An Early Florida Adventure Story: The Fray Andrés de San Miguel Account

ISBN-13: 9780813018768 / Angielski / Twarda / 2001 / 128 str.

Andres; John H. Hann; James J. Miller

Opis

Among documents of Florida's Spanish colonial period, few eyewitness accounts exist. One of these, the 1595 narrative by Fray Andres de San Miguel, expertly translated by John Hann, describes the two-year odyssey of a teenager from Spain across the Atlantic to Mexico, Havana, and Florida and finally back to Spain. The future friar's account of his experiences as a young sailor brings to life the fleets of the Golden Age of Spain and reveals how those adventures would change his life forever. After Andres's ship passed Cape Canaveral, it was battered by a four-day storm and separated from the fleet. The officers commandeered the only launch and escaped; the crew kept the ship afloat and improvised a box-like vessel in which 30 survivors reached shore near the mouth of the Altamaha River. The author offers detailed descriptions of the Guale Indians and of Mission San Pedro Mocama on Cumberland Island. He also provides vignettes of life in St. Augustine and, on his way to Havana, of encounters with South Florida Indians. The adventure closes with Fray Andres' return to Cadiz, where he witnessed the 1596 British siege and burning of that port. Only seventeen years old at the time of th