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n 1855, a frustrated young newspaper editor,
Francisco P Ramírez, lamented in an editorial for
his Los Angeles publication El Clamor Público that
“since the year of 1849, a certain animosity... has
existed between the Mexicans and Americans, to
such an extent that the Americans have wished
with all their heart that all the Mexicans put
together had no more than one head to cut off
(to do away with them all at once)”.
Ramírez had witnessed many changes to his
city, especially those brought by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidal-
go in 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War. At the end
of that conflict, which began in 1846, Mexico was forced to cede
51% of its land to the United States. That enormous territory was
later carved into today’s California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah,
Nevada, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. As a native of Los
Angeles, in what had been Mexican Alta California (Upper Cal-
ifornia), Ramírez lived through these upheavals, watching the
sleepy pueblo that was his hometown become a city populated by
Anglo-Americans rushing in from the eastern United States.
Perhaps it was unsurprising that tensions arose. And such
problems have continued in the US, linked with controversies
over immigration from Latin America, and outbreaks of
violence linked to anti-Hispanic sentiment. Understanding
the context of these tensions is crucial – and that means tracing
the long story of Spanish settlement in the western hemisphere.
Ramírez’s life bridged two long chapters in the history of the
United States and its southern neighbours. The first period was
the three centuries of European colonisation that started with
Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage and continued until the
late 18th century with the onset of independence movements;
the second was the 19th-century rise of the United States as
a regional and global power. Taken together, these two
eras span over 500 years of a long, intertwined histo-
ry between Spain, the United States and its southern
neighbour republics – much of which has faded from
public memory.
Foundational myths
The founding mythology of the United
States often focuses on the Pilgrims who
arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, though
sometimes it reaches back to earlier Eng-
lish settlements: the Virginia colony of
1607 or even the failed Roanoke colony of
- The Spanish-sponsored navigator Co-
lumbus is recognised for his 1492 crossing of
the Atlantic, of course; indeed, there is still a
public holiday named after him in the US. Yet
well before the English arrived, the Spanish
were trying – though mostly failing – to get a
foothold on the North American mainland.
In 1513, Juan Ponce de León arrived on what he believed to
be a place called Bimini, today the westernmost islands of the
Bahamas (the myth that he was searching for the Fountain of
Youth was created in a chronicle written over a decade after his
death – he was, rather, seeking gold and indigenous people to
enslave). Sailing from Puerto Rico, which he had earlier claimed
for the Spanish crown, he landed on the Atlantic coast of the
North American mainland, north of what’s now Cape Canaver-
al, where he encountered the Ais people. Naming the land Flori-
d a , i n honou r of t he E a ster se a son ( Pa sc u a Flor id a) du r i n g wh ic h
he landed, he continued exploring the coast, rounding the tip of
the peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico and sailing north to the
site of Fort Myers on the peninsula’s west coast.
Here, Ponce de León spent a few weeks among the Calusa
people. Whatever initial good feeling there might have been
with these indigenous inhabitants soon evaporated, and he re-
turned to the Caribbean. (When he made his report to the
Spanish crown, though, he gave the impression that his mission
had been a great success.) The Spanish explorer did not return to
the area until 1521, and that expedition was even more disas-
trous: landing again among the Calusa, hostilities resumed and
he was shot by an arrow. He developed gangrene and retreated,
dying in Cuba in July that year.
Around the same time, fellow Conquistador Hernán Cortés
had made his way to Tenochtitlán, eventually revealing to the
world the wealth and splendour of Mexico. The exploits of
Cortés fuelled the imagination and desires of many would-be
Conquistadors, some of whom set their sights on Florida, and
the failed expeditions began to mount up.
In 1526, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón established a small settle-
ment, San Miguel de Gualdape, on the coast of today’s state of
Georgia, among the Guale people. It lasted a few months before
the surviving settlers – Ayllón not among them, having died
that October – returned to the Caribbean. Two years lat-
er, Pánfilo de Narváez sailed to Florida on another ill-fat-
ed expedition during which everyone died. In 1538,
Hernando de Soto, who had enjoyed great success
in Peru, decided to head to Florida but he,
too, met with failure in 1542, and died some-
where near Louisiana. Despite this litany of
disasters, another expedition was launched
in 1559, under Tristán de Luna y Arellano,
which founded a colony around Pensacola
Bay; surviving a hurricane, it struggled on
until finally being evacuated in 1561. Settling
Florida seemed to be an impossible mission.
By this point, news of these (albeit largely
failed) exploits was circulating Europe, whet-
ting the appetites of would-be explorers and
forcing Spain on the offensive. In May 1562,
a group of Huguenots fleeing religious perse-
cution in France landed at the mouth of the
Defence of the realm
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who
destroyed a French colony to ensure
Spanish hegemony in Florida
