In early 1527 Cabeza de Vaca departed Spain as a part of a royal expedition

[RELICDUDE07]

Underwater clues of the Soto landing place in 1539 would be the remains of the ship Santa Ana. According to later legal documents, the vessel was scuttled on the coast of Florida. The location is not indicated, but a likely place would be within the Bay of the Holy Spirit itself -- in fairly shallow water adjacent to a navigable channel. Would like to hear any info some may have on this !
Thank you Relic

[Mackaydon]

Relic,

Yes, in 1527, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca heard the stories about the New World and joined the expedition to the New World lead by Pamfilo de Narvaez who had been commissioned by Emperor Carlos V to colonize the entire Gulf Coast of the New World from Florida to Mexico.

Yes, on June 17, 1527, Pamfilo de Narvaez departed Spain from Cadiz with 300 men, including Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca who had been appointed crown treasurer of the expedition.

How does that relate to a wreck in 1539? I'm confused.
Don.......

[RELICDUDE07]

Sorry Mackaydon i am also. Just trying to narrow down how many spanish wrecks could have been in this bay in 1539......Bay of the Holy spirit. I don't think it was Tampa

[aztreasure]

Agreed...to paraphrase from the foreward of "Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America", de Vaca wanted the commission for Florida, but De Soto had already received it before he made it back to Spain. Instead, he was appointed a governor of Rio de la Plata, and headed there in 1540.

[pcolaboy]

Apparently Tampa Bay was listed as Bahia Espiritu Santo on a map from 1584 and then Bahia Tampa beginning in the 17th century. There are a few scholars that believe DeSoto landed in Port Charlotte as opposed to Tampa.

Ironically, Narvaez originally intended to land at Port Charlotte but ended up being blown of course and decided to press ahead with landing at the nearest harbor - some believe this was Boca Ciega Bay which is right behind the Pinellas peninsula near Tampa.

I think it's widely accepted that errors in navigation and assumptions based on the vague information these early explorers had available to them, caused them to believe they had landed at a previously discovered harbor when in fact they were actually in a different location. It would seem plausible for them to be able to more accurately determine their locations on the Florida Peninsula since it was only a matter of determining the correct lattitude with an astrolabe, whereas on the Florida Panhandle inaccuracies would have been more common because they would have to work with longitude that was much more difficult to calculate at that time.

Up until 1992 when the first shipwreck of Tristan de Luna's 1559 fleet was found in Pensacola Bay, there were still many scholars that believed de Luna had landed in Choctawhatchee Bay, 45 miles to the east, based on his diary entries alone.