Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón
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Toledo, Spain
Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...
– 18 October 1526) was a Spanish explorer who in 1526 established the short-lived San Miguel de Gualdape
San Miguel de Gualdape
San Miguel de Gualdape was the first European settlement inside what is now United States territory, founded by Spaniard Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526. It was to last only three months of winter before being abandoned in early 1527....
colony, the first European attempt at a settlement in what is now the continental United States. Ayllón's account of the region inspired a number of later attempts by the Spanish and French governments to colonize the southeastern United States.
A licentiate and sugar planter on Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón commanded six vessels with 600 colonists, supplies and livestock, sailing from Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
in mid-July, 1526. The large 1526 colonizing group landed in Winyah Bay
Winyah Bay
Winyah Bay is a coastal estuary that is the confluence of the Waccamaw River, the Pee Dee River, the Black River and the Sampit River in Georgetown County in eastern South Carolina...
, near present day Georgetown, South Carolina
Georgetown, South Carolina
Georgetown is the third oldest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina and the county seat of Georgetown County, in the Low Country. Located on Winyah Bay at the confluence of the Great Pee Dee River, Waccamaw River, and Sampit River, Georgetown is the second largest seaport in South Carolina,...
, on September 29, 1526 (the Feast of Archangels).
They looked for an area suitable for colonization approximately 15 km north, near Pawleys Island. They found the area unsuitable, and Ayllón decided to move further south. Some accounts say that some settlers took an overland voyage, while others left on a new boat built at the temporary settlement. If true, this would probably be the earliest example of European-style boatbuilding in what is now the United States. Heading southward, likely by both land and sea, the group reunited and established on October 8, 1526 the short-lived colony of "San Miguel de Guadalpe", probably at or near present-day Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
's Sapelo Sound.
Ayllón was a member of the Real Audiencia in Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
. De Ayllón had received from Charles V
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
in 1523 a grant for the land explored in 1521 by Francisco Gordillo and slave trader Captain Pedro de Quejo (de Quexo). On the 1521 expedition, Gordillo and de Quejo had kidnapped about 70 natives, including one named Francisco de Chicora
Francisco de Chicora
Francisco de Chicora was the baptismal name given to a Native American kidnapped in 1521, along with 70 others, from near the mouth of the Pee Dee River by Spanish explorer Francisco Gordillo and slave trader Pedro de Quexos, based in Santo Domingo and the first Europeans to reach the area. From...
when baptized. He survived in Hispaniola, learning Spanish and working for Ayllón. When Ayllón took Chicora to Spain with him, they met with the court chronicler, Peter Martyr, and Chicora talked with him at length about his people and homeland, Chicora, and about neighboring provinces.
In 1525 Ayllón sent Quejo northward and received reports of the coastline from as far north as the Delaware Bay
Delaware Bay
Delaware Bay is a major estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the Northeast seaboard of the United States whose fresh water mixes for many miles with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It is in area. The bay is bordered by the State of New Jersey and the State of Delaware...
. In 1526, his new colony used African slave-labour, perhaps the first instance within the present territory of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Ayllón died in the colony in 1526, purportedly in the arms of a Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
friar
Friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...
.
Ayllón's rough-hewn town withstood only about a total of three months, enduring hunger, disease, scarcity of supplies, and troubles with the local natives. Of the colony of 600 people Ayllón had brought with him, only 150 survivors made their way back to Hispaniola that winter. Most scholars consider attempts to locate the San Miguel settlement (Tierra de Ayllón) any farther north, even as far north as the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
, to be unsubstantiated conjecture.
Ayllón and his settlers lost one of their ships near the mouth of Winyah Bay
Winyah Bay
Winyah Bay is a coastal estuary that is the confluence of the Waccamaw River, the Pee Dee River, the Black River and the Sampit River in Georgetown County in eastern South Carolina...
. State archaeologists are working to locate the site of the wreck. Ayllón's colony was the first European colony in what is now the United States, preceding Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown, Virginia
Jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607 , it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke...
by 81 years, and St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine is a city in the northeast section of Florida and the county seat of St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United...
(the first successful colony) by 39 years.