8,078
edits
Changes
no edit summary
The party anchored in [[Pensacola Bay]], which they called "Ochuse", and set up the encampment of Puerto de Santa Maria during the summer of 1559 at the site of the modern [[Naval Air Station Pensacola]]. With much of the colony's stores still on the ships, de Luna sent several exploring parties inland to scout the area; they returned after three weeks having found only one Indian town. Before they could unload the vessels, a [[hurricane]] swept through and destroyed most of the ships and cargo. With the colony in serious danger, most of the men traveled up the [[Alabama River]] to the village of Nanipacana (Nanipacna or Ninicapua), which they found abandoned; they renamed the town Santa Cruz and moved in for several months. Back in Mexico, the Viceroy sent two relief ships in November, promising additional aid in the spring.
The relief got the colony through the winter, but the supplies expected in the spring had not arrived by September. De Luna ordered the remainder of his force to march to the large native town of Coca, but the men mutinied. Bloodshed was averted by the settlement's missionaries, but soon after [[Ángel de Villafañe]] arrived in Pensacola Bay and offered to take all who wished to leave on an expedition to Cuba and Santa Elena. De Luna relented and agreed to leave, eventually moving back returning to Mexico, where he died in 1571. The Pensacola colony was inhabited for settlement disbanded completely within several more months by a detachment of fifty men Villafañe had left his departure. De Luna was appointed governor of Yucatan in [[1763]] and remained in case further orders arrived from Viceroy Velasco; when they left the area was not populated again by Europeans that capacity until 1698, when the Spanish founded the city of Pensacolahis death in [[1571]].
==External links==