“S“ is for Spanish

“S“ is for Spanish. On a monument at the tip of Parris Island, a tile plaque proclaims, “Aqui estuvo España” (“Here was Spain”). The plaque refers to the colony of Santa Elena, located at this site (1566 to 1587), but the Spanish presence in South Carolina extended much longer than those twenty-one years. Some of Spain's earliest efforts at exploration, evangelization, and settlement in the present day United States Southeast took place within South Carolina's boundaries. In 1521 Spanish explorers on a slave-raiding expedition stopped in the area of Winyah Bay. In 1540 Hernando de Soto and his army of six hundred crossed the Savannah River seeking a route to Mexico. The settlement of Santa Elena  on Parris Island founded in 1566 (and the capital of the Spanish colony La Florida), was Spain's most significant venture in South Carolina