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Florida
Archaeological research shows that Florida had been occupied for thousands of years earlier than any European settlements. Of the many native peoples, the largest known were the Tocobago, the Apalachee, the Timucua, the Calusa and the Ais tribes. a Spanish conquistador named Juan Ponce de León, named Florida in tribute of his discovery of the land on 2nd April, 1513, through Pascua Florida, a Spanish word for the Easter season, Juan Ponce de León might not have been the initial European to arrive at Florida; according to one story, at least one native tribesman who he came upon in Florida in 1513 spoke Spanish. From that date onward, the land became recognized as "La Florida”, even though from 1630 until the 19th century Tegesta named after the Tequesta tribe was the name of choice for the Florida peninsula trailing the publication of a chart by the Dutch cartographer Hessel Gerritsz in Joannes de Laet's History of the New World.
Over the subsequent century, both the French and Spanish founded settlements in Florida, with unstable degrees of victory. In 1559, Spanish Pensacola was founded by Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano as the initial European settlement within the continental United States, however it had become deserted by 1561 and would not be inhabited again until the 1690s. French Huguenots established Fort Caroline within modern-day Jacksonville in 1564, but the fort was occupied by forces from the new Spanish settlement of St. Augustine the next year. After Huguenot leader Jean Ribault had heard of the new Spanish menace, he launched a mission to sack the Spanish occupation; on the way, however, harsh storms at sea ambushed the expedition, which comprised of most of the colony's men, permitting St. Augustine creator Pedro Menéndez de Avilés time to move his men over land and defeat Fort Caroline. The majority of the Huguenots were killed, and Menéndez de Avilés marched south and detained the survivors of the ruined French fleet, ordering all other than a few Catholics executed alongside a river subsequently called Matanzas. The Spanish on no account had a firm hold on Florida, and maintained weak control over the area by converting the neighboring tribes, momentarily with Jesuits and later on with Franciscan friars. The local leaders called caciques verified their loyalty to the Spanish by changing over to Roman Catholicism and welcoming the Franciscan priests into their tribes.
The region of Spanish Florida reduced with the founding of French colonies to the west and English colonies to the north. The English assaulted St. Augustine, burning its cathedral and the city to the ground numerous times, while the people hid at the back the walls of the Castillo de San Marcos.
The Spanish, in the meantime, encouraged slaves to run away from the English held Carolinas and go to Florida, where they were renewed to Roman Catholicism and offered freedom. They settled in a shielded community north of St. Augustine, known as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the original entirely black settlement in what would develop into the United States.
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