Vázquez de Ayllón, Lucas (c. 1475–1526)

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Vázquez de Ayllón, Lucas (c. 1475–1526)

Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón (b. ca. 1475; d. 18 October 1526), judge and leader of an ill-fated colony in La Florida. Vázquez de Ayllón, an official in the Audiencia of Santo Domingo, sponsored two exploratory voyages to the Atlantic coast of La Florida. The earlier one, led by Pedro de Quejo and Francisco Gordillo in 1521, gave rise to the legend of Chicora, a fabled land of riches in the Carolina region.

In 1523 Vázquez de Ayllón was granted a royal charter to establish a colony on the southeast Atlantic coast. Named San Miguel de Gualdape, the colony of six hundred, including African slaves, lasted only for three months in 1526. Many of the colonists, along with Vázquez de Ayllón, lost their lives. It is believed that the African slaves were abandoned when the colony withdrew. The exact location of the colony has not been established.

See alsoSanto Domingo, Audiencia of .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Henry Harrisse, Discovery of North America (1892; repr. 1961), esp. pp. 198-213.

Paul E. Hoffman, A New Andalucia and a Way to the Orient: The American Southeast During the Sixteenth Century (1990).

Additional Bibliography

García Icazbalceta, Joaquín. Biografías, estudios. México City: Porrúa, 1998.

                                    Jerald T. Milanich

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