Introduction 
5 
this exclusive and commanding position. As early as 1512 or 1514, Juan 
Ponce de León, from Porto Rico as a base, discovered and explored the 
“ island of Florida ”, and in 1521 he lost his life as a result of a futile 
attempt to establish a colony there. 
After Española and Porto Rico, Cuba next came into importance as a 
base for the exploration and conquest of the mainland. In 1517 Fran¬ 
cisco Hernández de Córdoba as the leader of a slave-hunting expedition 
sailed west from Cuba and discovered the peninsula of Yucatán, which he 
mistook for an island like Cuba. Wounded in a fight with the natives, 
Córdoba returned to Cuba where he soon died. Governor Velásquez, 
disappointed that no colony had been founded by the Córdoba expedition, 
despatched Juan de Grijalva in April, 1518, to follow up the explorations 
of the preceding year. Reaching the island of Cozumel, Grijalva turned 
north, rounded Cape Catoche, and from there followed the mainland 
coast as far as the Pánuco River, stopping at and naming en route the 
Rio de Grijalva and the island of San Juan de Ulua. From the latter 
place booty and news of the wonders which he had seen and of which he 
had heard were sent back to Cuba by Pedro de Alvarado; in October the 
main expedition returned without having attempted to establish a settle¬ 
ment. Of all the exploring expeditions to the mainland this was one of 
the most important, not alone for geographical reasons, but because it 
revealed gold and a high indigenous civilization; in fact the year 1518 
marked the beginning of a new epoch. 
The most significant and far-reaching result of the Grijalva expedition 
was that the next year Hernando Cortés arrived at San Juan de Ulua with 
a force, recruited in Cuba, and initiated a course of events on the mainland 
which led to the conquest for Spain of one of her fairest and thenceforth 
most important colonial possessions—New Spain. But before tracing the 
evolution of this significant movement it will be well to mention the other 
exploring and attempted colonizing movements on the mainland which 
had the West Indies as their base. 
A second and a most important result of the Grijalva expedition of 
1518 was that in 1519 Governor Garay of Santiago (Jamaica) despatched 
his able lieutenant, Alonso de Pineda, to make further explorations along 
the Gulf Coast and to ascertain its limits. From Tampico Pineda for the 
first time traced the coast line north and east to Florida, his object being 
to reach open sea lying north of the Mexican coast, or to discover the sup¬ 
posed strait sought by Columbus. Retracing his route west and south from 
Florida, Pineda clearly demonstrated that the mainland was one conti¬ 
nent, and not a string of islands as theretofore had been supposed. To 
the land discovered by him, namely, the region extending from the western 
limits of Ponce de Leon’s explorations in Florida to the northern limit of 
exploration on the Mexican coast which had been reached by Grijalva 
and Cortés —that is, approximately from Appalachee Bay to Tampico— 
was given the name Amichel. In 1523 Governor Garay, following up 
Pineda’s explorations under authority granted him in 1521, attempted to 
establish a settlement in that part of Amichel later known as Vitoria 
Garayana, or that region which lies between the Tampico River and the 
