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THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORY TIMELINE

This Timeline is a work in progress. Many more important events still need to be included. You can flip through this booklet by clicking on the arrows on either side. This index is not active yet: To go to a specific event, click on the INDEX - three horizontal bars on the top left if you are using a computer and bottom left if you are using a mobile phone.

April 2, 1513 > Ponce de Leon discovers North America,

                          names her 'Florida"

1513 -----> The First African American was a Conquistador

1513 -----> Alaminos discovers the Gulf Stream

1517 -----> De Córdoba, wounded in Yucatan, stops in Florida

1518 -----> Grijalva Reaches Galveston Island

1519 -----> De Pineda confirms Florida is not an island

1521 -----> Ponce de Leon returns to Florida, falls mortally wounded

1524-25 > Estevan Gomez explores the East Coast

1526 -----> Ayllón lands in S.C., settles in Georgia, builds first North

                   American colony

1528 -----> Narváez expedition succumbs to storms and natives

1528-36 > Cabeza de Vaca treks across North America

1537-42 > Cabeza de Vaca Returns to Spain, Writes 'La Relación'

1539 -----> De Niza Searches for Golden Cities of Cibola

1539-42 > De Soto Explores the Southeast,

                   Celebrates First American Christmas

1540 -----> Hernando de Alarcon Reaches California

1540-42 > Coronado Explores the Southwest

1540 -----> Garcia Lopez de Cardenas Discovers the Grand Canyon

1542-43 > Cabrillo explores California coast

1559 -----> De Luna builds Santa Maria de Ochuse

1565 -----> Pedro Menendez de Avilés establishes 'San Agustin'

1566-68 > Menendez establishes Santa Elena, S.C.; Pardo builds

                   first European settlements in the interior of North America

1567 -----> Spanish friars open San Antón de Carlos in Florida,

                   first Jesuit mission in New World

1569 -----> Friar Agustín Báez writes Güale grammar,

                   first book published in the U.S.

            

1570 -----> Father De Segura leads expedition to establish

                  a mission in Chesapeake Bay

1590 -----> De Sosa leads first (illegal) effort to colonize New Mexico

1598 -----> Juan de Oñate explores New Mexico

1602 -----> Sebastian Vizcaino explores the West Coast

1602 -----> Mission Santa Catalina de Guale established in Georgia

1606 -----> Franciscan missionaries open

                  four Potano missions in North Florida

1610 -----> Santa Fe de Toloca Mission established in Florida

1610 -----> Pedro de PeraltaEstablishes Santa Fe

1610-26 > The Birth of San Miguel, oldest church in the U.S.A.

1613 -----> Juan Rodriguez becomes the first Manhattan immigrant

1619 -----> Mission of Our Lady of the Angels of Porciúncula

                   built in New Mexico

1633 -----> Misión San Luis de Apalachee is born in Tallahassee

1670 -----> Treaty of Madrid determines pocession

                   of north/south eastern North America

1680 -----> Pueblo Revolt drives Hispanic colonists out of New Mexico

1682 -----> San Antonio de la Ysleta becomes first mission in Texas

1688 -----> Runways British slaves granted freedom in Spanish Florida

1690 -----> Misión San Francisco de la Espada established in Texas

1691 -----> Father Eusebio Kino builds Tumacácori and Guevavi

1692 -----> Father Kino builds San Xavier del Bac

1691-92 > Domingo Terán de los Rios

                   serves as first governor of Texas

1692 -----> Diego de Vargas leads 'Bloodless Reconquest" of Santa Fe

1694 -----> Kino discovers, names the ruins of "Casa Grande"

1695 -----> Castillo de San Marcos completed in St. Augustine

1696 -----> Five missionaries, 34 settlers die in Second Pueblo Revolt

1702-40 > British attacks on Spanish Florida

                   annihilate Native Americans

1718 -----> San Antonio de Valero (The Alamo) is born

1718 -----> Presidio San Antonio de Bexar open in Texas

1720 -----> Pedro de Villasur explores Great Plains,

                  dies in ambush by French-influenced Pawnee

1720 -----> Misión San José y San Miguel de Aguayo opens in Texas

1731 -----> Misión San Juan Capistrano opens in Texas

1731 -----> Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña

                   opens in Texas

1731 -----> San Antonio is born as San Fernando de Bexar

1738 -----> Runaway slaves establish Fort Mose,

                   the first free African-American community

1742 -----> Spanish Soldiers Open Fort Matanzas

1752 -----> Spanish Soldiers Build Presidio de Tubac

1763 -----> Spanish Florida Goes to England

1765 -----> Juan Antonio Maria de Rivera explores Colorado and Utah

1768 -----> Mission San Agustín del Tucson established in Arizona

1769 -----> Gaspar de Portola Leads California Expedition

1769 -----> Father Serra Opens San Diego de Alcalá,

                   California's First Spanish mission

1771 -----> Father Serra Opens San Gabriel Arcángel

1772 -----> San Francisco De Asís Mission Church

to 1816     built in Ranchos de Taos, N.M.

1772 -----> Good Hunting Determines

                   site of Misión San Luis Obispo de Tolosa

1774 -----> Juan Bautista de Anza

                   leads overland expedition to San Francisco

1775 -----> Bruno de Heceta leads first Europeans

                   to land on Washington State

1775 -----> Captain Hugh O’Connor builds

                   Presidio San Agustin del Tucson

1775-76 > Mission San Juan Capistrano launched twice in two years

1776 -----> Dominguez and Escalante Cross the Colorado River

1776 -----> The Birth of San Francisco

1776-83 > Hispanics in the American Revolution

1779 -----> Franciscan missionaries plant California's first vineyard

1779-84 > Mexican-Apache Wars ignite four battles in Tucson

1780 -----> Spanish Soldiers Defend Fort San Carlos

1781 -----> Spanish and Latin American troops

                  defeat the British capture Pensacola

1781 -----> Pobladores of Los Angeles are imported

1782 -----> Father Serra opens San Buenaventura,

                   His ninth and last Spanish mission

1783 -----> Florida goes back to Spain

1784 -----> Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles, 

                  Asistencia to San Gabriel, opens in Los Angeles

1786 -----> Mission Santa Barbara is born on her feast day

1787 -----> Misión La Purísima Concepción opens in Lompoc, California

1791 -----> Alessandro Malaspina reaches Alaska

1794 -----> Castillo de San Joaquin built in San Francisco

1797 -----> De Lasuén establishes Misión San Fernando Rey de España

1797 -----> The Birth of Villa de Branciforte

1798 -----> De Lasuén establishes Misión San Luis Rey de Francia

Some of these essays are synopses of longer essays written by my students. To see their entire work, go to: https://www.hiddenhispanicheritage.com/timelinecronologia.html

April 2, 1513 - Juan Ponce de Leon Discovers North America, Names Her 'Florida'

     In fact, unlike Christopher Columbus, who never set foot on North America, it is Ponce de Leon who discovers the mainland that becomes the United States – although he doesn’t get proper credit for it. We often think of him as the explorer who only discovered today’s State of Florida, which is a grave mistake.

INCOMPLETE: April 2, 1513 -- Spanish explorer, conquistador and former Governor Puerto Rico Juan Ponce De Leon leads three ships and 200 explorers who become the first Europeans to set foot on what is now the American mainland.
He thinks he has discovered another island, like those he knows in the Caribbean. He arrives on Easter season, or “Pascua Florida,” he sees that this new land is rich with lush vegetation, and so he names this new flowery island, “Florida.” Obviously, that name stuck, even after it was discovered that Florida is not an island, but a peninsula attached to a much bigger mainland.

Virginia as slaves in 1609, there is ample evidence that Garrido precedes them by more than a century, that he comes on his own accord, and that he is part of a monumental feat!

He is part of the three-ship, 200-men expedition that sails north from Puerto Rico and discovers the land Juan Ponce de Leon names “Florida.” They believe they have found an unknown Caribbean island. But six years later, another conquistador is unable to circumvent “Florida,” proving that the Ponce de Leon expedition discovered the North American mainland!

Garrido, born in the Kingdom of Kongo, Africa in 1487, is sold to Portuguese slave traders as a child, and somehow acquires his freedom when he reaches Lisbon, Portugal, as a young man. When he moves on to Seville, Spain, he converts to Christianity and takes the Spanish name Juan Garrido. And when he travels from Seville to Santo Domingo, Garrido becomes one of the first free Africans to reach the Americas.

Despite whatever misconceptions we may have about Spanish conquistadors, Garrido is a black man who, before coming to Florida, participates in the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean islands with Ponce de Leon, and after Florida, with Hernán Cortéz in Mexico.

For Garrido’s participation in the conquest of the Aztecs in  Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) in 1519, Cortéz awards him land. And with the labor of Indian and African slaves, Garrido becomes the first person to grow wheat in the New World. In 1538, Garrido submits his request for pension, which includes a ‘probanza,’ or proof of merit, outlining his service to Spain for more than 30 years. He dies in Mexico City between 1547 and 1550, leaving behind a wife and three children.  

1513 - The First African-American Was a Spanish Conquistador!

Juan Garrido, an African-Spanish conquistador joins the Juan Ponce de Leon Florida-discovery expedition and becomes the first known black person to arrive in what is now the United States mainland. Garrido is a free man!

While American history tells us that the first black people in colonial America are some 20 Africans brought from Angola to Jamestown

1513 Alaminos discovers the Gulf Stream

Although Benjamin Franklin named the Gulf Stream and published its first map in 1770, the ocean current that still propels ships back to Europe was discovered by Antón de Alaminos, the pilot for Ponce de Leon. While two of their three ships were anchored off Florida and the third one kept getting pulled by the current. On April 22, 1513, the ship's logbook noted that this stream was "more powerful than the wind." Six years later (1519), he became the first navigator to return to Europe propelled by the Gulf Stream.

1517 - De Córdoba, wounded in Yucatan, stops in Florida

Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, mortally wounded after being violently rejected by the Mayas of Yucatan, makes a brief stop in Florida, where his men also are attacked by natives and where his chief pilot, Antón de Alaminos, is wounded by an arrow in the neck. Hernandez de Cordoba dies shortly after they return to Cuba, but De Alaminos steers another expedition to Yucatan one year later.

1518 - Grijalva Reaches Galveston Island

Juan de Grijalva sails along Mexico's Gulf coast from Cozumel Island, off the Yucatan peninsula, all the way north to Galveston Island, off the coast of present-day Texas. Setting sail from Cuba with four ships and about 200 men, Grijalba becomes the first Spanish explorer to set foot on present-day Mexican soil and the first to use the term "New Spain." Antón de Alaminos is his pilot.

1519 - De Pineda confirms Florida is not an island

men become the first Europeans to see the coastal areas of what is now western Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, including major landmarks like Mobile Bay and the mouth of the Mississippi River. 

   Álvarez de Pineda names Corpus Christi Bay in present-day Texas. He charts the Texas coastline and his map is considered the first document in Texas history. Antón de Alaminos is his pilot.

   But as they go into the Pánuco River, in present-day Mexico, where they spent some time repairing their ships, they were attacked by Huastec natives. Alvarez de Pineda was killed in battle, but his maps and reports on his findings were taken back to Spanish authorities in Santiago.

Spanish explorer and cartographer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda explores and maps the entire Gulf Coast -- from Florida to present day Texas and discovers that Florida is a peninsula -- not an island, as previously thought.

Sailing from Santiago, the Spanish colony in present-day Jamaica, with three ships and 270 sailors, he proves the insularity of the Gulf of Mexico and disproves the idea of a sea passage to Asia. He and his

1521 - Ponce de Leon Returns to Florida, Falls Mortally Wounded

Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León returns to Florida, from Puerto Rico, in Spain's first effort to establish a permanent colony in the land he had discovered and named eight years earlier.
   His two ships and 200 colonists land in the vicinity of what is now Fort Myers on the west coast of Florida, but they are driven back into the sea by attacks from the Calusa Indians. Ponce de Leon is mortally wounded by a poisoned arrow and the colonization effort is abandoned.
   The expedition retreats to Havana, Cuba, where Ponce de Leon dies in July of 1521. His remains are returned to Puerto Rico, where he has served as governor, and he is buried inside the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista, in Old San Juan. Curiously, he rests near the house that was being built for his family, and where he expected to live upon returning from Florida. The beautiful Old San Juan home, overlooking the bay, is called Casa Blanca. And although Ponce de Leon never gets to live in it, his family resides there for 250 years.

1524-25 - Estevan Gomez Explores the East Coast

Spanish ship captain Estevan Gomez explores the east coast of North America – from Nova Scotia to Florida – leading a 29-men, single-ship expedition in search for a northwest passage to the Spice Islands, and ends up as the namesake northeast America.

Gomez (or Estêvão Gomes) is a Portuguese navigator and cartographer who sails for Spain. After deserting the Ferdinand Magellan expedition to circumnavigate the world and being imprisoned for his mutiny, Gomez convinces King Charles V to release him from jail and give him another ship to search for a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific that is shorter, faster and less treacherous than Magellan's voyage around the southern tip of South America.

While searching for a waterway across North America, he enters every bay and river along the way. He enters New York Harbor and names the San Antonio River, now known as the Hudson.

Some historians argue that they followed the south-to-north track of other explorers who sailed north from the Caribbean, but most agree they did it in reverse – from north to south.

And while never finding the long-sought passage, Gomez charts the entire American east coast. Based on his charts, celebrity Portuguese cartographer Diogo Ribeiro creates the most accurate map of North America (to date) and calls the entire Northeast "La Tierra de Estevan Gomez." That map is followed in Europe for the remainder of the 16th and part of the 17th centuries.

A 1529 map of the East Coast by celebrity Portuguese cartographer Diogo Ribeiro, followed in Europe for many years, describes the southern half of the U.S. East Coast as 'Tierra de Ayllón.' 

Despite recent efforts to correct American history by commemorating the sad date when African slaves were brought to the Carolinas by British colonists in 1619, regrettably, it was Ayllón who first brought African slaves to what is now the United States -- some 93 years earlier! Even in terrible events in American history, the British are noticed and the Spanish are invisible!

Conquistador Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón leads Spain's second effort to establish a colony in North America, landing with 600 colonists in present-day South Carolina and establishing San Miguel the Gauldape in present-day Georgia.

Although it survived for less than three months, and Ayllón dies there (from an unknown illness), Gauldape becomes the first European colony in what is now the United States -- preceding Pensacola by 33, St. Augustine by 39 years, and Jamestown by 81 years.

1526 - Ayllón lands in S.C., settles in Georgia, builds first North American colony

Although he expects to hook up with supply ships along the Gulf of Mexico, and although the ships keep looking for his expedition, they never find each other.

His explorers survive by eating their own horses and plundering Native American villages. Their conquest expedition becomes one of survival. Exhausted and without supplies, when they reach the native village of Appalachian, near present-day Tallahassee, they are met with hostility and violence by the natives of the area.

They know that, to survive, they must trek across North America to rejoin Spanish forces in Mexico. But as they travel from Florida to Texas, often aboard makeshift rafts, many, including Narváez, are never to be seen again. Some drown and some succumb to attacks from the natives. Only five survive, including four who reach Mexico and one who stayed captive of the Florida natives and was rescued by another expedition more than a decade later.

The site of the Narváez landing is marked today by the Jungle Prada Park,  in St. Petersburg.

Spanish ship captain Pánfilo de Narváez leads an ill-fated 300-men and 40-horse expedition to establish a colony in Florida. Marooned and battered by storms, deseases and Native Americans, only five survive.

Narváez, who had lost an eye fighting the Aztecs of Mexico, sails from Hispaniola, disembarks in the Tampa Bay area and decides to lead an overland trek to north Florida, a decision that dooms the expedition.

1528 - Narváez expedition succumbs to storms and natives

INCOMPLETE: Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and three other survivors of the De Narváez expedition explore the Southwest. To survive among the natives, they become slaves, traders and even medicine men. One of them, Estevanico, an enslaved black man, born in Morocco, becomes one of the first Africans to step ashore on what is now the continental United States. Cabeza de Vaca becomes America's first evangelical preacher, first historian and first European to describe the fascinating lifestyles of Native Americans, including same-sex marriage.

1528-36 - Cabeza de Vaca  treks across North America

INCOMPLETE: Spanish conquistador Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, one of four survivors of the ship-wrecked, 300-men Panfilo de Narvaez expedition, returns to Spain and writes “La Relación” (The Account), a book describing his eight-year, on-foot journey across North America - from Tampa, Florida to Mexico City.

     Although it is written in Spanish and published in Spain, it is really "the first American history book," covering life in North America from 1528 to 1536.
     In "La Relación," Cabeza de Vaca describes how he and his companions trekked on-foot across a huge portion of the recently discovered North American territory, and how they endured hunger, slavery and all kinds of other hardships.

   Although most of his shipmates died along the way, Cabeza de Vaca and the other three Spanish sailors -  Andres Dornate, Alfonso Castillo and a slave known as Estevanico - had to succumb to much pain and humiliation in order to survive living among many different groups of Native Americans. They became slaves, traders, preachers and even healers!

1537-42 - Cabeza de Vaca Returns to Spain, Writes 'La Relación'

1539 - De Niza Searches for Golden Cities of Cibola

INCOMPLETE: With Estevanico as his guide, Fray Marcos de Niza leads an expedition to find the fabled seven golden cities of Cíbola, reaching into present-day New Mexico and turning back after Estevanico was allegedly killed by Zuni Indians.

   Yet, having seen adobe buildings glittering in the sun from a distance, Niza reported having found  golden cities and created the incentive for future Spanish expeditions into the current U.S. mainland.

    Some historians cite the possibility that Estevanico, who would again be a slave upon returning to present-day Mexico, decided to stay to live with the natives.

1539-42 - De Soto Explores Southeast, Celebrates First American Christmas

INCOMPLETE: Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto leads the first European overland expedition of the present-day United States, exploring the territory that later became Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.

They celebrate America's first Christmas, cross the Mississippi River.

Starting from Cuba, their four-year, 4,000-mile hike finally lost its drive when de Soto died of "a fever" from some unknown disease at the banks of the Mississippi. To prevent the natives from finding his body, this crew buries him in the Mississippi.

     In 1539, an expedition led by Spanish navigator Francisco de Ulloa had reached the head of the gulf and turned back, finding no path to the Pacific Ocean, which seemed to prove that the peninsula is not an island. Yet even cartographers had been so convinced that the peninsula was an island, that it took the Alarcon expedition to dispel that misconception one year later.

1540 - Hernando de Alarcon Reaches California

Spanish explorer Hernando de Alarcon sails northward from Acapulco, along New Spain's Pacific coast, through the Gulf of California, enters the Colorado River, and becomes one of the first Europeans to reach what it is now California. He also confirms that California is not an island.
      After sailing with three ships and for three months, avoiding sandbars that slowed the journey, de Alarcon finds the mouth of the Colorado. He selects about 20 experience seamen, takes two boats, and spends 12 days leading the first Europeans to ascend the river for a considerable distance.

    For many years, the civilized world thought that California was an island. That misconception comes from a 1510 Spanish romance novel that made the first known mention of "an island called California." It was to be found "on the right hand of the Indies" and "very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise," and it apparently led early Spanish explorers to wishfully assume that the body of land to the west of New Spain (Mexico) was the legendary island of California. They named California and called it an island even before circumventing it.

1540-42 - Coronado Explores the Southwest,      Cardenas Discovers the Grand Canyon

INCOMPLETE: Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado leads an expedition of more than 1,000 settlers and slaves through territories covering present-day Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. And some of his explorers, led by Cardenas, discover the Grand Canyon!
Following directives from the Spanish Crown, Coronado sets out to spread the word of God, to expand Spain’s territory in the New World and find the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola, believe to be rich with gold.
  The Coronado caravan, including some 340 Spanish soldiers, 700 Indian allies and slaves, starts in New Spain (Mexico) and travels with supplies, tools, and thousands of livestock.

Melchior Diaz reaches California,

Though the explorers found none of storied treasur  they did discover the grand cayon and other major physical land marks of the region  

Francisco spent the rest of his life in Mexico before he died in 1554. 

Disappointed  by the expedition's failure to find a golden city, he decided to send his men out different  directions to investigate further. one group led by Pedro de Tovar traveled to the corolado plateau, while Garcia Lopez de Cadenas and his men became the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon. 

Painting by Spanish artist Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau Nieto Photo: Miguel Pérez 1540 - Garcia Lopez de Cardenas            Discovers the Grand Canyon

INCOMPLETE: Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardinas, a soldier in Francisco Vasquéz de Coronado's army, leads a group of explorers who become the first Europeans to see the Grand Cayon.

1542-43  Cabrillo explores California coast

Captain Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, on the authority of the Viceroy of New Spain, sails north from Navidad, Mexico on June 27, 1542 with three Spanish ships and leads the first European exploration of the California coastline -- claiming it all for Spain.

Three months later, on September 28, they enter present-day San Diego Bay and, since it falls on the day of the Archangel St. Michael, Cabrillo names it "Puerto de San Miguel." The name is changed to San Diego by another Spanish explorer 60 years later.

Although other Spanish explorers have reached the southern edges of Alta California before, Cabrillo's landing in San Miguel marks the beginning of California.

He goes on to explore uncharted waters and discover unknown islands off the West Coast of North America. Yet, while under attack by Tongva warriors on Catalina Island, Cabrillo suffers a mortal fall in January of 1543. He is buried on San Miguel Island and his ships return to Navidad.

For his accomplishments, since Cabrillo represents Spain, and since he is believed to have been born in Portugal, two countries claim him as their own national hero. In his honor, the National Park Service operates Cabrillo National Monument (donated by Portugal), overlooking the bay from Point Loma in San Diego. That's where an annual festival, including reenactments, commemorates his first landing in California.

1559 - De Luna Builds  Santa Maria de Ochuse

Spanish conquistador Tristan de Luna leads an 11-ship, 1,500-colonist expedition, starting from Veracruz, Mexico, to settle Santa Maria de Ochuse in present-day Pensacola, Fl. It predates the founding of Jamestown by a half century and St. Augustine by a half dozen years.

Although the settlement is wiped out by a fierce hurricane shortly after it is established, Pensacola still calls itself "America's First Settlement."

Just one month into building this new town, the hurricane leaves hundreds of men, women and children without food or supplies. Several ships are lost with their cargo. The two ships that survive the storm are sent to Veracruz and Havana to seek help. Spain's effort to establish a settlement on the Gulf coast turns into a rescue mission.

Yet those efforts persist. While some colonists return to Mexico, others try to survive by moving further inland. De Luna is eventually deposed and replaced by other Spanish officers, until 1561, when the remaining colonists are evacuated and  the colony is finally abandoned.

This statue is the centerpiece of a beautiful plaza facing Pensacola Bay. "If the Luna settlement had succeeded, the story of America would have been much different," according to an exhibit at the T.T. Wentworth, Jr. Florida State Museum in downtown Pensacola.

1565 - Menendez de Avilés  establishes 'San Agustin'

     Menendez becomes the first governor of Florida and St. Augustine serves at the capital of Spanish Florida for more than 200 years. The city also served as the capital of British Florida during the 20-year period (1763-83) when "La Florida" was British, and then became Spanish again. When Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1821, St. Augustine remained the capital of the Florida Territory until 1824, when Tallahassee became the capital. Today, St. Augustine is the foremost Spanish colonial city in the United States, dotted by landmarks and monuments that attract tourists from all over the world.

Spanish conquistador Pedro Menendez de Avilés establishes St. Augustine, the first successful settlement in Spanish Florida, and the city that is to become the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the continental United States.
   He names the settlement "San Agustin" because 11 days earlier, on August 28, the feast of San Agustin, his fleet sighted the coast of Florida. To commemorate the town's foundation, on Sept. 28, they celebrate a Catholic Mass with the Timacua natives of the area. That ceremony is to be regarded as America's first Thanksgiving.

1566-68 Menendez establishes Santa Elena, S.C.; Pardo Builds First European settlements in the interior of North America

One year after establishing St. Augustine, Pedro Menendez de Alvilés, the first governor of Spanish Florida, expands the Spanish emprire northward and builds Santa Elena, a Spanish settlement on what is now Parris Island, S.C.

   Santa Elena is built near Charlesfort, an abandoned French outpost built by explorer Jean Ribault in 1562 and deserted one year later. Menendez makes Santa Elena the capital of Spanish Florida and the base of operations for Jesuit and military expansion.

  From Santa Elena, Menendez orders inland expeditions -- led by Captain Juan Pardo -- to pacify and convert the natives to Catholicism, and to discourage the creation of French colonies in this area.

  Pardo's first expedition reaches Joara, the great Native American regional center of Mississippian culture near present-day Morganton, N.C. From 1566 to 1568, Pardo buids six forts in what is now South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee and leaves a small contingent of soldiers and Jesuit missionaries at each one. These are considered the first European settlements in the interior of North America.

1567 - Spanish friars open San Antón de Carlos in Florida, first Jesuit mission in New World

1569 - Friar Agustín Báez writes Güale grammar,            first book published in the U.S.

1570 - Father De Segura leads expedition to establish a mission in Chesapeake Bay

INCOMPLETE: Jesuit friar Juan Baptista de Segura leads an expedition to establish a mission in Chesapeake Bay.

1590 – De Sosa leads first (illegal) effort

to colonize New Mexico

INCOMPLETE: The first illegal entry into what is now the United States is not by migrants coming north across the border, but by Spanish colonizers coming north without permission from the Spanish monarchy. The first attempt to colonize New Mexico is led by Gaspar de Sosa.

Juan de Oñate, a Spanish conquistador born in New Spain (present-day Mexico), leads a caravan of 129 soldiers, 10 Franciscan friars, some 300 settlers, 83 wagons and about 7,000 head of cattle, crosses the Rio Grande and claims New Mexico for the Spanish crown.

To celebrate the settlement of New Mexico, he hosts a mass and invites the natives to join him and his troops in a thanksgiving meal. In New Mexico, this is called "the first American Thanksgiving," although another Spanish Thanksgiving was celebrated in St. Augustine 33 years earlier.

The expedition settles at the juncture of the Rio Grande and the Chama River and establishes “San Juan de los Caballeros” as the first capital of New Mexico. One year later, he moves the capital to the west bank of the Rio Grande and calls it "San Gabriel" (both are part of the present-day Ohkay Owingeh reservation).

Oñate becomes the colonial governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico, a province of New Spain, and leads early Spanish expeditions to the Great Plains and the lower Colorado River Valley, encountering Native American pueblos and making enemies among the natives.

He becomes known for cutting off the feet or hands of those who oppose him. His cruelty is such that in 1607, Oñate is deposed and forced to return to Mexico City, where he is convicted for mistreatment of both the natives and colonists, and is banished from New Mexico. He later travels to Spain, where he dies.

Nowadays, some people honor Oñate for his accomplishments as "the great colonizer" of New Mexico, while others vilify him for his cruelty to Native Americans. In El Paso, Tex., because of pressure from Native Americans, a statue of built to honor him is renamed "The Equestrian" even before it is unveiled.

1598 - Juan de Oñate explores New Mexico

1602 - Sebastian Vizcaino explores the West Coast

INCOMPLETE: Spanish explorer Sebastian Vizcaino sails north along the Pacific Coast from Acapulco to San Miguel, which he renames San Diego de Alcala -- now the city of San Diego, California.
Vizcaino takes three ships -- San Diego, Santa Tomas, and Tres Reyes -- with 200 soldiers and sailors, three Catholic friars and his 13-year-old son Juan.
    On his mission to expand Spain's northwestern trading frontier, he follows the shoreline first explored by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo 60 years earlier.

1602-1702 - Mission Santa Catalina de Guale              established in Georgia, lasts a century

coast of present-day northern Florida and Georgia, Guale grows to become the center of missionary work in Spanish Florida.

     And yet epidemic diseases reduce the town’s population, and attacks from pirates, slave raiders and British-backed natives force the mission to move south to Sapelo Island, Ga., in 1680 and again to Amelia Island in present-day Florida in 1684.

     The Westo Indians, who capture and sell other Indians as slaves, and who raid Spanish settlements with support and encouragement from the British, are primarily responsible for the setbacks to Spanish colonization and evangelization.

     The mission remains on Amelia Island, consolidating natives from various other attacked mission/villages until 1702, when it is attacked and destroyed by British forces from South Carolina and Guale residents flee further south to St. Augustine.

      Today, St. Catherine's Island is owned by foundation devoted to promoting conservation, natural resources and endangered species. The island is declared a National Historic Landmark in 1969.

As part of Spain’s efforts to covert Native Americans to Catholicism, Spanish Franciscan friars open Santa Catalina de Guale, a mission and town on present-day St. Catherines Island, and the first Spanish outpost in Georgia.    Florida governor Pedro Menendez de Aviles and other Spanish explorers have visited the area since 1566. And while the Spanish establish several mission/villages along the east

1606 - Franciscan missionaries open            four Potano missions in North Florida

1610 - Santa Fe de Toloca Mission            established in Florida

     The Plaza is designed to hold "1,000 people, 5,000 head of sheep, 400 head of horses, and 300 head of cattle without crowding." It features a chapel, a jail, an arsenal, and the governor's headquarters and government offices, the Palace of the Governors, which is built with three-foot-thick adobe walls to protect Spanish authorities from native attacks. It goes on to serve as the New Mexico seat of government for centuries.

Spanish Army officer Don Pedro de Peralta, appointed second governor of New Mexico, arrives at its capital, La Villa de San Gabriel, and decides to move the capital to a new site. He establishes and names Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Replacing Governor Juan de Oñate, who had made many enemies among the natives, Peralta travels to New Mexico with only 12 soldiers and eight Franciscan priests, who are determined to convert the natives to Catholicism. While the missionaries promise the natives that baptism would protect them from diseases, Peralta convinces some 200 San Gabriel settlers that the capital is mistakenly located in an area that suffers droughts, lacks fertile land, and is also too far from Pueblo Indian population centers.
    Peralta selects an alternative site, with better land and a water good supply, and a surveyor designs the new settlement, which is separated by districts, home and garden plots, and including a downtown area, Santa Fe Plaza, for commerce and government buildings.

1610 – Pedro de Peralta Establishes Santa Fe

     Although damaged several times by feuds and rebellions, San Miguel is always rebuilt. It remains one of the most vivid illustrations of adobe architecture created by Spanish settlers and Native Americans. The interior of the mission is surrounded with wooden Catholic artifacts and rare paintings from colonial Mexico. The chapel’s artwork centerpiece is a statue of Saint Michael the Archangel, dating back to 1709 and brought to the chapel in 1798. The “Barrio de Analco Historic District” is now a U.S. National Historic Landmark. 1610-26 The Birth of San Miguel, oldest church in U.S.A.

Misión San Miguel Church, a mission chapel that is to become the oldest church in the continental United States, is built by Tlaxcalan Indians led by Franciscan padres in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Taking many years to complete, it is built with adobe walls, above an ancient sacred house of worship known as a “kiva” of the Analco Native Americans.
    Also known as San Miguel Chapel, and originally called “La Hermanita de San Miguel,” the chapel is named after St. Michael the Archangel, and serves as a place of worship for Tlaxcalan natives, workers, artisans and Spanish soldiers who live in the area south of the Santa Fe River. They all built homes in an area that comes to be known as Barrio de Analco, which takes its name from the Tlaxcalan word “Analco,” meaning “the other side of the river.”

    Born in Santo Domingo of a Portuguese sailor and an African woman, Rodriguez arrives on a Portuguese ship and decides to stay. He marries a Native American woman and establishes a family. He builds a very lucrative business, trading furs for European tools with the natives and the explorers who came to the New World.     

     But he is not only the first immigrant. Rodriguez is also the first person of both European and African heritage to live in Manhattan. And he is not only the first Latino, he is the first New York Dominican!

     In 2012, New York City recognized him by co-naming a portion of Broadway, "Juan Rodriguez Way." In two predominantly Dominican neighborhoods, from 159th Street in Washington Heights to 218th Street in Inwood, many people now can look up an see streets signs recognizing that one of their ancestors arrived here first!

Juan Rodriguez, a native of the what is now the Dominican Republic, becomes the first immigrant in Manhattan. This is 12 years before Dutch colonists establish New Amsterdam, and 51 years before the English take control of the colony and rename it New York.

1613 - Juan Rodriguez becomes the first Manhattan immigrant

INCOMPLETE: Mission Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula ("Mission of Our Lady of the Angels of Porciúncula") is built to serve the people of the Pecos Pueblo, near present-day Pecos, New Mexico.

1619 - Mission of Our Lady of the Angels of Porciúncula built in New Mexico

     Anhaica, the village first encountered by the Hernando de Soto expedition in 1539, is already a wealthy agricultural Apalachee community when San Luis is established. 

But the mission brings European knowhow and San Luis' crops are soon feeding soldiers and settlers in St. Augustine, the Spanish capital of Florida. By 1656, after being relocated to a more secure and defendable hilltop, San Luis becomes a colonial community of some 1,400 people, including a powerful Apalachee chief and the Spanish deputy governor.

    But in 1704, following a series of raids by the English and Creek Indians, San Luis is evacuated and destroyed. The Spanish and some Apalachees return to St. Augustine, and about 800 Apalachees flee west to Mobile, a French village where they settle for some time.
    Almost three centuries later, in 1996, the site where Mission San Luis stood was added to the U.S. National Registry of Historic Places. And from 1998 to 2009, drawing from 15 years of historical and archaeological research, San Luis was rebuilt. Of the many mission settlements established by Spain in Florida, San Luis is the only reconstructed mission in the state. This tourist attraction is made even more impressive by its "living historic interpreters" -- real people representing historic figures and recreating life at it was in San Luis in 1703.

1633 - Misión San Luis de Apalachee is born in Tallahassee

Misión San Luis de Apalachee is established by Franciscan friars Pedro Muñoz and Francisco Martinez, in present-day Tallahassee, Florida, to covert the Apalachee Indians to Christianity and colonize the Florida Panhandle.
    Built in Anhaica, the capital village of the Apalachee Indians, the most powerful and advanced tribe in Florida, Mision San Luis becomes a community where Spaniards and Apalachees live and work together, and marry each other.

1670 - Treaty of Madrid determines pocession            of north/south eastern North America

1680 - Pueblo Revolt drivesHispanic colonists out of New Mexico

Copus Christi de San Antonio de la Ysleta del Sur, the first Spanish mission in present-day Texas, is established by Fray Francisco de Ayeta and Antonio de Otermin, the Spanish governor of New Mexico, in El Paso, Tx.
  First used as a temporary refugee camp for Pueblo Indians who were fleeing from Apache raiders, the mission flourishes as an agricultural community, the first of several established by Spaniards and Native Americans near the Rio Grande.
   Built with mud and chinked logs, the mission was forced to relocate several times due to fires and flooding of the Rio Grande, but one of the original church bells still survives.
   Today, the Ysleta community is recognized as the oldest in Texas, and it's parish is not only the oldest continuously operated church in the state, but it also has the oldest continuously cultivated plot of land in the country. The Ysleta church still serves the descendants of the Tigua people who first converted to Catholicism more than 500 years ago. Every year, they still celebrate the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, the mission's patron saint.

1682 - San Antonio de la Ysleta becomes first mission in Texas

1688 - Runway British Slaves Granted Freedom in Spanish Florida

INCOMPLETE: Diego de Quiroga, the Spanish Governor of Florida, grants sanctuary in St. Augustine to eight men, two women and a three-year-old girl who escape British slavery on a stolen raft - once they convert to Roman Catholicism.
The two women worked as domestic helpers in the governor's home. Two of the men were employed as blacksmiths, and the other six worked on the construction of Castillo de San Marcos. They were all paid for their labor. In spite of efforts by British slave owners to regain their property, de Quiroga resisted, and protected them.
   But they were only the first. Spanish records show that at least six separate groups of runaway British slaves escape from South Carolina to St. Augustine, the capital of Spanish Florida, between 1688 and 1725. Most of them made the journey after 1693, when the Spanish Crown officially granted them freedom after they arrived in Florida. 

1690 - Misión San Francisco de la Espada            established in Texas

1691 - Father Kino builds Tumacácori and Guevavi

Father Eusebio Kino, an Italian-born Jesuit missionary and explorer who works for Spain,  opens La Misión San Cayetano de Tumacácori (years later replaced by Mission San José de Tumacácori). One day later, he opens La Misión de San Gabriel de Guevavi, which years later became known as Misión Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi.
   Tumacácori and Guevavi are the first two Arizona missions established as part of Spain's quest to convert the Tohono O'odham natives to Christianity. Kino has already built missions in present-day northern Mexico. With time, the natives not only adopt Catholicism, but the Spanish language.
  Today, more than three centuries later, the decedents of the Tohono O'odham still speak their native pima language as well as Spanish. Today, both missions are part of the Tumacácori National Historical Park. The Mission San José de Tumacácori complex, including the Tumacácori Museum, is open to the public. The Guevavi mission is closed to the public, but can be visited on reserved tours led by park staff.

1692 - Father Kino builds San Xavier del Bac

Kino's original San Xavier church is rebuilt from 1783 to 1797 - 14 years! - by Native Americans and Franciscan missionaries who have taken control of the mission. The church is known as "The White Dove of the Desert," because it appears that way when seen from a distance.

Father Eusebio Kino, establishes the Spanish Catholic mission San Xavier del Bac in southern Arizona, only one year after building two other nearby missions, Tumacácori and Guevavi.
     On a mission to spread Christianity among the Tohono O'odham natives of the area, Kino becomes the first non-Indian to visit the village of Bac. He also conducts several expeditions on horseback, covering and mapping more than 200 miles -- all along teaching the natives how to raise cattle and crops.

     With its combination of Moorish, Byzantine and late Mexico Renaissance architecture, and with its interior walls packed with numerous hand-carved and brightly painted wooden angels and saints, San Xaxier is perhaps the best example of mission construction in the U.S. It's one of the few places in the country where you can step back in time by entering an authentic 18th-century space.
     The church still serves the descendants of the natives Kino converted to Catholicism. It also has become a place of pilgrimage for people who go there to fulfill promises to the patron saint of the mission, San Francisco Xavier, another missionary who was one of the founders of the Jesuit order.

During his trek, Terán names major Texas landmarks, such as the San Antonio River. He is now credited for giving some Texas cities their names based on the rivers he named.

However, disagreement and friction between Terán and Massanet over which way to take the expedition, leads to their eventual failure. While Terán insists on searching for expected supply ships at Matagorda Bay, on the Gulf of Mexico, Massanet wants to move on to establish missions among the Caddo natives of the area.

Terán feels he needs assistance before he can assist others. But Massanet refuses go along. He forces Terán to escort him to San Francisco de los Tejas, a mission that had been established one year earlier. And by the time Terán goes back to the Gulf and finds the supply ships, he receives orders to explore the region he has just left.

Terán and a small group then set off to explore the Neches and Red Rivers. But they are forced to turn back after most of their horses die due to the cold climate. Finding himself in Matagorda Bay once again three months later, Terán finally boards a ship to Veracruz to head home.

Although his expedition is considered a failure because no missions were established, Terán would be remembered as the first government official in Texas, and the first Spanish explorer to document the geography and cultures of eastern Texas.

Domingo de Terán de los Rios is appointed as the first governor of the Spanish province of Texas after serving the Spanish crown in Peru for 20 years. Together with Fray Damian Massanet, Terán is tasked with establishing eight missions in the eastern part of Texas.

He leads a small army from Manclova, in northern Mexico, and begins his trek on May 16, 1691, crossing the Rio Grande 12 days later and reaching the Red River (in northern Texas) by the end of December.

1691-92 - Domingo Terán de los Ríos                  Serves as First Governor of Texas

     A feast for the Virgin Mary started by De Vargas is still celebrated by the descendants of the reconquest, both Native Americans and Hispanics, in the city's annual "Fiestas de Santa Fe." -- a novena of thanksgiving masses and a procession, usually in mid-September. De Vargas is also recognized with a statue in downtown Santa Fe.

1692 Diego de Vargas leads         'Bloodless Reconquest" of Santa Fe

Don Diego de Vargas, the Spanish Governor of New Mexico, leads a military expedition to reconquer Santa Fe and other territory that was taken by Native Americans during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Leading a 200-men army, he peacefully gains control over numerous pueblos without firing a single shot.
   Twelve years after the Pueblo people drove Spanish settlers out of New Mexico, and forced them to retreat to present-day northern Mexico and southern Texas, De Vargas conducts a "bloodless reconquest" that turns many former enemies into allies. He uses Catholic rituals to persuade the natives that he wants peace.
But De Vargas' repossession of New Mexico doesn't remain peaceful. When some natives refuse to submit to his rule, he retaliates violently and in many ways, from cutting off their water supply to having 70 opposing Pueblo warriors executed. Many natives side with the Spanish, but violent skirmishes with rebelling natives continue until 1694.

1694 - Kino discovers, names            the ruins of 'Casa Grande'

Photos: Miguel Pérez 1695 - Castillo de San Marcos            Completed in St. Augustine

Workers brought from Havana, Cuba, complete the construction of Castillo de San Marcos, the stone colonial fort built to replace nine wooded fortifications that guarded St. Augustine, the Spanish capital of Florida, from British or pirate attacks.

Guarding downtown St. Augustine, on the shoreline of Matanzas Bay, the impressive star-shaped fort, which took 23 years to build, is surrounded by a moat, fortified by powerful cannons.

Made of "Coquina" (small seashells bonded together), which is similar to limestone, the powerful fort becomes an important New World military outpost for many years. When the British Navy lay siege on St. Augustine in 1702, the town is razed, but the Castillo shelters it's 1,500 residents and soldiers. In spite of a two-month battle, British cannons have little effect on the coquina walls. The British try again in 1728 and 1740, and again and again they fail.

Today, Castillo de San Marcos stands as the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. A National Monument managed by the United States National Parks Service, the Castillo is the biggest tourist attraction in St. Augustine and a popular icon representing centuries of Hispanic presence in North America.

1696 - Five missionaries, 34 settlers die            in Second Pueblo Revolt

1702-40 - British attacks on Spanish in Florida                  annihilate Native Americans

Named after Saint Anthony of Padua, this is the first of five Spanish missions established in East Texas by Spanish Franciscan friars who have received training on how to engage and evangelize the natives at the Convent of Querétaro, New Spain (Mexico). They are seeking to covert Native Americans to Catholicism and to colonize northern New Spain.

After relocating twice until settling at its present site in 1724, just across the river from the town of San Antonio de Bexar -- today's City of San Antonio, Tx. -- the mission becomes self-sufficient, with its own church, granary, living quarters, workshops, fields, and pastures.

But in 1836, when it is no longer used as a Spanish mission, it becomes the site of the most famous battle of the Texas Revolution against Mexican dictator Antonio López de Santa Ana. After the mission is closed in 1793, the buildings keep changing hands and functions, serving as a meeting place, a hospital and finally a military fort that becomes known as "The Alamo."

Occupied by rebels who fight and die for Texas independence from Mexico - including many Hispanics - the Alamo suffers a defeat against the Mexican Army that becomes legendary. "Remember the Alamo" becomes the battle cry that eventually wins Texas independence from Mexico.

Of the estimated 189 men who died defending The Alamo, only six were actually born in Texas -- and all of them were Hispanic. And the man who left The Alamo to seek reinforcements, Juan Seguín, was also a Latino. Nowadays, they are all recognized in a monument outside the mission. The Alamo is San Antonio's biggest tourist attraction, celebrating both its heritage as a Spanish mission and as the sacred battleground of the Texas Revolution.

Father Antonio de San Buenaventura y Olivares, a Franciscan priest from Andalusia, Spain, treks north from New Spain into present-day Texas and establishes Mision San Antonio de Valero, the Spanish mission that is much better known as The Alamo.

1718 - San Antono de Valero (The Alamo) is born Photo: Miguel Pérez

1718 - Presidio San Antonio de Béxar           open in Texas

1720 - Pedro de Villasur explores Great Plains, dies in ambush by French-influenced Pawnee

1720 - Misión San José y San Miguel de Aguayo            opens in Texas

It is now one of the five San Antonio area missions that stand as beautiful monuments to our Hispanic American heritage. It is one four missions that constitute the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.

1720 - Franciscan friars open Misión San José y San Miguel Aguayo on the east bank of the San Antonio River, some 3.5 miles south of San Antonio de Valero (The Alamo), opened two years earlier. They teach Catholicism and European vocational skills to Native Americans and their first San Antonio mission is so successful, and overcrowded, that they decide to build a second one.

    A few years later, between 1724 and 1727 Misión San José y San Miguel Aguayo is relocated to the west bank of the river, where it becomes a successful community of some 350 neophytes, with its own crops and livestock.

  But after a smallpox epidemic reduces the native population in 1739, in 1740, the mission is moved another half mile to its third location, where it still stands today.

1731 - San Antonio is born            as San Fernando de Bexar

1731 - Mission San Juan Capistrano            Opens in Texas San Juan Capistrano

1731 - Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña opens in Texas

1738 - Runaway slaves establish Fort Mose,  the first free African-American community

     Menendez leads the construction of Fort Mose, which is built two miles north of St. Augustine, to protect that city against enemy attacks by both land and water routes. Some 40 former African slaves settle outside the walls of the fort and create the first free African-American community in North America. Today, Fort Mose is a Florida State Park and U.S. National Historic Landmark where visitors can go back in time to the first African-American settlement.

Spanish Florida governor Manuel de Montiano orders the Spanish black militia - composed of runaway British slaves - to build and command a fort for freed African slaves now serving as soldiers for the Spanish Crown.
     This outpost, called Fort Mose, is built to defend St. Augustine from British attacks, but it leads to the creation of "Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose," the first free African-American community in what is now the United States.
     For some 50 years runaway British slaves have escaped from South Carolina and fled to St. Augustine, the capital of Spanish Florida, were they are granted freedom if they convert to Catholicism.
      Francisco Menendez, an African slave who had escaped the British plantations in South Carolina and regained his freedom by joining Spanish forces in Florida, becomes the captain of the black Spanish militia (of former British slaves) at Fort Mose.
     Born in West Africa, in the Mandinka tribe, Menendez was brought to South Carolina as a slave in the early 1700s. But in 1724, with nine other slaves, he escaped to Florida, where Spanish authorities were granting freedom to runaway British slaves who were willing to covert to Catholicism.

1740-42 - Spanish Soldiers Build Fort Matanzas

Spanish soldiers build Fort Matanzas on the east coast of Florida, 15 miles south of St. Augustine, to protect the city from attacks by way of the Matanzas Inlet and the Matanzas River. It is meant to reinforce the city's southern flank and to supplement the security already provided by Castillo de San Marcos, the city's imposing waterfront fort.
 Fort Matanzas adds considerable security, since it allows Spanish soldiers to observe approaching enemy vessels before they can reach St. Augustine. It also serves as rest stop, coast guard station, and a place where friendly vessels heading for St. Augustine get advice on navigating the river.

     This small, square, supplemental fort -- 300 feet high and 50 feet long on each side -- took two years to build, and it is made of the same coquina shell-stones that were used to build Castillo de San Marcos. It has five cannons and is manned by a garrison of one officer, four infantrymen and two gunners who serve on rotation from their regular duty in St. Augustine. When Fort Matanzas is challenged, close to its completion, by 12 approaching British ships, its cannons force the fleet to retreat without reaching St. Augustine. It is the only time the fort fires cannons against an enemy.
     Today, Fort Matanzas stands as a testament to the Spanish Empire's determination to protect its territorial claims for control of the New World against the French and British. It is now managed by the National Parks Service, in conjunction with Castillo de San Marcos. Fort Matanzas is open to the public and reachable by ferry.

1750 - San Fernando Cathedral            Opens in San Antonio

1752 - Spanish Soldiers Build Presidio de Tubac

   Tubac also becomes one of the key stops on the Camino Real, the Spanish colonial trail, from Mexico to the Spanish settlements in California. It also becomes the site of many battles -- from the Apache-Mexico Wars to the American Civil War.
   Today, the Tubac Presidio State Historic Park, adjoining the Village of Tubac, preserves the Presidio's ruins. The park features several historic sites, a museum, and an underground archeology exhibit displaying the excavated foundations of the Tubac Presidio. It also features living history presentations, on Sundays from October through March. The park also marks the Trailhead of the Juan Buatista de Anza 1774 expedition from southern Arizona to northern California.

The Presidio of San Ignacio de Tubac, also known as Fort Tubac, is built by Spanish soldiers, becoming the first Spanish colonial garrison in what is now southern Arizona, and the foundation for the Village of Tubac.
     It is built to protect the Spanish missions of the valley of the Santa Cruz River and the Spanish colonists who have settled, since the 1730s, in the area of Tubac, a small Pima Indian village. One year after a Pima uprising destroyed the Spanish settlements, the Pimas surrender and the fort is build to prevent further rebellion. Tubac becomes the first European settlement in what is now the state of Arizona.

Spain trades Florida to England in exchange for Cuba. As a result of the Seven Years (French-Indian) War, in which Great Britain defeated France and Spain, England gets all French territory east of the Mississippi River, except for New Orleans. And Spain gives up East and West Florida to the British in return for Cuba, which Spain had lost during the Seven Years War.
This is all the result of the Treaty of Paris of 1763, which ends the long, bloody war and sets the Florida peninsula on a totally different course. More than two decades after the Spanish government in Florida granted unconditional freedom to all runaway slaves from the British plantations in South Carolina, Britain imports thousands of new slaves from Africa, and from other British colonies, to Florida.
Yet, because England had gone into debt to fight the Seven Year War, and because it was forced to imposed heavy taxes on its North American colonies, the Treaty of Paris may have triggered the American Revolutionary War against Britain a few years later.
    Twenty years later, it took another Treaty of Paris -- in 1783 -- to return Florida to Spain. This second treaty brings an end to the American Revolution, after the Americans colonies defeated the British with the help of Spain.

1763 - Spanish Florida Goes to England

Spanish explorer Juan Antonio Maria de Rivera leads two small expeditions of horseback riders from Santa Fe, N,M., through present-day Colorado and Utah, and all the way up to the southern Rocky Mountains, becoming the first Europeans to explore that portion of western North America. He names the San Juan Mountains.

They are not only searching for gold and silver, but also seeking to discourage other European powers from moving into territory that has already been claimed by Spain. Following the Dolores River in a northwestern direction, his expeditions cover territories inhabited by the Ute natives and establish trade routes that would prove to be essential for other explorers who follow.

Fearing marauding Comanche raiders, he has to return to New Mexico, without finding significant gold or silver, or other Europeans encroaching on Spanish land. Yet he is also credited for naming many Colorado landmarks.

1765 - Juan Antonio Maria de Rivera            explores Colorado and Utah

1768 - Mission San Agustín del Tucson            established in Arizona

Spanish military officer and first governor of Las Californias, Gaspar de Portolà leads the first overland expedition from Baja California to Alta California, visiting many of its most important landmarks from San Diego to San Francisco Bay, and taking with him the soldiers and Franciscan friars who establish the first California Spanish forts and Franciscan missions.

Traveling with Portola is Father Junípero Serra and other Spanish Franciscan missionary priests with the quest of bringing Christianity to the Natives of California.

His quest, following orders from Spain, is to prevent English and Russian encroachment into territory that is already claimed by Spain. They establish settlements (now cities) at San Diego Bay and Monterey Bay, at landmarks discovered by sea some 227 years earlier -- by Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542, and revisited by Sebastián Vizcaíno in 1602.

The expedition has a sea component. After weathering storms, two ships catch up with the land detachment at San Diego Bay. And after leaving a contingency in San Diego, including Serra, the expedition keeps marching north, finds another bay, but fails to identify it as the one described by Vizcaino. And so, they keep marching, until they discover San Francisco Bay, which had not been discovered by sea!

After returning to San Diego, Portolá organizes a second land expedition – followed by Serra on a ship – and finally identifies Monterey Bay, where they built another Spanish fort, and another Franciscan mission.

Along the way the Portola expedition discovers and names many other California landmarks, including el “Rio De Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula,” known today as the Los Angeles River. 

1769-70 - Gaspar de Portola                  Leads California Expedition

1769 - Father Serra Opens San Diego de Alcalá,            California's First Spanish Mission

     Father Serra choses the site of the mission, in an area known today as Presidio Hill, overlooking the Bay, to cultivate crops such as wheat, barley, corn, and beans. But missionaries soon realize that the site lacks a reliable source of water, fertile land, and proximity to a Native American village, and so in 1774, it was moved further inland -- to where it still stands today.

Father Junipero Serra, a Franciscan priest, arrives in California, from Baja California, as part of the Gaspar de Portolá overland expedition and establishes San Diego De Alcalá, the first of 21 Spanish missions built along the coast of California to convert the natives to Christianity -- and the foundation for today's City of San Diego.

     Known as the "Mother of all Missions," San Diego De Alcalá marks the beginning of Catholicism in this region, and the gateway that opened California to Spanish and Mexican settlement.
    Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo had claimed California for the Spanish empire in 1542, but they did not settle in the area until Father Serra leads a groups of Franciscan priests who establish the first nine of California's 21 missions.

     Today Father Serra is remembered for his dedication to his faith, and for bringing Catholicism to California. To recognize his dedication, Pope Francis canonized Father Serra during his first visit for the United States in 2015. There are statues of him throughout California, and in the Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol.

1771 - Father Serra Opens San Gabriel Arcángel

    The mission grew into a city, and today the town's motto recognizes is origins: "A City with a Mission." San Gabriel is also called "The Birthplace of Los Angeles," since the pioneer Los Angeles settlers first gathered at the mission before setting out to build "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles" in 1781. The march of the first Los Angeles pobladores, from the mission to downtown Los Angeles -- “Los Pobladores Historic Walk to Los Angeles” -- is still celebrated every year during labor day weekend.
   The mission still serves as an active Roman Catholic Church. The mission grounds, cemetery, museum and gift shop are open to the public.

Father Junípero Serra, Roman Catholic Spanish priest and leader of Franciscan missionaries on the Gaspar de Portola expedition, establishes the San Gabriel Arcángel mission in present-day Los Angeles County, to convert Native Americans to Catholicism. It is the fourth of 21 missions eventually built in California and the foundation for the City of San Gabriel.
   Originally planned to be built along the Santa Ana River, Serra changes the location to the slopes of Montebello, overlooking the San Gabriel Valley because of its fertile plain. Yet, Serra's original mission is destroyed by a flood and is moved three miles northwest to where it stands today.

INCOMPLETE: Building of the San Francisco de Asís Mission Church takes 44 years, from 1772 to 1816. It is a U.S. National Historic Landmark located at Ranchos de Taos Plaza, itself a historic district about four miles southwest of the town of Taos, New Mexico. There are 21 buildings over 84 acres in the historic district.

1772 - San Francisco de Asis Mission Church1816   built in Ranchos de Taos, N.M.

     Based on the success of a hunting expedition – more than 25 mule loads of dried bear meat – Father Junípero Serra selects the site to establish Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, the fifth of the 21 California Spanish missions and the namesake of today’s City of San Luis Obispo.

Facing a food shortage at other missions, Serra remembers the stories he has heard from the soldiers, stories of a valley with plenty of bears and buffalo. The call it “The Valley of the Bears.”

Serra has been told that this area has a mild climate, with access to food and water, and that the local Chumash natives are very friendly. And so he sends a hunting expedition to The Valley of the Bears. The expedition is so successful that, instead of continuing to send other hunting parties to that area, Serra decides to build the fifth California mission there.

He celebrates the first Mass there. But the construction of the mission is then left to Father Jose Cavaller, along with five soldiers and two neophytes. Although the mission population grows, Native Americans who resist the mission way of life, burn the mission down three times, until Cavaller decides to replace the original buildings, and their wooden-stake walls, with adobe and tile structures.

     Nowadays, still in the center of downtown, in the City of San Luis Obispo, the mission features gardens, a museum, a gift shop and a Roman Catholic Parish.

1772 - Good hunting determines site            of Misión San Luis Obispo de Tolosa

Based on the success of a hunting expedition – more than 25 mule loads of dried bear meat – Father Junípero Serra selects the site to establish Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, the fifth of the 21 California Spanish missions and the namesake of today’s City of San Luis Obispo.

Facing a food shortage at other missions, Serra remembers the stories he has heard from the soldiers, stories of a valley with plenty of bears and buffalo. The call it “The Valley of the Bears.”

1774 - Juan Bautista de Anza leads            overland expedition to Alta California

1775 - Bruno de Heceta leads first Europeans            to land on Washington State

     It is now a museum paying tribute to Arizona's Spanish history. They offer guided tours and "Living History Days" with volunteer re-enactors of life at the fort in the late 1700s. Visitors can see the small living quarters of a military family, the barracks where some soldiers stayed, the ammunitions room, and the presidio warehouse where food and other commodities were kept. Visitors can an enjoy Spanish colonial food, listen to the stories of early Tucsonans and get a glimpse into the lives of Spanish-Americans in the 18th century.

1775 - Captain O'Connor builds            Presidio San Agustin del Tucson

Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón, the foundation for the City of Tucson, Ariz., is established by Spanish army soldiers led by Captain Hugh O’ Connor, an Irish mercenary working for Spain, also known as El Capitan Colorado (The Red Captain).
  Seeking to gain greater control of Arizona and strengthen New Spain's northern border, O'Connor decides to move the Spanish fort at Tubac, Ariz., built 23 years earlier, almost 50 miles north, to an area surrounded by mountain ranges, the site of present-day Tucson.
   But the original Tucson fort is poorly constructed, and, after an Apache assault in 1783, its palisade (wooden stakes) fence is replaced by an 8 to 12-foot-high a mud-brick wall that is about 700 feet long on each side -- making the Tucson Presidio one of the strongest and largest frontier forts.

   After the Americans arrive in 1856, the original walls are demolished, with the last section torn down in 1918. But almost a century later, following an archaeological excavation that located the fort's northeast tower, the northeast corner of the fort is rebuilt in downtown Tucson in 2007.

1775-76 - Mission San Juan Capistrano                  launched twice in two years

1776 - Dominguez and Escalante Cross the Colorado River

INCOMPLETE: Seeking to establish a route between Santa Fe, N.M. and Monterrey, the new capital of California, two Franciscan priests carve a mountainside staircase to cross the Colorado River. Although they never reach California, Fathers Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre de Escalante carve themselves into the history of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado.

In the long and treacherous trail of the Dominguez-Escalante expedition, the two priests and eight other companions encounter and live among the Yutas, establishing good relations with the natives of the area.

produces the first map of Colorado and the Southwest

Although now hidden under Lake Powell, the spot where they were able to cross, know as “The Crossing of the Fathers, is widely recognized by locals, markers and maps of the area.

   Today, Mission Dolores, recognized as a California Historical Landmark, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco. The old mission chapel is part of a much larger structure granted Basilica status in 1952. The Presidio of San Francisco, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962, is now a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

   Both the mission and the presidio are named after Saint Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Order in Italy. Mission San Francisco is the sixth of 21 Spanish missions to be established in California by Franciscan missionaries, to convert the native people to Christianity, colonize the area and to consolidate Spanish power. But, like many other missions, this mission is not just a religious institution; it quickly becomes the gathering center for soldiers, farmers, traders, and native peoples -- a flourishing community!

Spanish Army Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Francisican missionary Francisco Palóu reach San Francisco Bay as part of the second Juan Bautista de Anza overland expedition (1,000 miles) from present-day southern Arizona and establish a fort and a mission that become the foundation for today's City of San Francisco.
    While the 13 American colonies on the east of North America are declaring their independence from Great Britain, on the west coast, at a site designated by De Anza, Moraga leads the construction of the Presidio of San Francisco, formally established on September 17, 1776. And Father Palóu starts Mision San Francisco de Asis, also known as Mision Dolores, and celebrates its first mass on June 29 -- only a few days before the American Founding Fathers sign the Declaration of Independence. The mission, of wood poles plastered with mud and thatched roofs, is formally founded with a great celebration on Oct. 9, 1776.

1776 - The Birth of San Francisco

After General George Washington captures the Hessian Garrison, in the Battle of Trenton, N.J., Spain deems the Continental Army as a viable ally and, although covertly, agrees to support those who are fighting for independence from Britain -- formally establishing Hispanic participation in The American Revolution.

Although the defeat of the Hessians (German mercenaries fighting for Britain), was a small victory for Washington, it follows an array of loses, and thus encourages more American colonists to enlist. It also encourages Spain’s King Carlos III to begin smuggling supplies to American rebels, directly from Cuba and other Caribbean islands.

But that’s until Bernardo de Galvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, formally enters the fight on the side of the 13 colonies. With the King's blessing, Galvez leads an army of thousands of Hispanic soldiers, mostly from Mexico and the Caribbean, across the Gulf of Mexico, defeating the British in Natchez, Miss., Mobile, Al., and Pensacola, Fl. In effect, they cover Washington’s rear (southwest) flank, allowing the Continental Army to concentrate on fighting the British along the eastern front.

Galvez also creates a supply channel along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers by which Spain sends weapons, gunpowder, military uniforms, and even cattle to Washington’s troops – while avoiding British interference.

Spain’s aid, and Galvez’s heroic success, are a surprise to the British, and huge factor that affects the outcome of the American Revolution.

Galvez’ conduct during that pivotal time in American and Hispanic history has not gone unnoticed. In 2014, a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress, signed by President Barack Obama, made Galvez an Honorary Citizen of the United States, the seventh person to receive this high honor!

1776-83 - Hispanics in the American Revolution

1779 - Franciscan missionaries plant            California's first vineyard

1779-84 - Mexican-Apache Wars                  ignite four battes in Tucson

1780 - Spanish Soldiers Defend Fort San Carlos, Save St. Louis

1781 - Spanish and Latin American troops defeat the British, Capture Pensacola

Field Marshal Bernado de Gálvez, Governor of Louisiana and commander of Spanish forces in North America, leads a successful two-month siege and subsequent capture of Pensacola, Fl., winning one of the most significant battles of the American Revolutionary War.
    After Spain formally declares war against the British on June 21, 1779, in support of independence for the 13 American colonies, Gálvez and his Spanish soldiers, including many Hispanic American recruits, cut a path of victories along British held territory along the Gulf of Mexico, culminating in the capture of Pensacola on May 10, 1781.
     The victory turns the tide of the American Revolution! With Pensacola and the Gulf Coast under Spanish control, the British cannot effectively attack George Washington’s troops from the rear, allowing Washington to focus his resources on the war’s eastern front.
    Leading a force for 40 ships and 3,500 men, Galvez first defeats the British at Mobile Bay and takes control of Fort Charlotte. When he reaches Pensacola, Galvez commands a siege of the main British fort defending the city, Fort George – but not without considerable losses. As Spanish soldiers build trenches surrounding the fort, they are constantly harried by pro-British Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw Indian raiding parties.
    It is not until the second month of the siege, when 1,600 reinforcement troops arrive from Havana, that the tide begins to turn against the British. Now Galvez leads some 7,800 men against some 2,000 British soldiers in Pensacola. The siege is defined by extensive battery fire, and trench warfare, causing heavy loses on both sides, and the ultimate surrender of all British forces on May 8, 1781. It places the entire province of West Florida under Spanish control. Pensacola remains under Spanish control for the next 40 years.

A group of about a dozen families from Sinaloa, Mexico establish El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles (The Town of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels), now known as Los Angeles, California.
     The 44 settlers – 22 adults and 22 children – had first gathered at San Gabriel Mission, established 10 years earlier, from where they set out looking for the right site for the new town. Escorted by a military detachment and two priests from the mission, they settle in what in now downtown Los Angeles. The "Pobladores" of Los Angeles, mostly farmers, rapidly establish a successful community.

   It happens over the Labor Day weekend and coincides with the anniversary of the city's founding. It is organized by Los Pobladores (Townspeople) 200, an association of the descendants of the original 44 settlers and soldiers who accompanied them. The walk starts from the San Gabriel Mission to El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and follows the historic route that was taken by Los Pobladores.

 The streets of downtown Los Angeles still follow the same pattern of the streets of the old colonial town. The old town limits are still marked by Hoover and Indiana Streets in the west and east respectively. Today, Los Angeles embraces and recognizes its beginning by celebrating the annual "Los Pobladores Historic Walk to Los Angeles."

1781 - Pobladores of Los Angeles are imported

1782 - Father Serra opens San Buenaventura,            His ninth and last Spanish mission

INCOMPLETE: Father Junípero Serra opens Mission San Buenaventura, his ninth and last mission, in present-day Ventura, California.

1783 - Florida Goes Back to Spain

INCOMPLETE: After two decades under British rule, Florida, having remained loyal to Britain during the American revolution (1776-81), is returned to Spain, in exchange for the Bahamas and Gibraltar.

MAP BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

1784 - Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles, Asistencia to San Gabriel, opens in Los Angeles

1786 - Misión Santa Barbara is born            on her feast day

INCOMPLETE: On December 4, the Feast of St. Barbara, Father Fermín Lausén dedicates Misión Santa Barbara in present-day Santa Barbara, becoming the tenth Spanish mission for Native Americans in California and the namesake of of major American city.

1787 - Misión La Purísima Concepción            opens in Lompoc, California

INCOMPLETE: Mission La Purisima Concepción (originally La Misión de La Purísima Concepción de la Santísima Virgen María, or The Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary) is established by Spanish friers in Lompoc, California, on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, hence the mission's name.

     They never find the illusive Northwest Passage, but the expedition and its Spanish scientists spend a month studying the lifestyle of the Tinglit, the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Spanish scholars study and document the Tinglit's language, customs, economy, warfare methods and even burial practices. Spanish artists paint portraits of the tribal members and sketch scenes of Tinglit daily life. Spanish botanists collect many new plants.
     They also surveyed the Alaska coastline, measured the height of Mount Saint Elias and explored huge glaciers, including the Malaspina Glacier, subsequently named after him.
     Aside from the Malaspina Glacier in southeastern Alaska, which is the world's largest piedmont glacier, there is also a Mt. Malaspina and a Malaspina Lake in Alaska, and a Malaspina Strait, a Malaspina Village and Malaspina Provincial Park in Canada.

Alessandro Malaspina an Italian-born Spanish naval officer leads a two-ship scientific expedition from Cadiz, Spain across the Atlantic Ocean, around Cape Horn and all the way up the West coast of the Americas to the Gulf of Alaska.
Although he expects to sail from Mexico across the Pacific Ocean, by the time he gets to Mexico, Malaspina receives orders from the King of Spain to continue northward along the Pacific Coast of North America in search of the Northwest Passage, that long-sought waterway that would connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Sharing command of the voyage with another Spanish naval officer, José de Bustamante y Guerra, the Malaspina expedition sails from Acapulco, Mexico directly to Yakutat Bay, Alaska. Although they supposedly share "dual command," even de Bustamante acknowledges that Malaspina is the chief the expedition.

1791 - Alessandro Malaspina Reaches Alaska

1794 - Castillo de San Joaquin            built in San Francisco

INCOMPLETE: Castillo de San Joaquin, an artillery emplacement with six cannons is built above present-day Fort Point, San Francisco. It is the last Spanish fort built in North America.

Franciscan missionary Fermín Francisco de Lasuén establishes Misión San Fernando Rey de España in present-day Mission Hills, Los Angeles County. It is the 17th of 21 Spanish missions to be established in California and the fourth built by de Lasuén in as many months.
     Named after Ferdinand III, King of Spain (1217-1252), the mission becomes the namesake for the City of San Fernando and the San Fernando Valley.
     After the death of Father Junípero Serra in 1784, Father de Lasuén is appointed the second Presidente of the California missions in 1785. He continues the missionary work begun by Father Serra -- spreading Christianity and establishing settlements where Spanish settlers and Native Americans can coexist in harmony.
     But life is tough for the first few years after these missions get started. Spanish settlers and Native Americans initially depend on supplies delivered by sea from present-day Mexico. It normally takes a few years before they can plant sufficient crops and raise enough cattle to become self-sufficient. So there is always a rush to train the natives on European-style farming.

     The quadrangle-shaped mission is built with adobe bricks by the Tongva natives of the region. The mission's convento (main building) took 13 years to build and was completed in 1822, becoming the largest two-story adobe mission building in California. Today, the convento remains as the only original building at this mission, which serves as a museum and as the Archival Center for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The mission church is an active Roman Catholic Church.

1797 - De Lasuén establishes            Misión San Fernando Rey de España

   Following orders from the Spanish crown, New Spain’s Viceroy, Miguel de la Grúa Talamaca de Carini y Branciforte, orders the establishment of the new town. To get settlers to live in Alta California, Branciforte recruits residents of Guadalajara by promising them money, land and adobe houses. But when the settlers arrive at the new village, they find that they have been mislead. The land is bare, abandoned, and the Viceroy’s promises never materialize. Yet, since trekking back to Guadalajara is not a viable option, they decide to make due with their limited tools and resources. While the Spanish Crown supports active Spanish soldiers and Franciscan missionaries in forts and missions, the Villa Branciforte colonists are merchants, explorers and retired soldiers. They have to build a village without much help from the Spain.
    Branciforte, an Italian military officer of Spanish nationality, serves as the 53rd Viceroy of New Spain, from 1794 to 1798, but never travels north to see the town. He is remembered by history as a corrupt administrator. Nevertheless, although he has misled its colonists, Villa de Branciforte is named after him by Spanish governor California, Diego de Borica, who has overseen the creation on the village.
   Yet, as if defying the Spanish Crown’s neglect, the people of Branciforte, overcome the obstacles. In 1802, the village’s total population is 107. In 1803, they elect their first mayor. When California becomes part of the United States in 1848, Villa de Branciforte becomes an American town. It functions as a township until 1905, when the village is annexed to the City of Santa Cruz. Nowadays, Villa de Branciforte is known as East Santa Cruz. But traces of the Villa still exist. There is a creek, an avenue, a library, two schools, a fire district, and an 18th century adobe house named Branciforte.

Eight settlers from Guadalajara, New Spain, make an arduous journey to Alta California and establish Villa de Branciforte, a village that eventually becomes part of the City of Santa Cruz. It is built on a bluff, facing Mission San Cruz, founded six year earlier on the other side of the San Lorenzo River. It is the result of Spain’s effort to prevent France, Russia and England from encroaching on Spanish territories.

1797 - The Birth of Villa de Branciforte

1798 - Father Lasuén establishes            San Luis Rey de Francia

INCOMPLETE: Padre Fermin Lausén opens Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in present-day Oceanside, the 18th of 21 California missions.