This exhibition spans nearly three hundred years of Spanish exploration, settlement, and eventual loss of Florida. It consists of several firsts, including a woodblock print depicting the earliest map of North and South America separate from the rest of the world. Exhibition highlights include one of the few first-person accounts by Hernando d’ Escalante Fontaneda, describing southeast Florida’s Native Americans, and a published 1726 Spanish map, a rarity as Spaniards relied on manuscript maps rather than printed ones. The exhibition’s centerpiece is an uncommon bronze Communion wafer press, believed to be associated with a Spanish mission established in 1567 on Mound Key in southwestern Florida.
Organized by HistoryMiami in collaboration with the Jay I. Kislak Foundation and the Office of the Governor of Florida.
