Luna's colony unearthed in Pensacola

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The search is over. The longstanding mystery is solved. The location of the oldest established European multi-year settlement in the United States is indeed in the heart of Pensacola.

Discoveries by local historian Tom Garner in October and research afterward by University of West Florida archaeologists confirmed where Don Tristan de Luna established his Spanish colony in August 1559 – six years before the St. Augustine settlement and nearly 48 years before the English settled in Jamestown, Va.

The historical site is in an urban downtown neighborhood within view of the two shipwrecks linked to the Luna expedition in Pensacola Bay. UWF declined to reveal the exact location to protect the neighborhood and integrity of the site.

“This is one of those almost once-in-a-lifetime type things,” said John Worth, associate professor of historical archaeology in the UWF Department of Anthropology and a 16th Century Spanish historian. “I figured if the Luna colony would be found it would probably be found accidentally. I did not expect it would occur during my tenure here necessarily. I just figured eventually we might find it, somebody would. I guess this is the culmination. I didn’t even hope to find it as much as just wish.”

UWF announces discovery of Luna's colony in Pensacola The University of West Florida announces the discovery of oldest established European multi-year settlement in the United States.

Garner initially discovered a half rim of a mid-16th century olive jar that surfaced after a house was bulldozed on a privately owned residential lot. He reported his discovery to UWF Archaeology lab director Jan Lloyd, and after multiple visits and surface collections, he brought the artifacts to the UWF lab Oct. 30 to be examined by the nationally renowned Worth and other UWF archaeologists.

Worth confirmed what Garner suspected when he identified about 40 sherds as those from the Spanish colonial olive jar. The property owners then granted the university a five-day window, Nov. 6-10, to excavate about half an acre of land before construction of their new home commenced. The archaeologists and students conducted 69 shovel tests and discovered sherds of ceramics such as cookware, tableware and olive jars undisturbed beneath the ground surface. Small personal items they uncovered included a copper lacing aglet, lead fishing line weight, spike fragments, a wrought iron nail and five Indian trade beads from Venice.

The artifacts left no doubt in their minds that Garner found where Luna and about 1,500 other people settled in 1559 in Pensacola.

“Bottom line is we found Luna’s colony,” Worth said. “It’s not a little bit of evidence. It’s a lot. It’s a substantial bull’s-eye in the archaeological landscape of Pensacola. There had been nothing found in the way of mid-16th century ceramics, which is exactly what you’d expect. It’s garbage. There were 1,500 people there trying to eke out an existence for about a two-year period.

“… I’ve read every document that has ever been found, found a few myself, every single textual description was in my mind when I walked out on this spot, and it all fit perfectly. I had long thought it was a probability, but I had never been to the site, so Tom’s discovery brought me to the site and I walked out and literally it was like every single description in there was describing that precise point. The evidence is now substantial. We now have something on the order of a couple hundred sherds of this particular type of olive jar. That’s exactly what you’d expect for a colonial site, not just a temporary camp.”

Worth said the only earlier European habitation site positively identified by archeologists in the Southeast occurred in Tallahassee. Hernando de Soto led a Spanish exploratory expedition that camped there in the winter of 1539 to early 1540. Juan Ponce de Leon, near Fort Myers in 1521, and Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon, near Brunswick, Ga., in 1526, attempted unsuccessfully to establish sustaining Spanish settlements. Those documented exploratory expeditions only lasted a few weeks and are yet to be discovered.

The location of the Luna colony surfaces nearly 10 years after UWF discovered the second shipwreck, Emanuel Point II, in 2006. The Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research discovered the first, Emanuel Point I, in 1992. UWF is currently excavating the second ship, and the artifacts at the terrestrial site are consistent with materials found in the shipwrecks in Pensacola Bay.

“We’re getting pottery that matches chemically with what’s on the shipwreck,” Garner said.

Worth said the Viceroy of New Spain sent the fleet from modern-day Mexico to establish the Atlantic coast of Florida, then push inland to Coosa and finally to Santa Elena on the South Carolina coast. The colony lasted from 1559-61 and included 550 Spanish soldiers, about 200 Aztecs and an unknown number of African slaves.

A hurricane struck the colony just five weeks after the 1,500 or so people settled in Pensacola and wiped out the six ships carrying their supplies.

“They were stranded. It took them months to get supplies. The first relief of expedition didn’t show up until December, so Luna all of the sudden had too many mouths to feed,” Worth said. “There were not enough Native Americans in the area to even remotely provide food, and by that time, when they didn’t want to be seen they didn’t get seen.”

Historical significance of the discovered shipwrecks is extraordinary. Worth said they provide tremendous insight into the nature of machinery that settlers traveled to the new world in, and the artifacts on those ships reveal what they brought from Spain.

Knowledge of where they lived, though, presents archaeologists an incredible opportunity to discover who occupied the land and how they survived. Worth said research indicates the settlers moved inland into Alabama for about six months in search of food, but they returned after Native Americans ran off with their food.

“Nobody’s ever found that site (in Alabama), although now that we know what we’re looking for, I think it should turn up,” he said.

Worth considers the Luna colony (Santa Maria de Ochuse) to be the fourth and final significant Spanish settlement in Pensacola along with the Naval Air Station in 1698 (Presidio Santa Maria de Galve), Fort Pickens area in 1722 (Presidio Isla de Santa Rosa) and downtown Pensacola in 1754 (Presidio San Miguel de Panzacola).

The exact size of the Luna colony is unknown. Worth predicts the site will be multiple city blocks.

Elizabeth Benchley, director of the UWF division of Anthropology and Archaeology and of the Archaeology Institute, said access to the site is dependent on the neighborhood residents.

UWF officials met with about 100 of the residents Wednesday night to reveal the historic significance of what they discovered and a desire to explore the neighborhood without disrupting their lives. The crowd responded enthusiastically to the news, and all six of the neighbors that spoke to the News Journal said they will permit UWF archaeologists to examine their property.

If neighbors grant his crew the access he covets, Worth said a significant portion of a 10-week archaeological field school this summer will be spent testing and excavating at the site. Worth and a small crew of students and staff will periodically check on the site and conduct small-scale projects in the spring semester, too. The collected artifacts will be curated in the archaeological lab.

“All we have is the things that people made and left in the ground or disturbed in the ground, and from that is how we reconstruct these past cultures,” Worth said. “To me, one of the best things we could find are intact walls that bound interior and exterior and other things like that, that’ll give us clues to literally daily life inside one of these colony houses.”

Worth is already clearing his next few summers to explore the oldest established European multi-year settlement. He said, “Wow” about a half dozen times when he first laid eyes on the artifacts collected by Garner on Oct. 30. The historical significance of the discovery still blows his mind two-and-a-half weeks later.

“Every time I think about it deep, I get really excited,” Worth said. “It’s hard to believe this opportunity, this window, this site is finally here. Now not only do we have it, but we get to explore it.”

Chapter 2: Years of research - and a little luck - lead to discovery

Local historian Tom Garner read the translated version of "The Luna Papers" long ago and identified an urban downtown Pensacola neighborhood as one of the possible places Don Tristan de Luna established his colony from 1559-1561. Its close proximity to the two shipwrecks linked to the Luna expedition in Pensacola Bay only heightened his suspicion.

Garner drove through that neighborhood on a fateful Oct. 2 afternoon when he noticed an unusual site that prompted him to step on the brake.

"There was ground disturbed, so I – I think all archaeologists are nosy – see this ground that's been exposed and it's in a good spot, a likely candidate for the settlement for decades, and the ship wrecks are close by, so I thought, 'Well, I need to look at that lot,'" Garner said. "Then another part of me goes, 'I don't want to look at that lot.' I've got stuff to do, right? But I thought, 'No, I've got to look at the lot.'

Garner walked over to the privately owned lot, where a bulldozed house once stood, and spotted what to an untrained eye amounted to garbage – a half rim of an olive jar.

But Garner knew better.

Tom Garner with assorted pottery sherds he originally found on the surface of the Luna settlement, including Spanish olive jar, lead glazed coarse earthenware, majolica, and incised and plain Native American pottery. Special to the News Journal

Norman Simons, the deceased former curator of the Pensacola Historical Museum in Old Christ Church and later the first curator of the T. T. Wentworth Jr. Florida State Museum, taught Garner how to identify artifacts, and in 1983, Garner attended an archaeology field school at the University of West Florida. Judy Bense, UWF president since 2008, taught the class in which he learned professional archaeological methods.

Garner immediately identified the sherd as that of a mid-16th century olive jar, and he contacted the UWF Archaeology Institute about his discovery. UWF then sought permission from the property owners to further investigate the property.

The curious Garner returned to the lot three weeks later and found the olive jar rim undisturbed. He conducted a surface collection and discovered a large fragment of mid-16th century Columbia Plain majolica pottery.

Confident he found the Luna colony site, Garner proceeded to conduct another three surface collections over the next week and discovered Spanish colonial and Native American artifacts. He brought his findings to the archaeological institute Oct. 30 to be examined by John Worth, associate professor of historical archaeology, Jan Lloyd, director of the archaeological lab, and Elizabeth Benchley, director of the division of anthropology and archaeology and director of the Archaeology Institute.

"What we saw in front of us in the lab that day was an amazing assemblage of mid-16th century Spanish colonial period artifacts," said Worth, a renowned archaeologist and a 16th century historian of Spanish colonies in the Southeast. "These items were very specific to this time period. The university conducted fieldwork at this site in the mid-1980s, as have others since then, but no one had ever found diagnostics of the sort that Tom found on the surface. People have looked for this site for a long time."

Garner described Worth's reaction as he examined the artifacts as priceless.

"We lay the artifacts on trays and John comes in and he sits down and he looks at them, and he's like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah' and after two or three minutes of looking at it and holding pieces and 'yeah, that's right,' he says 'Holy-moly,'" Garner said. "That was his exact quote, which I think is the best description of any archaeology site I've ever heard. There were quite a few 'Wows' thrown in there as well over the next half hour or so."

Garner drove through the neighborhood at an opportune time with the property owners transitioning from tearing down a structure to building their new home.

Worth said confirming access with the property owners proved challenging. The wife had a baby during that time period.

UWF archaeologists and students arrived four consecutive days at the facility dressed for the field and anxiously waiting for the property owners to agree to the excavation.

"Every day it was like, 'Have we heard?' 'No we haven't heard.' There was an email chain going, about a hundred emails, and texting all day long just trying to find out if we could go out," said Patty McMahon, a UWF grad assistant and the field director.

Worth received the long-awaited call from the property owners at 10 a.m. Nov. 6, and he and his crew rushed over to the site within an hour. The first shovel test popped up another rim and once they dug under the surface top soil they found an abundance of mid-16th century Spanish pottery sherds.

The property owners granted a five-day window to excavate, and the UWF crew shared the lot with the construction company.

"We were out there literally sifting the back dirt of the trenches while workers were digging on the other end at the same time," Worth said. "It really worked well, and the key is the project is still moving forward, and we have information we wouldn't have otherwise."

Garner said a countless number of individuals probably walked that same site prior to him and tossed or kicked aside the sherds. Evidence of the first multi-year European settlement in United States history laid there waiting to be discovered, and fortunately for the UWF Archaeological Institute, Garner pulled over that afternoon to inspect the bulldozed lot.

"I know how important this is because all of these guys are smiling real big," Garner said of the UWF archaeologists. "I haven't been patted on the back so much in my entire life, like I have by these guys."

Chapter 3: Neighbors excited to be part of Luna history

A significant number of the neighbors already heard about the historic discovery of the Luna settlement through word of mouth and seeing archaeologists on site, but after University of West Florida President Judy Bense confirmed the rumor, the enthusiastic crowd cheered and clapped loud enough to be heard by anyone within a block radius.

UWF officially announced discovery of the Luna colony Thursday morning in a press conference at T.T. Wentworth Jr. Florida State Museum, but its president and those involved in the discovery decided to break the news to those who live on the site during a meeting the night before at Constant Coffee and Tea, 615 Scenic Highway. A crowd of about 100 filled the coffee shop to the brim.

“All my life growing up I always said, Pensacola was the first settlement. I would never say St. Augustine was. I’d always say Pensacola was. And now guess what?” said 71-year-old Sherry Kennedy.

Principal site investigator John Worth said St. Augustine still holds bragging rights as the oldest continuous settlement in the United States. Luna established the settlement in 1559 – six years before St. Augustine – but the colony lasted only into 1561.

The Luna colony is arguably the first European settlement and unquestionably the oldest multi-year European settlement.

Worth said some historians will contend Juan Ponce de Leon, near Fort Myers in 1521, or Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon, near Brunswick, Ga., in 1526, established the first settlements in the United States. He said that is debatable, though. Those expeditions only lasted a few weeks at best and are yet to be discovered.

When the crowd asked him Wednesday night if theirs is the oldest neighborhood in U.S. history, Worth said, “

Future excavations of the historic site by UWF archaeologists are dependent on the neighbors granting access to their private properties. The historical site is in an urban downtown neighborhood within view of the two uncovered shipwrecks linked to the Luna expedition in Pensacola Bay.

“The property owners own the artifacts. They just do,” said Tom Garner, whose initial discovery of a mid-16th century olive jar rim Oct. 2 put this in motion. “It’ll be through their generosity, like the lot we just dug on. They generously said you can have these things, you can curate them.”

The News Journal spoke to six of the neighbors Wednesday night, and they each said they will allow UWF archaeologists to examine their property for artifacts.

Yvonne Bonifay Strouse already invited the UWF crew to her property. Her family first moved to Pensacola in the 1790s, and her house is nearly 100 years old. The 78-year-old Strouse said she heard about the Luna colony discovery when her first cousin, Harriett Allen, called and told her the news.

“When I heard it, I was ecstatic. I got chill bumps,” Strouse said.

Worth explained the history of the Luna settlement to the neighbors and then showed them pictures of a few of the artifacts discovered in the past two months at the site.

“It’s absolutely fabulous,” said 76-year-old Shirley Gray, who moved into the neighborhood in 2003. “It’s very important. It’s about our history. It’s good for Pensacola. It’s good for the community. It’s great to know about. It’s great for West Florida. Just think of all the people. It’s wonderful.”

Worth said the artifacts amount to mid-16th century Spanish garbage. He assured the neighbors there is no treasure to be found on their properties. The colonists nearly starved and traded any items of value to Native Americans for food.

That garbage will potentially unlock a treasure of information, though, and with that in mind, Worth asked the neighbors to call the UWF Archaeological Institute before digging in their yards.

“I tell my students archaeology is less like Indiana Jones and more like Sherlock Holmes. We’re after clues,” said Worth, associate professor of historical archaeology in the UWF Department of Anthropology. “I want to know who they were, what they looked like, what their culture was like, what they came with, what they ate and all of that is based on post holes and pits and in context undisturbed. That’s where we get our best information.”

Worth encouraged the neighbors to be active in the discovery and stay connected by asking questions at the site or following updates on his blog and the university website. He and the other UWF officials promised to be accommodating and not interfere in their daily lives.

“I think everybody’s excited to allow them onto their property, and it sounds like they’re very respectful of it. That’s the most important thing,” said Bonnie Peters, who moved into the neighborhood in 1995 and owns two properties there.

When asked if she is concerned about individuals possibly trespassing on her property in search of artifacts, Peters said, “I think it’ll die down. I just can’t really anticipate that. It’s going to be weird. Who lives this situation?”

Chapter 4: UWF Archaeology Program Profiles

JOHN WORTH

Principal investigator

John E. Worth is associate professor of historical archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of West Florida, where he specializes in archaeology and ethnohistory focusing on the Spanish colonial era in the southeastern U.S.

A Georgia native, Dr. Worth received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Florida in 1992 and spent 15 years in public archaeology program administration in Georgia and Florida before becoming a member of the faculty at UWF in 2007.

He is author of "Discovering Florida: First-Contact Narratives of Spanish Expeditions along the Lower Gulf Coast" (2014), "The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida" (1998), "The Struggle for the Georgia Coast" (1995 & 2007) and more than 150 other professional and lay publications and presented papers.

ELIZABETH BENCHLEY

Archaeology Program Director

Dr. Elizabeth D. Benchley is director of the Division of Anthropology and Archaeology and of the Archaeology Institute at the University of West Florida.

Benchley manages the institute's resources to support the academic and research interests of the division's faculty, staff and students. Her local research focuses on the Spanish, British and American archaeology of the Pensacola area. She teaches courses in cultural resource management and writing in anthropology and she is active in public archaeology outreach.

Benchley received her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she directed the archaeological research laboratory and managed the cultural resource management program for more than 20 years. She has authored hundreds of reports and monographs on her archaeological investigations in the Midwest and the Pensacola area.

TOM GARNER

Research assistant

Tom Garner is a Pensacola native and a local historian with more than 30 years of historical research experience. He attended the archaeology field school at University of West Florida in 1983, which was then led by Dr. Judith Bense.

After his time attending the field school he worked at UWF as an archaeology field and lab tech for several years on a number of historic and prehistoric archaeological sites in the Pensacola area.

In 1986, he alerted UWF to the location of the 1698 settlement of Pensacola, Presidio Santa María de Galve, which was the first permanent settlement of Pensacola and 139 years after the Tristan de Luna settlement. Garner also contributed to the local community by founding the Pensacola Archaeological Society in 1985.