First-Contact Narratives from Florida's Lower Gulf Coast: An Annotated Translation Project

FAIN: FT-52049-04

John Eugene Worth
Florida Museum of Natural History (Gainesville, FL 32611)

This project will result in completely new annotated translations for several of the most important first-contact narratives relating to 16th-century Spanish exploration and colonization on Florida's lower Gulf coast, including accounts by Antonio de Herrera regarding Juan Ponce de León, by Gonzalo Solís de Meras regarding Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, and by Frays Luís Cancer and Gregorio de Beteta and by Hernando de Escalante de Fontaneda regarding their own experiences. Older translations of these narratives are out of print and very hard to find, and have never been presented together in both English and Spanish with an historical overview of sixteenth-century Spanish contact with the Native Americans of the lower Gulf coast.