2017 North Carolina Historian of the YearAlthough Imperial Spain laid claim to Southeast North America for more than seven decades during the 16th century, attempts to colonize this region proved to be a dismal failure. Neither Juan Ponce de León who charted La Florida, "The Land of Flowers," nor Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón or Pánfilo de Narváez would succeed. Likewise, Spain's honored conquistadors Hernando de Soto, Tristán de Luna and Supreme Commander Pedro Menéndez with his captain Juan Pardo would also fail. Ultimately, it was the determination and intrepid resistance by Catawba, Creek and Cherokee chiefdoms to these invasions of their homeland that changed world history -- and a future United States of America.
About the Author: As a career community college educator and teacher of world history and anthropology, the author developed a special interest in western North Carolina's history and prehistory. During these years he wrote articles for a local newspaper and eventually published some of these in "Burke County: Historic Tales from the Gateway to the Blue Ridge," and also published "Indians of Burke County and Western North Carolina" for local interest as well as a booklet entitled "Time Capsules: the Why, the How, the Where." After retiring as a Dean Emeritus, this author became fascinated with an archaeological excavation of a sixteenth American Indian town called Joara near his home - and then they made an unexpected discovery that began to rewrite the early colonial history of the United States. Spanish artifacts were uncovered among the remains of several burned cabins once occupied by soldiers of Captain Juan Pardo at Fort San Juan, a date some twenty years before England's "Lost Colony" arrived on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, and four decades before the English settled James Towne, Virginia. Thereafter, the author became so captivated with the idea of Spanish explorers marching across these lands that he first wrote "Of Eagles & Wolves," a yet to be produced play about Captain Juan Pardo's arrival in Burke County, and later published "La Florida: Imperial Spain Invades Indian Chiefdoms of North America" and "The Last Conquistadors of Southeast North America." He recently completed his first historical novel,"TAWODI," the story of a Cherokee warrior of the Blue Ridge Mountains who challenges the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. Today, the author resides with his wife Patricia in Irish Creek Valley along this creek which flows into the Berry site of Joara and Fort San Juan.