2016 nominee for the Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction by the North Carolina Literary & Historical AssociationImperial Spain's conquistadors failed to add North America to its worldwide empire between 1513-1543. Decades later King Philip II renews the Spanish invasion of these lands known as La Florida. This award-winning book records these pivotal historic events as Commander Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his captain Juan Pardo are ordered to remove French Huguenots from the Atlantic coast and pacify the Native Americans. In addition, these last conquistadors are expected to construct forts along a trail to the silver mines of northern Mexico. While early successes are promising, the Creek, Cherokee and Catawba eventually fight to rid their homeland of these outsiders - creating an unexpected twist to history for the yet to be United States of America as England and France lay claim to North 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" 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 play about Captain Juan Pardo's arrival in Burke County, and later published a book entitled "Spanish Attempts to Colonize Southeast North America: 1513 - 1587." This was followed with the publication of "La Florida: Imperial Spain Invades Indian Chiefdoms of North America" and "The Last Conquistadors of Southeast North America." Currently he is completing an historical novel, "TAWODI," the story of a Cherokee warrior of the Blue Mountains who challenges the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. Today, the author resides with his wife Patricia in Irish Creek Valley along a waterway that flows into the Berry site of Joara and Fort San Juan.