La Florida : Catholics, Conquistadores, and Other American Origin Stories

La Florida explores a Spanish thread to early American history that is unfamiliar or even unknown to most Americans. As La Florida uncovers, it was Spanish influence, not English, which drove America’s early history. By focusing on America’s Spanish heritage, the book’s collection of stories complicates and sometimes challenges how Americans view their past, which author Kevin Kokomoor refers to as “the country’s founding mythology.”

This narrative covers Hispanic and Caribbean history, describing how important happenings elsewhere in the Spanish colonial world influenced the discovery and colonization of the American Southeast. Follow Spanish sailors discovering the edges of a new continent and greedy, violent conquistadors quickly moving in to find riches, along with Catholic missionaries on their search for religious converts. Learn how Spanish colonialism in Florida influence the British’s plans for colonization of the continent and influence some of the most enduring traditions of the larger Southeast. And challenge the general assumption that whatever is important or interesting about this country is a product of its English past.