Juan Pardo's Expeditions

An Annotated Account
Of the Two Juan Pardo Expeditions
Into Southern Appalachia
By His Scribe Juan de la Bandera

In 1559, eighteen years after Hernando de Soto’s failed expedition across the Southeast in search of Indian wealth, Spain attempted to establish another colony in the New World. Tristan de Luna y Arellano was chosen to lead the colonization attempt. He led an expedition from Pensacola Bay northward to the Coosa towns De Soto had visited in northwestern Georgia. Luna followed much the same route De Soto had and visited many of the same Indian villages, however, he failed in his attempt to establish a viable colony and returned to Pensacola Bay.

In 1562 the French established a small fort on Port Royal Sound, South Carolina they called Fort Caroline. The Spanish, seeing the French fort as a threat to their ships sailing from Cuba to Spain, attacked and destroyed the fort. Three years later, in 1565, the Spanish began erecting a series of forts along the Atlantic coast to guard their shipping lanes from attack by the French. One, Fort San Felipe, was erected at Santa Elena on the southern tip of Parris Island, South Carolina and placed under the command of Pedro Menendez de Aliles. The next year, Menendez sent Captain Juan Pardo, leading an expedition of 125 soldiers, from Fort San Felipe westward into the interior with instructions to find a route to Spanish Mexico which was thought to be only several hundred miles away. It was the first of two expeditions Pardo would lead into the piedmont of what would later become North and South Carolina.

To continue reading: Click Here.

Note: Some Melungeon origin theories have posited a connection between the Melungeons and the colonists of Santa Elena. Such a connection, direct or indirect, has never been demonstrated, or even made plausible, and is totally unsupported by documented Melungeon history.