"This volume successfully mines the Pardo documents to reveal a wealth of information pertaining to Pardo's routes, his encounters and interactions with native peoples, the social, hierarchical, and political structures of the Indians, and clues to the ethnic identities of Indians known previously only through archaeology. The new afterword reveals recent archaeological evidence of Pardo's Fort San Juan - the earliest site of sustained interaction between Europeans and Indians in interior North America - demonstrating the accuracy of Hudson's route reconstructions."--Jacket.

Originally published: Smithsonian Institution Press, ©1990. With new introd.

I.The Juan Pardo expeditions -- 1. Early Spanish exploration -- 2. Juan Pardo's two expeditions -- 3. The Indians -- 4. The foundations of Greater Florida -- 5. The failure of Greater Florida -- II. The Pardo documents -- The "long" Bandera relation : AGI, Santo Domingo 224 -- The "short" Bandera relation : AGI, Patronato 19, R. 20 -- The Pardo relation : AGI, Patronato 19, R. 22 (document 1) -- The Martinez relation : AGI, Patronato 19, R. 22 (document 2) -- Three new documents from the Pardo expeditions : AGI, Contratacion 2929 No. 2, R. 7 -- pt. III. Afterword -- Pardo, Joara, and Fort San Juan revisited / David G. Moore, Robin A. Beck, Jr. and Christopher B. Rodning.