Special Post for Seaoat: Check out who the author of this is. lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pensacola/comments/1c82pm/pensacola_is_actually_not_americas_first/

I love the response by this person who is exactly correct.....


It lasted a whole almost 3 months, whoop-tee-doo. Rather than the 1st European Settlement in America, it should be classified as the 1st instance of Snowbird migration, seeing as how the "colonists" up and left as soon as Spring was in sight.

snowbirds.........now you got Boards talking goofy. Locate where these snowbirds were and maybe just maybe somebody could put up a sign about their empty dream and the temporary nature of this hidden world of Atlantis.

After the location of the de Luna encampment was found,  I read about everything I could find on it with google,  seaoat.   And in doing so, I learned something for the first time.

It's not historians and archaelogists who you see make this "First Settlement" claim.  They refer to it simply as "one of the early settlements".
The "First Settlement" notion comes from the Chamber of Commerce,  the City Council,  and the various media who repeat this claim.  Not from the experts.
That claim was nothing more than a device to promote tourism in Pensacola.
And that's why there is so much resistance in that thread.  It's an example of Joseph Goebbel's famouse quote "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it".

Which is precisely the reason bds provided this link in that thread and he was correct to do so.  Notice what the first sentence says...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_de_Gualdape

Nope, an intent to do something is not the same as doing it......they were looking for a permanent settlement, and the earlier explorers could have somebody argue that a week encampment was the first settlement. A simple nope and really......wiki?

Many people wonder how Pensacola got it's name.  


"The Pensacola were a Native American people who lived in the western part of what is now the Florida Panhandle and eastern Alabama for centuries before first contact with Europeans until early in the 18th century. They spoke a Muskogean language. They are the source of the name of Pensacola Bay and the city of Pensacola. They lived in the area until the mid-18th century, but were thereafter assimilated into other groups."



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola_people

2seaoat wrote:Nope, an intent to do something is not the same as doing it......they were looking for a permanent settlement, and the earlier explorers could have somebody argue that a week encampment was the first settlement.  A simple nope and really......wiki?

Like Gualdape,  Pensacola was an ephemeral settlement.  The Pensacola settlement actually lasted only about a month until the hurricane struck. 

And then...

"the colony was decimated by a hurricane on September 19, 1559, which killed hundreds, sank five ships, grounded a caravel, and ruined supplies. The 1,000 survivors divided to relocate the settlement."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola,_Florida

That's precisely what then occurred.  Most of the men abandoned the settlement and fled inland to look for food. 
From that point,  the settlement was a total failure.   Same as Gualdape.

Yes,  it wasn't totally abandoned at that point.  But all that was left were the remaining few survivors who were left to struggle with starvation and sickness until they finally abandoned it altogether.

Which is why you see this on the wiki page for Pensacola.  Notice it says "one of".  Not "the".

An account of what followed after the hurricane struck...


Many of the people perished, and most of the stores intended for the maintenance of the colony were ruined or lost.

2seaoat wrote:they were looking for a permanent settlement

So was de Ayllon when he and 600 settlers attempted to establish a permanent settlement at San Miguel de Gualdape.

This is what followed.  The de Luna and de Ayllon settlements suffered almost exactly the same fate...

"His small settlement endured about a total of three months, through a severe winter. Settlers suffered from the scarcity of supplies, hunger, disease, and troubles with the local natives. In the spring of 1527, Francis Gomez returned the 150 survivors to Hispaniola"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_de_Gualdape

Also,  seaoat,  the mission of the de Luna expedition had two goals.  One was to establish a settlement on the northern gulf coast.  But the other was to establish an overland trade route between Pensacola and the coast of South Carolina.  Why?  Because another Spanish expedition had already attempted a settlement at that location. 

Nope......the folks who left Mexico to go to Pensacola were coming to a Specific location to settle. The snowbirds were looking for a permanent settlement.....forty days here.......forty days there.......and by the way.....where is here and there......oh that is right........nobody knows because to have a permanent settlement you have to have that here and there.

Pensacola......FIRST.......period.

I'm just not smart enough to see any analogy between "snowbirds" traveling south,  and Spanish explorers based in the lower latitudes coming north.
If I could grasp that concept,  I might be able to see your side of it.  lol

2seaoat wrote:and by the way.....where is here and there......oh that is right........nobody knows

As I told you two years ago,  nobody knows where Columbus landed either.  All we know at this point is that it was likely somewhere in what we now call the Bahamas.  What Columbus thought was Japan.  Before he traveled to Cuba which is what he thought was China. lol

At least when de Ayllon spotted South Carolina,  he knew he was not in Japan or China.  lol

Its obvious they were confused too......but those folks who specifically came to Pensacola's natural port......they knew where they were going when they left.....they could leave a forwarding address for their mailman, but your folks were wanderers looking for a settlement and never doing anything beyond transitory exploration and then panic......and whoops.....where the hell were they........same thing as the first explorers did when stepping on dry land......none of them told the postmaster where to forward their mail......your folks were exploring for a settlement, and now you could not even tell me where we could deliver a letter to those folks.......because.......it is transitory and undefined as a permanent settlement. Pensacola was specific and I heard last week they found a Santa letter which had been sent from Santa Cruz.

The de Ayllon expedition settlers were not transitory,  seaoat.  They were colonists who came there to establish a colony (permanent residence).  Exactly like the de Luna expedition...

"Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon and 600 Spanish colonists (including African slaves and perhaps freemen) landed on the Georgia mainland opposite Sapelo Sound and founded the settlement of San Miguel de Gualdape. This was the first European settlement in North America since the Vikings’ exploration around year 1000 A.D. The colonists had sailed from the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in July aboard six ships. In August, they had landed at Winyah Bay on the Carolina coast, but failing to find an Indian settlement (which would be necessary for food until crops could be planted and harvested) they sailed southward. On the Georgia coast, Ayllon found Guale Indians. Although physical remains of their settlement have not been found, historians and geographers have utilized surviving navigation logs and other records to reconstruct the 1526 voyage. Based on the latest research, the San Miguel de Gualdape settlement probably was situated on the mainland of what today is McIntosh County opposite Sapelo Sound. One source feels the most likely location was within the present-day Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, which is located near the mouth of the Newport River facing St. Catherines Island."

http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/thisday/gahistory/09/29/san-miguel-de-gualdape-founded

No.....some vikings.......no address for that return mail, but heck just saying it or putting it in WIKI makes it so.......so lets get it right......a guy named erickson, peterson, or Svenn was selling cod fish from a permanent settlement......oh....don't you have to know where.....I guess not.

2seaoat wrote:No.....some vikings.......no address for that return mail, but heck just saying it or putting it in WIKI makes it so.......so lets get it right......a guy named erickson, peterson, or Svenn was selling cod fish from a permanent settlement......oh....don't you have to know where.....I guess not.

Yes,  Ericson is credited with being the first non-native to establish a small temporary settlement in North America.
But Ericson came to Vinland (Newfoundland),  not what is now the United States.
The dispute between Pensacola and Gauldape is which was the first settlement inside what is now the United States.