Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda (* 1536 ; † around 1575 ) was a Spanish survivor of a shipwreck on the Florida coast . He lived among the Indian tribes of Florida for about 17 years. He became known for his memoirs, written in 1575, which are considered the best source for the now lost culture of the Calusa .

Shipwreck of 1549

Around the year 1549, when Fontaneda was 13 years old, he and his brother were to be sent to study in Salamanca , Spain. On the way there, they were shipwrecked , presumably in a hurricane . The survivors of the ship's crew and passengers were initially rescued by Indians from the Calusa tribe. With the exception of Fontaneda, they were later enslaved or massacred by the Calusa. According to Fontaneda, he managed to survive by singing and dancing for the Indians.

Life among the Florida Indians

Fontaneda spent the next 17 years among the Calusa, Tequesta, and other tribes. Here he learned their language and traveled to Florida. Around 1566 Fontaneda was saved by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés , Florida's first Spanish governor and founder of St. Augustine . According to another representation, he was saved by the Huguenots of Fort Caroline in 1565 and was able to return to them after the fort was annexed by the Spanish.

Further work

For the next few years Menéndez served as translator and guide on his expeditions through Florida. It was not until 1569 that Fontaneda was able to return to Spain and get his father's inheritance back from the Spanish Crown.

memoirs

Fontaneda is known for his memoirs written in 1575. In it he describes his life among the Indians of Florida. Since many Indian tribes in southern Florida are now extinct, his traditions are the first and most detailed eyewitness accounts of these cultures. They already served as a basis for historians of the Spanish, such as Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas .

His reports list 22 important cities of the Calusa. These geographical names are practically the only thing that has come down of the Calusa language. For the first time he mentioned Tampa , or a Calusa village on Tampa Bay near the mouth of Charlotte Harbor .

In his memoir, Fontaneda wrote of the legend of a mythical fountain of youth in Florida. Although he did not believe in this legend himself, his reports later served as the basis for a search for him.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Milanich, Jerald T. 1995. Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe . University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1360-7 p. 40.
personal data
SURNAME Escalante Fontaneda, Hernando de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1536
DATE OF DEATH around 1575