San Miguel de Gualdape

San Miguel de Gualdape
Detail of Ribero map showing land granted to Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón on southeast coast of North America, site of first Spanish colony established in present-day United States

San Miguel de Gualdape (sometimes San Miguel de Guadalupe) was a short-lived Spanish colony founded in 1526 by Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón. It was established somewhere on the coast of present-day Carolinas or Georgia, but the exact location has been the subject of a long-running scholarly dispute. It was the first European settlement in what became the continental United States, and the third in North America north of Mexico.^{[note 1]}

Ayllón's expedition made their first landing at or near Winyah Bay around August 9, 1526. They quickly found the area unsuitable for settlement and relocated to the south, possibly at Sapelo Sound in Georgia, where the colony lasted just two months before it was overwhelmed by disease, hunger, a slave uprising, and a hostile Native American population. Of the 600 would-be settlers who set out, only about 150 lived to leave.^[1]

The enslaved Africans brought by the settlers became the first documented black slaves in what would become the continental United States and carried out the first slave rebellion there.^[2]

Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).