Diego de Velasco | |
---|---|
2nd Governor of La Florida | |
In office September 17, 1574 –February 24, 1576 | |
Preceded by | Pedro Menéndez de Avilés |
Succeeded by | Hernando de Miranda |
Personal details | |
Born | 1500 |
Died | 1575 Florida |
Profession | Military official and Governor of Florida (1574 - 1576) |
Diego de Velasco (?? - 1575) was a career soldier who served as interim Lieutenant Governor of Spanish Florida between 1574 and 1576. His administration ended with his and his treasurer Bertolomeo Martinez's imprisonment by his successor as governor,Hernando de Miranda,following investigations of corruption in his administration,as well as crimes committed against Native Americans and the Spanish settlers of Florida.
De Velasco was the son-in-law of the first governor of Florida,Pedro Menéndez de Aviles. He joined the Spanish army in his youth,achieving the rank of lieutenant. [1]
In 1571,Velasco oversaw the construction of Fort San Felipe on what is now Parris Island,South Carolina,a defensive structure built to protect the Spanish settlers of La Florida after a raid by French settlers and Native Americans allied with them. [2]
On September 17,1574,after his father had become a general in the Nueva Armada Real (New Royal Army),Velasco was appointed temporary Governor of Florida, [3] although this was an interim appointment made upon the death of Menéndez. [4] The colony's capital was the recently founded settlement of Santa Elena in what is now South Carolina. [1]
The cacique of Guale told Alonso de Olmos that the Spaniards "had made him a Christian",but only to enslave him and steal his property. Apparently Velasco and Captain Alonso de Solis had taken several brazas (a braza was a Spanish unit of length equal to the reach of outspread arms) of pearls,the native medium of exchange,worth two gold ducats each,as well as several canoes,from the Indians without payment. Velasco denied he had forced the Indians to pay him personal tribute,and said that in fact,he and the Indians had exchanged gifts,and that the Indians had thus obtained Spanish products such as iron farming implements,blankets and clothes. Velasco said that he had established a friendship with the cacique,who had fallen ill on a visit to Santa Elena,and treated him with costly medicines until he recovered. Velasco also maintained that he had given the chief and his wife other gifts,such as clothes,and that in appreciation,they had given him a braza of black pearls,but of low value. [5]
According to the written testimony of Father Oréin 1576,Velasco,after asking the caciques of Guale to gather in Santa Elena,and indicating that he would not do them any harm,hanged one of them (the nephew of a cacique) as punishment for killing a Christian Indian chieftain,to fulfill a promise he had made to the wife of another chief who had converted to Christianity,she seeking vengeance for the murder of her husband,and demanding retribution. These events led to a widespread Guale rebellion and violence against the Spanish of La Florida. [note 1] [6]
Thirty soldiers who fought against the natives in defense of Santa Elena were killed,causing the town to be temporarily abandoned in the late summer of 1576 and then to be burned later by the Indians,in full view of the soldiers and settlers as they were about to sail away from Port Royal Sound. [4]
Velasco was also accused of mishandling the provincial soldiers' pay,and consequently was replaced by Hernando de Miranda as governor of La Florida in 1575.
When Miranda came to La Florida in 1575,before assuming his position as governor, [2] he began working to abolish corruption in the Spanish province,and found that Velasco had appropriated large sums of money from Menéndez,with the excuse that the money officially belonged to him after the adelantado's death. [7] Miranda imprisoned him [2] [7] and replaced him with one of his lieutenants,Alonso de Solis,at Santa Elena. Velasco and his treasurer,Bertolomeo Martinez,were briefly imprisoned for their suspected complicity in governmental misfeasance and the misappropriation of Menéndez's funds. [7] On February 24,1576,Hernando de Miranda began his term as governor of La Florida. [3]
Diego de Velasco died in 1575.
Velasco married Menéndez's younger daughter,Maria Menéndez de Avilés. [8]
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was a Spanish admiral, explorer and conquistador from Avilés, in Asturias, Spain. He is notable for planning the first regular trans-oceanic convoys, which became known as the Spanish treasure fleet, and for founding St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. This was the first successful European settlement in La Florida and the most significant city in the region for nearly three centuries.
Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda was a Spanish shipwreck survivor who lived among the Native Americans of Florida for 17 years. His c. 1575 memoir, Memoria de las cosas y costa y indios de la Florida, is one of the most valuable contemporary accounts of American Indian life from that period. The manuscript can be found in the General Archive of the Indies. In all, he produced five documents describing the peoples of native Florida.
Spanish Florida was the first major European land claim and attempted settlement in North America during the European Age of Discovery. La Florida formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire during Spanish colonization of the Americas. While its boundaries were never clearly or formally defined, the territory was initially much larger than the present-day state of Florida, extending over much of what is now the southeastern United States, including all of present-day Florida plus portions of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida Parishes of Louisiana. Spain's claim to this vast area was based on several wide-ranging expeditions mounted during the 16th century. A number of missions, settlements, and small forts existed in the 16th and to a lesser extent in the 17th century; they were eventually abandoned due to pressure from the expanding English and French colonial settlements, the collapse of the native populations, and the general difficulty in becoming agriculturally or economically self-sufficient. By the 18th century, Spain's control over La Florida did not extend much beyond a handful of forts near St. Augustine, St. Marks, and Pensacola, all within the boundaries of present-day Florida.
The Ajacán Mission was a Spanish attempt in 1570 to establish a Jesuit mission in the vicinity of the Virginia Peninsula to bring Christianity to the Virginia Native Americans. The effort to found St. Mary's Mission predated the founding of the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, by about 36 years. In February 1571, the entire party was massacred by Indians, except for Alonso de Olmos. The following year, a Spanish party from Florida went to the area, rescued Alonso, and killed several Indians.
Don Luís de Velasco, also known as Paquiquino, was a Native American, possibly of the Kiskiack or Paspahegh tribe, from the area of what is now Tidewater, Virginia. In 1561 he was taken by a Spanish expedition. He traveled with them ultimately to Spain, Cuba and Mexico, where he was baptized as Don Luís de Velasco and educated. Don Luís returned to Virginia in 1571 as guide and interpreter for a party of Jesuit missionaries. He is believed to have taken part in a later massacre of the Jesuits at this site, when the region was struggling with famine.
The Spanish missions in Georgia comprised a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholics in order to spread the Christian doctrine among the Guale and various Timucua peoples in southeastern Georgia.
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Ajacán – variants include Xacan, Jacan, Iacan, Axaca and Axacam – was a short-lived Spanish settlement, between 1570 and 1571, near Chesapeake Bay, in what would later become Virginia.
Gonzalo Méndez de Canço y Donlebún was a Spanish admiral who served as the seventh governor of the Spanish province of La Florida (1596–1603). He fought in the Battle of San Juan (1595) against the English admiral Francis Drake. During his tenure as governor of Florida, he dealt severely with a rebellion known as Juanillo's revolt among the Native Americans in Guale, forcing them, as well as other tribes in Florida, to submit to Spanish domination. De Canço was best known, however, for promoting the cultivation of maize in the province, and for introducing its cultivation to Asturias, Spain, where it eventually became an important crop.
Gutierre de Miranda was interim governor of Spanish Florida in the late 16th century. He was a brother of the previous governor of Spanish Florida, Hernando de Miranda, and brother-in-law of the next governor, Pedro Menéndez Márquez.
Pedro Menéndez Márquez was a Spanish military officer, conquistador, and governor of Spanish Florida. He was a nephew of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who had been appointed adelantado of La Florida by King Philip II. Márquez was also related to Diego de Velasco, Hernando de Miranda, Gutierre de Miranda, Juan Menéndez Márquez, and Francisco Menéndez Márquez, all of whom served as governors of La Florida.
Hernando de Miranda (1550–1593) was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who was governor of Spanish Florida from 1575 to 1577. He took office after the death of the first governor of the province, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. He was the brother-in-law of the subsequent governor, Pedro Menéndez de Márquez, and the brother of Gutierre de Miranda, who would also become governor.
Francisco Menéndez Márquez y Posada was a royal treasurer and interim co-governor of Spanish Florida, and the founder of a cattle ranching enterprise that became the largest in Florida.
Juan Menéndez Márquez y Valdés (1531–1627) was royal treasurer and interim governor of Spanish Florida, and governor of Popayán Province. He was the father of Francisco Menéndez Márquez, who succeeded him as governor of Florida (1646–1648).
Luis de Rojas y Borja was the governor of Spanish Florida from October 28, 1624, to June 23, 1630.
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Vicente González was governor of Florida between November 22, 1577, and 1578. He was also governor of Santa Elena, la Florida, from, at least, 1577 to 1580.
Alonso de Solís was a soldier and explorer who served as governor of Florida between April and July 4, 1576, when he was killed. He also participated in the Narváez expedition as royal inspector of mines.
Tomás Bernaldo de Quirós, also known as Thomas Bernaldo de Quiros, was a sailor who served as governor of Florida between 1578 and 1579. He was also acting governor of Santa Elena from 1577 to November 1580, at least.
Esteban de las Alas was a Spanish naval officer who served as interim governor of La Florida from October 1567 to August 1570, in the absence of official governor Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. He was also governor of the Spanish settlement of Santa Elena in what is now South Carolina, in 1566 and 1567.