Telltale Bones

On October 16, 1539, while searching this area for a usable harbor, Hernando de Soto’s captain Juan de Anasco found evidence of Pánfilo de Narváez’ 1528 expedition: many horse skulls and bones showing that Narváez and his men had slaughtered their horses for food, tree stumps left from their escape from La Florida on crude rafts, and marked graves of Spaniards who died from starvation, disease, and Apalachee attacks. In remembrance, Anasco named the nearby bay La Bahia de Caballos, the Bay of the Horses. Narváez and his men had built a fleet of rafts in an attempt to leave La Florida for Mexico, but after following the coast they were struck by a storm off present-day Texas, and all but 7 drowned when their craft capsized. The survivors spent the next 7 years walking through the Southwest to Mexico City. Before beginning his expedition, De Soto consulted survivor Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, whose stories about La Florida and Cibola’s Seven Cities of Gold inspired him. The Apalachee, using experience gained fighting Narváez, later opposed De Soto relentlessly during the Spanish occupation of their village Anhayca, burning houses and crops and denying the conquistadors comfort during the winter of 1539.

St. Marks, Florida · United States