Nancy Dalence, Director of Education at the Tampa Bay History Center, welcomes guests to “Florida Conversations’’ at Weedon Island on March 25, 2023. Photos by Diane Egner
History Professor Michael Francis, Chair of Florida Studies at the University of South Florida, presents “Florida Conversations: Lost Voices From St. Augustine’s Parish Archive, 1594-1821.’’ Photos by Diane Egner
USF scholars and students researching passengers aboard Spanish ships that arrived in Florida in the 1500s find great detail showing the diversity of people, ages, hometowns and skillsets. Photos by Diane Egner
USF Professor Micheal Francis talks about how researchers spend months tracking the relationships and fates of thousands of Spanish explorers. Photos by Diane Egner
Julia and James Waters drove over to Weedon Island in Pinellas County from Tampa to hear the Florida Conversation with History Professor Michael Francis. Photos by Diane Egner
Professor Michael Francis explains how members of the public can access information about early Spanish explorers on the laflorida.org website. Photos by Diane Egner
Among the mysteries researchers continue to study are the hometowns of European explorers, one listed as Excheerlexpte, possibly an extinct community in Wales. Photos by Diane Egner
Audience members ask astute questions about their own ancestry and possible ties to the original Spanish explorers who arrived in Florida in the early1500s. Photos by Diane Egner
People from Tampa, St. Petersburg, Tarpon Springs, and all over the Tampa Bay Area attended the Tampa Bay History Center’s latest Florida Conversation at Weedon Island Preserve in Pinellas County. Photos by Diane Egner
Florida Conversations and other lectures and events are recorded and can be viewed on the Tampa Bay History Center’s YouTube channel. Photos by Diane Egner
Weedon Island Preserve is a 3,000+ acre natural area in Pinellas County just south of the Gandy Bridge that is home to native plants and animals, an educational facility and a rich cultural history. Photos by Diane Egner
A small history center and gift shop plus a mile-long nature walk and connecting trails attract visitors from all over the globe to learn more about Florida’s natural habitat. Photos by Diane Egner
Friends of Weedon Island support the Preserve through education, preservation and protection of its habitat, ecology and cultural history. Learn more: https://friendsofweedonisland.org/ Photos by Diane Egner
Did you know that Spanish explorers landed in Florida in the early 1500s and built communities, long before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock?
History Professor Dr. J. Michael Francis, Chair of Florida Studies at the University of South Florida, dropped that fact of history and more while presenting “Florida Conversations: Lost Voices From St. Augustine’s Parish Archive, 1594-1821’’ during a Florida Conversation hosted by the Weedon Island Preserve and the Tampa Bay History Center.
Among some of his other top talking points?
- Francis and his USF students have translated Spanish records from St. Augustine from the 1500s to the 1800s. You can see much of what they found by visiting the La Florida website.
- After landing in St. Augustine, the Spanish explorers established outposts in areas now included in both Carolinas and Tennessee before others arrived in what would become New England.
- Significant archeological exploration has been done of a location on Parris Island, S.C. that has documented the historic lifestyle of explorers that included men and women of all ages and from all over Europe and Africa, some enslaved, some free, including their interaction with Native Americans.
Learn more about the March 25th event by scrolling through and reading the captions on the images above.
To learn more about the Weedon Island Preserve, visit
Pinellas County Parks. And to support the Preserve and ensure its sustainability, join
Friends of Weedon Island.
To learn more about Florida Conversations, visit the dropdown menu for Events on the
Tampa Bay History Center website.
To see and hear past conversations and other history lectures, visit the
Tampa Bay History Center’s YouTube Channel.
To learn more about how to explore a degree in Florida studies, visit the
University of South Florida website.
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Read more articles by Diane Egner.
Diane Egner is a community leader and award-winning journalist with more than four decades of experience reporting and writing about the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. She serves on the boards of the University of South Florida Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications Advisory Council, The Institute for Research in Art (Graphicstudio, the Contemporary Art Museum, and USF’s Public Art Program) Community Advisory Council, Sing Out and Read, and StageWorks Theatre Advisory Council. She also is a member of Leadership Florida and the Athena Society. A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BA in journalism, she won the top statewide award for editorial writing from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors while at The Tampa Tribune and received special recognition by the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists for creative work as Content Director at WUSF Public Media. Past accomplishments and community service include leadership positions with Tampa Tiger Bay Club, USF Women in Leadership & Philanthropy (WLP), Alpha House of Tampa Bay, Awesome Tampa Bay, Florida Kinship Center, AIA Tampa Bay, Powerstories, Arts Council of Hillsborough County, and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. Diane and her husband, Sandy Rief, live in Tampa.