Overview

The Gulf of Mexico was the first real entry point to the North American mainland, but by the time Christopher Columbus (c. 1451-1506) came to America in 1492, it was still unexplored. The sixteenth century, however, saw a rapid increase in Spanish exploration of the Americas, with Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519), Juan Ponce de León (c. 1460-1521), and Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) headlining the major conquests of Cuba, Mexico, and South America. But it was a lesser known and less-fabled explorer, Alonso Alvarez de Piñeda (d. 1520), who first sailed the entire Gulf of Mexico coastline, spotting the Mississippi River and confirming that Florida...