Abstract
Seventeenth-century Florida little resembled the region Ponce de Leon first visited in 1513. Various indigenous peoples still dominated the peninsula but their numbers had dramatically declined over the years due to disease, warfare, and migration. Thousands of Europeans visited the locale during the 1600s, many of them planning to stay permanently, few of them actually doing so, and most failing to realize their economic, religious or imperial goals there. Africans and African Americans also lived in the region and its hinterlands, though the majority did so under circumstances they would not have chosen. Partially as a result, by 1700 Florida had become a representative community of the progressively diverse and complicated Atlantic, Caribbean, and American Worlds. Ponce's Florida no longer existed.
Recommended Citation
Lester, Connie L.
(2013)
"500 Years of Florida History--The Seventeenth Century,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 92:
No.
3, Article 3.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol92/iss3/3
