North American Horse Encyclopedia

The ancestors of today’s Cracker Horses were introduced into what is now Florida as early as 1521 when the Spaniard, Ponce de Leon, on his second Florida trip, brought horses, cattle and other livestock. Such introductions were continued well into the next century by other Spanish explorers and colonists and by mid-1600 cattle ranching and horse breeding was well established. Feral herds started from escaped and liberated animals and both Spanish horses and cattle were quite numerous and common to many areas of Florida long before it became a United States possession in 1821.

1521. between Venice and Placida on Florida Gulf Coast. Juan Ponce de Leon brought 50 horses, forced to swim to shore. (p. 20, 24). The colonists were driven off by repeated attacks from the native population. The horses were abandoned.

1528 Pánfilo de Narváez expedition landed near present day Tampa Bay, Florida with 600 men with 80 horses. (p. 24). Expelled and pursued by the Apalachee Indians, and suffering from diseases, some began eating their horses. Storms, thirst and starvation had reduced the expedition to about eighty survivors when a hurricane dumped Cabeza de Vaca and his companions on the Gulf Coast near what is now Galveston, Texas. For the next four years Cabeza de Vaca and a steadily dwindling number of his comrades lived in the complex native world of what is now East Texas. Most of the horses either ran wild or were captured by the Indians.

1529. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca one of the chief officers, of the Narváez expedition, he and eighty others, were the only survivors of the party of 600 men. The four were enslaved by various Native American tribes of the upper Gulf coast (including the Hand and the Capoques of Galveston Island, which the explorers termed Malhado, or Island of Doom) but later escaped and eventually reached Mexico City.

1559 Tristán de Luna y Arellano lands at present day Pensacola Bay, Florida with 1,500 soldiers and settlers under six captains of cavalry and six of infantry. The expedition was plagued with disaster and the colony was abandoned the following year. Nothing is known of the cavalry horses, but they were apparently abandoned.

Virginia

1607. European settlement did not permanently occur until the establishment of Jamestown in 1607, by English colonists. Virginia became one of the wealthiest and most populated of the English colonies in North America.

North Carolina

The first permanent English settlement in North America was at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Virginia colonists occasionally visited the region to the south, and a few settled near Albemarle Sound from the 1650s on.

In 1587, Raleigh dispatched another group of colonists. These 121 colonists were led by John White, an artist and friend of Raleigh's who had accompanied the previous expeditions to Roanoke Island..

Spanish South Carolina

1521. Ayllon sent an expedition to Florida under Francisco Gordillo, who, in June, 1521, landed somewhere near Cape Fear in North Carolina. In quest of the Northwest passage, ca Francisco Gordillo, sailing on orders of Lucas Vazques de Ayllon, lands somewhere in the vicinity of present-day southern South Carolina. He captures some 60 Indians at a place he calls Chicora. No settlement.

1526 Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón tried to establish a colony in the Winyah Bay area (near present-day Myrtle Beach). He brought with him 600 colonists and 89 horses. Unfavorable weather and sickness soon forced the 150 survivors to return to Santo Domingo.. The horses were turned free.

Georgia

At the time of European colonization of the Americas, Cherokee and Creek Indians lived in what is now Georgia.

In 1526, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón attempted to establish a colony there, possibly near St. Catherines Island. Did not establish. Only explored.

Massive British settlement began in the early 1730s with James Oglethorpe, an Englishman in the British parliament, who promoted the idea that the area be used to settle the worthy poor of England, providing an alternative to the overcrowded debtors' prisons. Oglethorpe and other British philanthropists secured a royal charter as the Trustees of the colony of Georgia on June 9, 1732. Ultimately, the colony was not founded by or for debtors, although the misconception of

1562, Jean Ribault was chosen to lead an expedition to the New World specifically to establish a haven for French Protestants, the Huguenots. A small fleet with 150 colonists and selected a settlement site on Parris Island, one of the Sea Islands off the coast of present-day South Carolina. The small colony was called Charlesfort in honor of the French king, Charles IX. Ribault oversaw the initial layout of the settlement, then returned to home for additional supplies. No record of horses.

French Florida

1564 René de Laudonnière a French Huguenot explorer, establishes the French colony of Fort Caroline on the St. John's River, near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. There were 300 Huguenot colonists. No record of horses.. Chased out by the Spanish the following year

1565 Fort Lauderdale founded by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. First permanent European settlement in what is now the United States. In 1668 it was plundered by pirates and most of the inhabitants were killed.

French Canada

1598, a trading post was established on Sable Island, off the coast of Acadia, but was unsuccessful.

1608 Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec with six families totaling 28 people, the second successful French settlement in what is now Canada. (The first was Port Royal, Acadie - now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia - established in 1604.) Colonization was slow and difficult. Many settlers died early, because of harsh weather and diseases. In 1630, there were only 100 colonists living in the settlement, but, by 1640, there were 359. The 1666 census of New France was conducted by France's intendant, Jean Talon, in the winter of 1665-1666. It showed a population of 3215 habitants in New France,

French America

In 1682, Cavelier de La Salle and the Italian Henri de Tonti descended to the Mississippi delta. They left Fort Crèvecoeur on the Illinois River, accompanied by 23 Frenchmen and 18 Indians. They built Fort Prud'homme, which later became the city of Memphis and asserted French sovereignty on the whole of the valley which they called Louisiane in honor of the Louis XIV of France.

1698, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville left La Rochelle and explored the area around the mouth of the Mississippi. At Biloxi he built a precarious fort, called Maurepas, before returning to France.

1701, the Frenchman Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac founded a fort at the current site of Detroit, in Michigan.

1702 Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville established a fort at Mobile in 1702.

1718, Jean-Baptiste Moyne de Bienville ordered a French expedition in Louisiana. He founded the city of New Orleans, in homage to the regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. The architect Adrien de Pauger drew the orthogonal plan of the French Quarter of New Orleans.

English Canada

The first permanent settlers arrived at St. John's in 1605. By 1620 the fishermen of England's West Country had excluded other nations from most of the east coast.

In 1627, St. John's was "the principal prime and chief lot in all the whole country". The resident population grew slowly in the 17th century, but St. John's was by far the largest settlement in Newfoundland when English naval officers began to take censuses around 1675. Every summer the population swelled with the arrival of migratory fishermen. In 1680, fishing ships (mostly from South Devon) set up fishing rooms at St. John's, bringing hundreds of Irish men into the port to operate inshore fishing boats.

New Netherlands

In the summer of 1624, the New Netherland territory received its first immigrants, a colony of thirty Belgian families (mostly Walloons accompanied by a few Flemings) on Noten Eylant, now Governors Island. These colonists had disembarked on Governors Island from the ship named “New Netherland” under the command of Cornelis Jacobsz May, the first director of the Province of New Netherland. In June, 1625, forty-five more colonists disembarked on Governors Island from three ships named Horse, Cow and Sheep which also delivered 103 horses, steers and cows, in addition to numerous pigs and sheep. It successfully completed the Republic’s first planting of a colony in 1624, and extrapolated the Republic’s culture, its 1579 Constitution and legal-political guaranty of tolerance onto the North American continent. Director May (1624-1625) was replaced with Director Willem Verhulst (1625-1626).

English Settlements

1620. Pilgrims is the name commonly applied to early settlers of the Plymouth Colony, MA. The colony, established in 1620, would ultimately succeed, the second to do so among several English attempts. Their story has become a central theme in United States cultural identity.