De Soto Winter Encampment Site 1539~1540

In 1539, a Spanish expeditionary force led by Hernando de Soto landed in the Tampa Bay area, and nearly 600 heavily armed adventurers traveled more than 4000 miles from Florida to Mexico intending to explore and control the Southeast of North America. The route of de Soto, including the location of the village of Anhaica, the first winter encampment, had long been uncertain, and although the place was thought to be near present-day Tallahassee, no physical evidence had been found. Calvin Jones’s chance discovery of 16th century Spanish artifacts in 1987 settled the argument. Jones, a state archaeologist, led amateurs and professionals in an excavation that recovered more than 40,000 artifacts, including links of chain mail armor, copper coins, the iron tip of a crossbow bolt, Spanish olive jar shards, glass trade beads, and the jaw bone of a pig; because pigs were not native to the New World and historical documents confirm that the expedition brought swine, these finds provided physical evidence of the 1539-40 winter encampment, the first confirmed de Soto site in North America. From this location, the expedition traveled northward and westward, making the first European contact with many native societies, and within two centuries most southeastern native cultures were greatly diminished by the effects of European contact and settlement.

Tallahassee, Florida · United States