This is the city of St. Augustine, Florida, and it is closely tied to the history of South Carolina.

Four hundred years ago this was the seat of Spanish domination in North America, or as they call it, the New World.

Behind me is the Castillo de San Marcos, a tremendous fort here in St. Augustine on the coast of Florida built to defend the Spanish holdings, which as La Florida at that time encompassed the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and portions of Maryland-- was quite an installation indeed.

Tonight we are beginning a fascinating story, a very intriguing story.

We're going to follow the steps of these early Spaniards.

The first Europeans came to our state in 1521.

After that is a story of courage, sacrifice, starvation, and mysteries which have not been answered, even today.

♪ ♪ ♪ The first explorers to our coast barely stayed long enough to make an impact.

Out there, two Spanish galleons dropped anchor in 1521. and their commanders, Pedro de Quejo and Francisco Gordillo, came ashore in two small boats with some soldiers.

When they first met the Indians, Quejo, who was a slaver, took them captive.

Gordillo had been commissioned by the conquistador Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon to survey the coastline.

After reprovisioning the ships and taking what food they could from the Indians, they set sail again for Hispaniola.

Whatever report Gordillo gave de Ayllon inspired him greatly.

So, in 1526, de Ayllon gathered a group of colonists, 500 men and women, to join him in forming a new colony on the coastline.

They were not able to find the spot where Quejo and Gordillo had landed, but they formed a community called San Miguel, or "Saint Michael."

Imagine what these people felt landing here in this strange world, the like of which was so unusual for them.

It was like arriving on an alien planet!

The first winter was dreadful.

They were harassed by Indians on every side, and after only a few months, only a third of the people were still alive.

Among the dead was de Ayllon.

Finally, discouraged and starving, they sailed again for Hispaniola.

This Gulf coast of Florida near Saint Marks hasn't changed much since the first Spaniards saw it over 400 years ago.

An expedition was mounted in 1528 under Narváez, who landed with 400 soldiers near Tampa Bay.

Very proudly, he determined to conquer La Florida and marched northward under the banner of imperial Spain, following the cross held by the monks, but unfortunately, as they moved northward, they were met with hostile Indians, terrible fighting.

After they would defeat one group and go a little farther, there would be another band of Indians waiting for them.

Finally, completely discouraged, they reached an area near Tallahassee, defeated.

They built a few barges hoping to leave this area and find safety.

Sadly enough, the bones of most of that group of soldiers lie under sand and marsh or in the water, because in 1536 only four members of that expedition successfully reached Mexico.

Florida of the 16th century became a launching pad for exploration of the Southeast.

Finally, after the failures of earlier expeditions, one intrepid conquistador did succeed in landing a force of soldiers and setting out in search of riches.

We all remember from our history books that Hernando de Soto marched through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and over through Alabama into Mississippi.

This is about all we have known of the man up until now.

De Soto was a fascinating person.

With only his sword and shield, he rose to help defend his country and follow his king.

He was sent with Pizarro to Peru, and there, due to their explorations, if you can call it that, he became a very rich man and returned to Spain with his coffers filled with$350,000 in our money.

With a little politicking, the King appointed him governor of Florida, and so he prepared his expedition.

Personally, he paid 600 soldiers to accompany him.

Many of these were the sons of his friends, very wealthy young men of social position.

They were followed with their servants and others to help tend the group as they progressed in their explorations.

We must remember that life was different for the Spanish aristocrats of that time.

De Soto was extremely arrogant, very, very proud, a very religious man who believed that no souls were possessed by people who were not of the Catholic faith, and therefore, had no compunction in destroying anyone who stood in his path.

He believed in the honor of Spain.

He was a fearless leader, and his men did follow him through dreadful conditions and in spite of decisions which, in another time, might have been debatable.

So, De Soto came to Tampa Bay in 1539 with his 600 soldiers, servants, camp followers, 250 horses, and 13 pigs.

De Soto marched northward, fighting Indians along the way, but finally near the winter of 1539, reached a deserted Indian village at that time called Apalache, and there he decided to make his winter quarters.

Just recently, archaeologist Calvin Jones of the Florida Department of Archives and History has discovered the site of that winter encampment and is finding artifacts left on the site by de Soto and his men.

Some of the most interesting finds at the site include pieces of chain mail which was used as armor.

De Soto's men had thrown their chain mail away for a very good reason.

Guide: Apparently, they discarded it here because they found it did not work against the Apalache arrows.

Mary: Ohhh!

In other words here are examples of what we found of these units, small iron links.

These are individual links.

We're only finding the links th at did not decay or rust away.

Some of them are also brass, br ass-coated links.

Mary: ...but you tell me that this was not effective against the arrows of Apalache Indians.

Guide: That's true.

They found the arrows would splinter and go in between the holes in the links.

In fact, they even had an Apalache tribe shooting through, he shot through two layers of this.

They later found that the sewn heavy garments, cloth garments overlapping like burlap, worked better than the actual chain mail.

Mary: So, really a padded thing, like a quilt bound jacket or something would be better.

What else did you find along with these?

Guide: We find a lot of iron shot, we find horseshoe nails, which I don't have any at hand.

Glass beads of the early-- Mary: Beads, oh!

Guide: They were given from the trade.

Mary: Yeah!

Guide: They're red, white, and blue, and, actually, on e out of amber.

Mary: Now, how do you know these are Spanish?

Some came from...Venice in Italy, did they not?

Guide: Well, some did, bu t not these.

These particular styles ar e well-known historically to have been made in a very narrow time range, the early 1500s.

Mary: This would've been a trading item?

Guide: Trading or a handout to the Indians to pacify them, to learn where gold and silver mi ght be by handing them out.

Mary: Trading beads for information, de Soto found a young Indian boy named Perico who promised to take him where the gold was.

To understand Perico, de Soto used Juan Ortiz, a survivor of an earlier expedition, who acted as translator.

Perico tells de Soto, through Ortiz, of "Yupaha", where there is gold and silver and diamonds, pearls... the precious metals which de Soto discovered in Peru.

de Soto immediately changes his plans.

He sends his ships westward to a safe harbor, we think in Mobile Bay.

However, de Soto, as you will learn later, never met his ships again, although the sailors returned every year to wait for the captain who never returned.

For many years we thought that de Soto went to the Savannah River, quickly crossed South Carolina, and went into our mountains.

However, recent developments have proven that de Soto spent much more time there in South Carolina than we had thought before.

In the spring of 1540, Hernando de Soto arrived on the banks of a sizeable river.

It was near an Indian village which was home to his guide Perico, and this village was called Cofitachequi.

Traditionally it's been felt that the village was on the banks of the Savannah River, but now archaeologists believe that Cofitachequi was on the Wateree River near Camden.

Dr. Chester DePratter of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology is the chief proponent of this idea.

How can you prove Cofitachequi was on the Wateree as opposed to being on the Savannah River?

Dr. Chester: Because there's been archaeology done over there in the last ten years or so as indicated no occupation on the Savannah when de Soto came through.

After about 1450, the Indians abandoned that part of the Savannah River Valley that de Soto crossed, and looking here in the Wateree valley, we find there's much more evidence for occupation at the time de Soto came through.

Mary: Now, if you find Spanish artifacts here at Camden, how can you prove that these we re the de Soto expedition rather than one that was earlier or even later?

Dr. Chester: Well there's really no way to put it down precisely to de Soto that artifacts we find we can clearly date to the mid-16th century, but there's no way to know if de Soto ever saw or handled those artifacts.

We can look at the beads and the metal implements and by the style, know that they date to the right time period.

Mary: A woman chief ruled the village of Cofitachequi, and many others from miles around.

With an impressive entourage, she met de Soto as he came across the river.

Her words of welcome were very flattering... "Excellent lord, be this coming "to these, your shores, most happy.

"My ability can in no way equal my wishes, "nor my services become the merits of so great a prince.

"Nevertheless, good wishes are to be valued "more than all the treasures of the earth, "and in purist goodwill, I tender you my person, my lands, my people, and make you these small gifts."

The chieftainess made good on her word.

She took a string of pearls from around her neck, and gave it to de Soto, and she allowed him to send half of his army to a nearby town called Ilapi, near present-day Cheraw, to get corn from the storehouse.

She brought him here.

This 30-foot-high Indian mound was the religious and ceremonial center of her kingdom.

Atop one of the mounds, de Soto was allowed to enter a temple, and there he received a big surprise, because inside were several European artifacts... a crucifix and some iron implements.

After some thought, he realized that these had been left by an earlier coastal expedition and had been traded northward.

The chieftainess also told de Soto that there was gold in an Indian village farther north, a village called Chiaha.

Immediately, de Soto sent word to his men who had gone for the corn to rejoin him on the trail, and then to ensure that he found the village of gold he kidnapped the niece of the kind chieftainess and took her along as a guide.

Back in Peru, when de Soto served with Pizarro, he found a wealth of gold in the Andes.

So when the people of the village told him that there was gold to the north and that it would be found in a village near the mountains, de Soto was understandably certain of success.

He traveled up the Wateree and Catawba Rivers, finally reaching a place near Marion, North Carolina.

He turned westward to the mountains in search of his village of gold.

Here, the two armies finally met.

The group from Ilapi eventually caught up.

Near Asheville, the lady of Cofitachequi finally escaped and hopefully made her way back to her tribe.

During this area, de Soto's men were better fed.

They either took or were given corn, roast turkeys, and small dogs to eat.

Now, here is the last scene of de Soto in the Carolinas, because he made his way from here to the Mississippi River where, in 1542, he became fatally ill.

He and his men had spent many months searching the area for the mineral wealth, which they knew would be in the mountains.

Yet whenever they asked the Indians about gold or jewels, they were shown copper, mica, and pearls.

Pearls were the only thing that would be of interest to the Europeans, but these had been drilled with a hot instrument which caused the pearls to change color and consequently were of no value to the Europeans.

So finally, sick, despondent, feeling a failure, de Soto, fatally ill, died in 1542, and his body was laid to rest in the Mississippi River.

The next generation of explorers of our state would also come from Spain, but did not make the hazardous trip through Florida.

By 1566, the Spanish had built a fort here in Beaufort County.

Under Governor Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the Spanish made a successful stand in North America on what is today Parris Island.

The place was called Santa Elena.

Today archaeologists excavating he re have found artifacts that testify to the everyday life of the Spanish settlers.

Domestic items such as thimbles an d pins have been found, even dice that were once used to play games in leisure hours!

This bowl and plate are examples of serving ware imported from Spain, Central and South America.

This brass crucifix testifies to the religious community established here by Jesuit missionaries.

This bit of armor was once worn by a soldier of Governor Menendez, who established this settlement as the center of Spain's dominion in what is now America.

Dr. Chester: When Menendez established this town and fort in the mid-1560s, 1566, when he sent the first contingent of soldiers here, there were a small number of settlers in the initial detachment.

Later, additional settlers were brought in until eventually, the town reached 350 or 400 settlers, including women, children, farm animals.

Mary: So, they were here to stay, and they brought equipment to become an agricultural society.

Dr. Chester: Yes, that's right, because between 1566 when the place was first settled in 1576 this was the Spanish capital in all of Florida.

Mary: Where was St. Augustine?

Dr. Chester: St. Augustine was established in 1565, but up until 1576 it was not the capital.

When the Spanish pulled out of here in 1576 and retreated back to St. Augustine, then the capital was shifted to St. Augustine, When Fort San Marcos that we're standing in the midst of now was resettled in 1577 Santa Elena was no longer the capital.

Mary: From the settlement in Beaufort in 1566, a captain named Juan Pardo set off on a journey to the interior of South Carolina.

His missions were to discover an overland route to Mexico, pacify the Indians in order to get food supplies, and discover gold or other mineral resources.

Pardo made two trips through South Carolina in his quest.

Like de Soto 26 years earlier, he came to the village on the Wateree River called Cofitachequi.

From here, like de Soto, he headed northward to the mountains.

This is the Catawba River which runs through north-central South Carolina.

Both Spaniards considered it the highway to the pot of gold.

Bot de Soto and Pardo walked this way, each in their day, but where de Soto was just passing through, Pardo's role was more of a colonizer.

Up this river and into North Carolina, he built a series of small forts and there he left a garrison and also priests to Christianize the Indians.

Crossing over into what is now North Carolina, Pardo continued to follow the Catawba River.

Near Marion, he found he could go no further.

The mountains loomed ahead of him covered in a thick blanket of snow.

He stopped at an Indian's village called Joara.

Here today, right on the edge of a busy highway, we're talking with David Moore of the North Carolina Archaeology Division of Archives and History.

David, you've been looking for Indian villages near here.

What village, particularly are you searching for?

David: It would be nice to think we could identify the village of Joara where Pardo may have visited.

In fact, last summer, working back in the field here, we excavated a large village which we believe dates to the 16th century, and there we hope to find evidence, at least more evidence of the village.

It will be hard to determine exactly whether or not it is Joara.

Mary: This is an excavation near Gastonia being conducted by the Schiele Museum.

Here, archaeologist Alan May hopes to find evidence of Pardo's expedition.

Pardo and his sergeant, Moyano, vi sited several villages here and prospected for gold and other minerals.

Alan: We've found a number of sites in this area that are occupied by the Native American Indians that were living here about the time the Spanish were purported to have come through here.

That will help us find those sites that may contain artifacts that will help us to determine exactly some of those places where they stopped.

Mary; Have you found any definite artifacts yet or anything that might be co nsidered to be Spanish?

Alan: Yes.

As a matter of fact, we have.

There is a large site in a river valley not far from the museum here where we have found a small, rolled, copper object.

That may be European copper, it may be hammered Native-American copper.

It's still open to interpretation, because we need to do some analysis.

Mary: When the archaeologists find more evidence of Pardo and de Soto in the mountains or Santa Elena, we will be able to add to our meager knowledge of our state's first explorers.

There is more to the story that we do know.

After prospecting here in the mountains, Pardo and Moyano both ended up back in Beaufort.

They left behind several forts garrisoned with about 30 soldiers at each place.

We know that Juan Pardo returned to Santa Elena in the spring of 1568, but after that, he disappears from history.

Perhaps he returned to his homeland in Spain.

Perhaps he died here of some unknown cause.

Perhaps he is buried here.

He left behind the string of forts which he had built from here to Tennessee.

The military authority of Santa Elena never felt it worthwhile to reinforce their forts, so finally, they were overrun by Indians, and they, too, disappeared.

Sergeant Moyano desperately wanted to return to the mineral deposits which he felt were there, but he was sent with 21 others on a military expedition against a warlike tribe of Indians, and in the battle, only one soldier survived, and Moyano and the others were killed.

And so, neither Pardo nor Moyano were able to develop the wealth of the colonies.

It remained unexplored.

By 1587, Santa Elena was abandoned.

The withdrawal at Santa Elena marked the end of Spanish domination in South Carolina.

The Spaniards decided to consolidate their forces here at St. Augustine.

Thus ended the presence of the Spanish in South Carolina for over 50 years.

Out of the 100 soldiers left in forts in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee, only one soldier survived.

He and his Indian wife walked into Santa Elena.

All the other soldiers had been killed by Indians.

Thus, it would be another half century before another European explorer entered the interior of our state.

♪ There are so many questions that come to mind at the end of a story like this, where we have more unknowns than we have knowns, questions that are absolutely fascinating and can begin with, "What if...." What if Pardo and de Soto had discovered gold, which was really discovered centuries later in the Piedmont?

What if Pardo had discovered the overland route to Mexico?

What if Moyano had returned to the interior and developed the mineral deposits which we know now exist?

The answers are just astonishing!

If the Spanish had discovered the gold, they would have held on with an iron hand, just like they did in Mexico, Central America, South America.

The land and the Indians would have been exploited, and they would have settled a military detachment so strong that would have repelled any French or English attempt at colonization.

The whole course of history would've been changed.

♪ This river, which was a highway for de Soto and Pardo, still continues its endless course from the mountains to the sea.

Here the lone survivor of Pardo's forts comes as a memory.

He's a symbol of the Spanish exploration.

He was the last of a special breed of men, warriors and adventurers whose courage we can admire but we condemn for their methods of conquest.

Their explorations and settlements left very little, but they were here.

They walked along this river, and they were refreshed by its waters.

They saw our state in its pristine beauty before it was touched by those who followed to clear the forests, build the roads, and conquer the wilderness.

They came to conquer and to take the riches of the land.

They found little to take, and they left very little except a few faint images in our imaginations.

♪ [Spanish guitar music] ♪ Program captioned by: CompuScripts Captioning, Inc. 803.988.8438 ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪