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Content: Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón died during his attempt to start the San Miguel de Gualdape settlement in 1526 at Sapelo Sound, mid-way between modern Savannah, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida. After just three months, the remaining colonists returned to Hispaniola and abandoned the first attempt to establish a permanent European colony in North America. It would be 81 more years before the English landed at Jamestown.2
Hernando de Soto's expedition, which started in 1539, demonstrated that Native American societies in North America did not have stockpiles of gold, silver or other resources to loot. Unlike the Aztec and Inca, the societies de Soto met were not organized as powerful hierarchies dominating large numbers of subordinates. There was no opportunity in North America for the Spanish to kill a pre-existing set of leaders and quickly establish control over large numbers of laborers accustomed to obedience. in 1718, a French map showed de Soto's route from modern Tampa to the Mississippi River
Source: Library of Congress, Carte de la Louisiane et du cours du Mississippi ... (by Guillaume de L'Isle, 1718)
The Atlantic coastline of North America offered no mineral wealth, had few concentrations of Native Americans who could be forced to labor for Spanish colonists, and was north of the normal route home for the treasure fleet. Virginia was far on the periphery of the core interests in the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. There was only one abortive Spanish effort to establish a foothold in the Chesapeake Bay, at Ajacan in 1570. the annual treasure fleet that sailed to Spain assembled at Havana, combining ships that had left Vera Cruz loaded with Mexican silver and goods from Manila (red line) with ships that had left Panama loaded with Peruvian silver (red line) before the "Flota de Indias" sailed from Havana to Spain (green line)
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