Can you tell me somethin about the conquest of florida by the spaniards?

The King of Spain gave DeSoto four years to conquer North America. If he could do that he could keep a big part of it. His long journey across America, searching for a passage to China and enough gold to attract more settlers to his new colony, was well recorded by people caught up in something they had little understanding of and no control over. Their records, misunderstood for centuries, are the only spoils of Spain's "Conquest of America." Our land and Indians would never be the same again; theirs is the only account of what it was like when White and Black people, young and old, first penetrated America. What follows is their story, sketchy in places, incredible in others. It's the oldest written history of America.

DeSoto's people sighted Florida in May, 1539, at a port discovered by Ponce de León, who called this place "The Island of Florida." DeSoto brought 640 "soldiers" from Spain and Africa. Most of them were young. Some even brought their wives; 200 of them brought horses; many brought their dogs; and all brought equipment for hiking, camping and fighting. DeSoto brought tons of supplies - cannon, gun powder, cross bows, shields, lances, armor, helmets, blood hounds, seeds, nails, axes, saws, pigs and mules - to colonize and hold America for Spain.

Along for the riches of Conquest were carpenters, priests, navigators, lords, engineers, ship builders, blacksmiths, farmers, herdsmen, merchants and prospectors. Some had sold their houses and farms to be with DeSoto, the famous Conquistador, but most had never been trained as soldiers. Many had never been outside their own villages, much less in a land so vast that even the worldly DeSoto misjudged its size. Spain and Portugal could be walked from one end to the other in less than one month. This "army" would hike America for 4 years without seeing an ocean, not one of them ever knowing what they were up against.

Andrew "Sharp Knife" Jackson set out in March of 1818 with 800 regulars, 900 Georgia militiamen, and a force of White Sticks of the Creek Nation. Seminole scouts had learned of the American invasion and warned their compatriots in the surrounding villages. When Jackson’s army approached a Seminole village near St. Marks, they found it abandoned. Marching onward, the American force discovered that the Seminole had withdrawn deep into their own domain, drawing the Americans into unfamiliar territory. Though Secretary of War John C. Calhoun ordered Jackson not to risk provoking a war with Spain, Jackson felt it necessary to augment his orders and strike deep into Spanish Florida to extricate his opponent. This did nothing assist Secretary of the State John Quincy Adams in his efforts to negotiate the purchase of Florida from the Spanish government. Nonetheless, the general was firm in his resolve. In his march through Florida, Jackson did not encounter a single Seminole war party. He did, however, capture two aged chiefs, two British officers who had lived among the Seminole, and Scottish trader—Jackson subsequently had the two chiefs and the British officers executed for collaboration. Sharp Knife pressed on and with his next move revealed his hidden agenda—the conquest of Florida for the United States. After capturing the Spanish fort at Pensacola, Jackson declared western Florida a possession of the United States. The governments of Spain and Great Britain registered official protests with the United States, but Monroe backed the general’s actions and Adams subsequently demanded that the Spanish reign in the Seminole. A new war had begun in the south.

Read more at Suite101: The First Seminole War: Conquest of Florida | Suite101.com http://nativeamericanfirstnationshistory.suite101....

In Spain there's a definite party on the nineteenth of March. 3 days till now the form they positioned up particularly vast statues all over the cities. And on the night of the nineteenth of March they have various fireworks after which they burn the statues wich are made up of timber and paper mache after which painted. The statues are often approximately twenty to 20 5 feet long.

Google Hernando De Soto and Cabeza De Vaca

Also the French had a role too, 1562 Admiral Coligny and 150 french settlers landed in Florida.

The Spanish then fought the French and Indians in the same time frame, google Pedro Menendez.

If you have time to order books or go to a bookstore check out

http://www.amazon.com/Land-So-Strange-Journey-Cabe...

and

http://www.amazon.com/Voyage-Long-Strange-Rediscov...

they came,

they saw,

they drank their juice

they killed everyone -

and planted their flag in the soil - claiming it theirs!

any questions ??

They were from Spain.