Two books celebrate St. Augustine’s 450th

Two books celebrate St. Augustine’s 450th

Recently published by North Carolina author Larry Richard Clark, these books describe the often forgotten, earliest colonial history of the United States when imperial Spain attempted to add North America to its vast empire.

These stories tell of heroic Spanish conquistadors, priest and colonists roaming across the southeast from Florida into the Carolinas and Tennessee and west to the Mississippi River more than four centuries ago.

“I became fascinated with the idea that Spanish armies once marched near my home in the Catawba River Valley of western North Carolina,” Clark stated. “After archaeologist uncovered Fort San Juan here in Burke County, I wanted to know why Spain came this far inland and why they failed to add this land to their empire.”

Clark’s research follows a long time interest in North Carolina history as well as that of Native Americans in the region. Previous publications include “Indians of Burke County and Western North Carolina” and “Spanish Attempts to Colonize Southeast North America.” Clark is a retired career educator from Western Piedmont Community College where he taught world history and anthropology.

La Florida: Imperial Spain Invades Indian Chiefdoms of North America describes the decades after Columbus’ voyages when Spain quickly colonized the Caribbean Islands, Mexico and Peru, but failed to conquer North America. Neither Juan Ponce de León, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Pánfilo de Narváez nor the large army of Hernando de Soto could defeat the Indian chiefdoms of North America.

The second book, The Last Conquistadors of Southeast North America, tells a later story of Pedro Menéndez, a new governor for La Florida, who established colonies at St. Augustine, Florida, and Santa Elena, South Carolina. It is during this time that Captain Juan Pardo at Fort San Felipe in Santa Elena is ordered to mark a trail to the silver mines of Mexico by building forts for future settlers, traveling along the Santee/Wateree/Catawba River into western North Carolina and Tennessee.

Captain Pardo’s construction of Fort San Juan in 1567 at the Catawba Indian town of Joara, located in northwest Burke County, becomes the first inland European settlement in the future United States — almost two decades before Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Lost Colony” on Roanoke Island and forty years before England’s Jamestown, Virginia. Within eighteen months the Indians will destroy these forts and kill Spanish soldiers.

Clark concluded, “It was the Creek, Catawba and Cherokee Indians who prevented the most powerful nation in the world at that time from taking their land. In part, this period of history explains how this happened and why English is our national language today and not Spanish.”

Copies of his books are available online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other book sellers. These may also be downloaded as eBooks on Kindle and other digital readers.