The Luna Expedition: An Overview from the Documents

Summary

The 1559-1561 expedition of Tristán de Luna was the largest and most well-financed Spanish attempt to colonize southeastern North America up to that time. Had it succeeded, New Spain would have expanded to include a settled terrestrial route from the northern Gulf of Mexico to the lower Atlantic coast.  While a hurricane left most of the fleet and the colony’s food stores on the bottom of Pensacola Bay just five weeks after arrival, the colonists nonetheless struggled to survive over the next two years, supported by multiple maritime relief expeditions as well as a temporary relocation into central Alabama and the dispatch of a military detachment as far north as the Appalachian foothills.  Though Luna’s Pensacola Bay settlement was ultimately abandoned, the documentary record of the expedition details both its maritime and terrestrial dimensions, and provides an important window into the mid-16th-century Spanish colonial world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Symposium: The Tristan de Luna Shipwrecks and Settlement (1559-1561) in Pensacola, Florida

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 468