SWANTONJ INDIANS OF THE &OUTHEASTEIRN UNUTED STATES 35 



north of Mexico and the greater part of these come from Florida, 

 particularly from the Caliisa Indians living on the southwest coast. 

 Most of their gold, however, is traceable to treasure fleets wrecked on 

 their way from Central America and Mexico to Spain. In 1513 Mex- 

 ico had not been invaded, but Enciso and Balboa landed in the 

 Gulf of Darien in 1510 and almost immediately began to collect ob- 

 jects of gold from the natives of that region, so that it was soon known 

 as Castilla del Oro. Presence in southern Florida of gold from 

 Panama has been proved by the discovery within recent years of 

 gold beads with ornamentation of Central American patterns. On 

 the other hand, very little gold has been found in the archeological 

 sites of the eastern United States north of Florida. Ponce de Leon's 

 voyages have been given careful study by T. Frederick Davis, and he 

 comes to practically the same conclusion as that here expressed. 



At any rate the hostile reception accorded Ponce by the Indians 

 indicates pretty certainly that they had had previous dealings with 

 white men, and one must admit that the facts of history abundantly 

 justify their reaction. Besides, since there was among the Indians 

 they met one who understood Spanish, they can not have been far 

 from the West Indies, and this may also mean that Ponce was not 

 the first Spaniard to reach Florida, though it is inferred by Herrera 

 that the native had come from those islands. A south Florida town 

 is mentioned called Abaioa (Davis, 1935, pp. 18, 20). 



In 1516 Diego Miruelo is said to have obtained gold from the 

 Florida Indians during a trading expedition along the Gulf. In 

 1517 Francisco Hernandez de Cordova, on his way back to Santo 

 Domingo from Yucatan, entered a harbor in Florida that had been 

 visited by Ponce de Leon — probably Charlotte Harbor, as Lowery 

 surmises. At any rate, while digging for water, the Spaniards were 

 set upon in the same vigorous manner as in the case of De Leon, and 

 there was a hard struggle before they reached their boats (Lowery, 

 1901, p. 149). In 1519 Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda, acting under 

 orders from Francisco de Garay, Governor of Jamaica, visited the 

 coast of the Gulf of Mexico, which he traced from the tip of the 

 peninsula of Florida to Panuco, where he turned back, and presently 

 he entered the mouth of a great river with a large town at its mouth 

 and on both banks, within a space of 6 leagues, 40 villages. This 

 river has generally been identified with the Mississippi, but Walter 

 Scaife (1892, suppl.) suggested that it was Mobile Bay and River, 

 the outlines of which are well preserved on Spanish charts from this 

 time forward, and Hamilton (1910, p. 10) has proved it quite con- 

 clusively. It is evident from Pineda's map that he also discovered 

 the mouth of the Mississippi at this time, but later cartographers 

 confounded inlet and river, and made the former the outlet of the 



