain. It became one of Los Angeles’ first exports, and an enterprise that helped fill the mission’s coffers. The padres deeded her 15,400 acres of what is now Pasadena, California, but the widow's second husband petitioned the governor for the land and was granted it. Objecting to that, Eulalia left him and moved into a small adobe house. She died in 1878 at the age of 110. She is one of only two non-clergy buried with the priests in the San Gabriel Mission courtyard cemetery. In Catholic tradition, burials closest to the most sacred areas of the church are reserved for individuals of stature, usually clergy. A woman being honored in this way was a highly unusual thing at that time. A marble bench inscribed with her name marks the spot. Her numerous descendants married into many other founding families of California.

• In 1772, Manuel de Lisa was born a Spanish citizen in New Orleans. He later became a US citizen, land owner, merchant, fur trader, Indian Agent, and explorer, who was among the founders of the Missouri Fur Company, an early fur trading company. Lisa gained respect through his trading among Native American tribes of the upper Missouri River region. He established Fort Lisa, in what is now Omaha, becoming the first known United States settler of Nebraska. The outpost became one of the most important in the region, and the basis for the development of the major city of Nebraska. Although already married to a European-American in St. Louis, where he kept a residence, he later married Mitane, a daughter of Big Elk, the chief of the Omaha people. (Bigamy was not outlawed in the US until 1862.) They had two children together, whom Lisa provided for equally in his will with his children by his other marriage.
  
  
  
  

• In 1775, an expedition led by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, a Spanish navigator and naval officer born in Peru, reached Alaska. Going as far as 59° latitude north, near what today is the town of Sitka, he made sure to go ashore to claim the coast for Spain. This journey resulted in the first reasonably accurate map of the North American West Coast.

• In 1775, the Continental Congress elected to denominate the money of the United States in Spanish dollars, rather than English pounds. The Spanish dollar, also known as the Piece of Eight (in Spanish Pieza de Ocho or Peso), was a silver coin first minted in the 15^th century. Widely used by many countries as the first international currency, it was prevalent throughout the Thirteen Colonies at the time of the decision. The symbol for the US dollar is thought to have come from an emblem consisting of two columns draped with an s-shaped banner which appeared on the coin. A similar symbol is used on the modern flag of Spain.

• In 1775, some of the first settlers of California embarked on a colonization expedition from what is today the Mexican state of Sonora. One of the colonists was Maria Feliciana Arballo. Of “pure” Spanish ancestry, her parents disapproved of her marriage
  

  

  to a mestizo soldier. The couple decided to join the expedition, but her husband died before it began. Rather than remain behind, Arballo convinced Captain Juan Bautista de Anza to make an exception to his policy that all women must be accompanied by a male family member. With one of her young daughters riding in front and the other in back, the three traveled on horseback to California. The expedition's priest, Father Pedro Font, was said to have been repeatedly annoyed with her and with Anza, who had ignored his adamant opposition to her participation. After successfully crossing the treacherous Colorado River, Font wrote of her in his diary, “At night, with the joy at the arrival of all the people, they held a fandango here. It was somewhat discordant, and a very bold widow who came with the expedition sang some verses which were not at all nice, applauded and cheered by all the crowd.” She left the group in San Gabriel, California, married another mestizo soldier, and had seven more children. Several of her descendants became important figures in California history, including two governors: Pío Pico, the last governor of California before it became part of the US in 1850, and Romualdo Pacheco, the state of California's 12^th governor.

• In 1776, Juan Bautista de Anza founded the Presidio de San Francisco fort. Later that same year, the Mission San Francisco de Asís was founded by Francisco Palóu. The Mission is the oldest surviving structure in the city of San Francisco. Though most of the complex was either altered or demolished outright, the facade of the chapel has remained largely unchanged since its construction in 1782–1791.

• In 1776, Spain joined France in funding Roderigue Hortalez and Company, a trading company which provided critical military supplies to the American Revolution's Continental Army. Around this time, Spanish Prime Minister, José Moñino y Redondo wrote, “the fate of the colonies interests us very much, and we shall do for them everything that circumstances permit.”

• 1776 was also the year that a Spaniard named Jordi 'George' Farragut Mesquida arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, where he joined the American Revolution in service as a sailor. Captured by the British in 1780, Farragut's left arm was permanently injured by a cannonball. Released as part of a prisoner exchange, he joined a US rifle militia and, despite his disability, fought on until the end of the war. Afterwards, he continued to serve the nation he helped create, first as sailing master of a gun boat in New Orleans, and later fighting the British again in the War of 1812. Rejected from further service in the navy after that war, he enlisted as a volunteer companion to Gen. Andrew Jackson’s troops, defending the coast around New Orleans from any possible British incursion. Farragut also started a family in his adopted homeland. He had 5 children, including a son who fought on the side of the Union in the US Civil War: Admiral David Farragut, of 'Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead' fame.

• Bernardo de Gálvez was another Spaniard who helped the newly-formed United States of America. As Governor of Louisiana from 1777-1783, he allowed shipments 
  

  of weapons, medicine and other vital goods to the Continental Army via the Mississippi. When Spain declared war on England in 1779, Gálvez was given an additional title: Field Marshal of the Spanish colonial army in North America. He put together an army of Creoles, Acadians (Cajuns), Isleños, free Blacks, German immigrants, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Mexicans and at least one Irish immigrant (Oliver Pollock) to march with his Spanish regulars. In March 1780, this interracial force besieged Mobile and seized it after a four-day battle. Following their next big victory, at the Siege of Pensacola in 1781, the English left Florida, never to return. This not only removed a threat to the US from the south, it deprived Britain of troops that could have been deployed to the war’s final battle at Yorktown later that same year. Instead, Spain was able to permit France to use its waters in the Atlantic to send naval forces to battle the British at Chesapeake and Yorktown. Gálvez, who had been wounded during his service, had his governorship expanded to include Spanish Florida, which at the time reached from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. He was among those who drafted the Peace of Paris of 1783, which formally ended the Revolutionary War and gave Florida to Spain. His contributions to the American victory have been recognized in the United States: Galveston, Texas, and St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana were both named in his honor, and in 2014 President Barack Obama granted Gálvez honorary US Citizenship—only the eighth person in history to have been given the honor. 
  
  

  

   

• In 1779, the first long-range Texas cattle drive occurred when Juan María Vicencio de Ripperdá, provincial governor of Texas, had a group of vaqueros herd 2,000 Texas longhorns to Louisiana in order to supply Bernardo de Gálvez’ troops.

• Between November 1778 and July 1779, around 1600 Canary Islander colonists sailed into New Orleans. By 1780, four different Isleño communities had been founded in different parts of Southwestern Louisiana. Many of these immigrants participated in the three major military campaigns of Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola, which expelled the British from the Gulf Coast. In 1783, another 300 Canary Islanders arrived to settle in Louisiana.

• In August 1781, the fleet of French Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse arrived in Chesapeake Bay carrying 500,000 Spanish dollars (or silver pesos) collected from the citizens of Havana, Cuba, to fund supplies for the Siege of Yorktown and to pay the Continental Army. The culmination of the Yorktown campaign, the siege proved to be the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War.

• In September 1781, a group of forty-eight people founded a colony on the coast of California. The settlement was originally named El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, or 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels.' Two-thirds of these original settlers of Los Angeles were mixed-race individuals, of African, European and Native ancestry. Today, the site is the El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument, a 44-acre park.

• On March 17, 1783, Spain formally recognized the United States of America. Diego de Gardoqui was appointed as Spain's first ambassador to the new country in 1784. He became well acquainted with George Washington, and marched in the newly elected President's inaugural parade.

• In 1785, King Carlos III of Spain sent a donkey named Royal Gift to President Washington, at his request. The President crossed the donkey with mares to raise mules which became very popular in the new nation.

• In 1791, Spanish naval officer Francisco de Eliza named a group of islands in the Pacific Northwest Isla y Archipiélago de San Juan. Today the San Juan Islands are part of the state of Washington. In 1841, British explorer Charles Wilkes renamed San Juan Island as Rodgers Island, but the Anglo name never took.

• On October 12, 1792, the 300th anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing in the Americas, Pedro Pablo Casanave laid the cornerstone to the White House. Having emigrated from Spain in 1785, Casanave arrived in the Port of Georgetown, Maryland barely able to speak English and with only 200 pounds to his name. He later managed to open a store, followed by several other successful businesses. (It probably helped that he was the nephew of Juan de Miralles, a Spanish trader, supporter of the American Revolution, Spanish agent to the Continental Congress, and personal friend of George Washington.) Casanave rose to become the fifth mayor of Georgetown, which today is a neighborhood in Washington, D.C.

• In 1795, Pinckney's Treaty, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of 
  

  

  Madrid, was signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain. It established intentions of friendship between the United States and Spain. It also defined boundaries between the US and Spain's territories, while guaranteeing the new nation navigation rights on the Mississippi River.

• Today, 25 of the 50 states that make up the United States of America were at one time completely or partially Spanish territory, i.e., Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, California, Iowa, Kansas, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The same is true of three of the four US Territories, i.e., the US Virgin Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico—which, by the way, also has an official Spanish name: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, meaning Freely Associated State of Puerto Rico.

And that's only a portion of US Spanish/Hispanic/Latino heritage.

MY SOURCES INCLUDE:

America’s Spanish Savior: Bernardo de Gálvez, History.net, Barbara A. Mitchell

Assateague's Wild Horses, National Park Service

Isabel la Católica a través de los tesoros de la Biblioteca Capitular Colombina, ABC de Sevilla, Andrés González-Barba, Dec. 23, 2013 Fort Mose Historical Society

The Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association

Filipino American Immigration History, Stanford School of Medicine, Ethnogeriatrics

Journal of the American Revolution

KonwGalvez.com

Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia, edited by Vicki L. Ruiz, Virginia Sánchez Korrol, 2006

LindaCovella.com

A Long, Rich Life and a Tasty Claim to Fame, Los Angeles Times, Cecilia Rasmussen, Sept. 6, 1998

The Power of a Dream: Maria Feliciana Arballo: Latina Pioneer, Linda Covella, 2019

La relación de Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, 1542

The Mexican Contribution to American Independence, Raoul Lowery Contreras and Frank D. Gomez, Times of San Diego, July 3, 2018

The Migration of Canary Islanders to the Americas: An Unbroken Current Since Columbus by James J. Parsons, 1983

MountVernon.org

Netstate.com

NewOrleans.com

The Red Indian: A Study in the Perpetuation of Error by Douglas Leachman, 1941

Smithsonian Magazine

Touro Synagogue, National Park Service

United Empire Loyalist's Association of Canada

Wikipedia

Women On The Move: Overland Journeys to California, Library of Congress American Women Series, Patricia Molen van Ee, 2001