Interests.

By the early 1560s, Panfilo de Narvaez and Hernando de Soto's failure to discover easily extractable wealth and the hostility of powerful Indian tribes such as the Calusa combined to diminish Spanish interest in the southeastern part of North America. La Florida, however, continued to attract the attention of Spain and other European states because of its strategic position just north of the course the annual Spanish treasure fleet took on its richesladen return trip to Seville. After the Peace of Cateau- Cambresis in 1559, the French crown in particular eyed Florida as an ideal location from which privateers could attack the treasure fleet and plunder Spain's New World settlements. France consequently made plans to establish a fort on the peninsula's Atlantic coast. For the Spanish crown, on the other hand, Florida served as a critical bulwark that...