Petals Plucked from Sunny ClimesBrooks, A. M. (Abbie M.)
History
Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes
Brooks, A. M. (Abbie M.)
Cuba -- Description and travel; Florida -- Description and travel; Florida -- History
saw, or heard from the Indians, who, being anxious to get rid of their
troublesome intruders, entertained them with tales of unexplored
territory containing vast treasures just beyond them. Thus they traveled
from Tampa to Ocala, thence to Tallahassee, Rome, Georgia, the
Cumberland, in Tennessee, finally crossing the Mississippi River near
Memphis. Worn out with wandering, disappointed in not finding the El
Dorado of his ambition, he calmly met and faced his last foe on the
banks of the great Father of Waters, as one writer has remarked,
"finding nothing so wonderful as his own grave." Thus ended the career
of a man, representing himself to be a child of the sun, in search of
the fairest land in the world, and himself the greatest lord that ruled
this unexplored region.
The Indians had become wearied with these children of the sun, whose
presence had given them neither peace nor plenty, as they had killed all
who opposed them; besides, these celestial visitants appropriated all
their stores for the sustenance of themselves, thus leaving them only
the prospect of extra exertion, to which their heretofore easy, idle
habits of living had rendered them averse. With the recollection of
these events, the natives, fresh from their former experience, could
hardly be expected, when the messengers of peace came to Florida, as
they saw no difference in their external appearance and that of their
predecessors, besides being goaded with the memory of their wrongs, that
they would be prepared to give them any thing but a cruel reception. For
this reason the beautiful bay of Espiritu Santo, which years before had
witnessed the pageant of a far-famed conquering general among peaceful
people, now saw the war-clubs descend with fearful force upon the
defenseless heralds of the cross, who had come in good faith to convert
them. Afterward appeared Señor Don Tristan de Luna, from Mexico, landing
at Santa Maria, or Pensacola Bay. The only remaining record of his
exploits is the fact of a Spanish settlement having been established on
the shores of Pensacola Bay, in 1561, and that numerous explorations
were made through the country at the same time, as they remained four
years, but became discouraged and left the country, which had been to
them only a scene of reverses, and returned to more friendly climes,
leaving the glory of establishing the first permanent settlement on the
shores of America to another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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