2016 Gold eLit Book Award international competition Beginning four centuries ago North America was almost annexed to Imperial Spain's vast New World empire. Known as La Florida, "the land of flowers," this well researched and scholarly work examines the earliest period of United States colonial history to reveal the often forgotten invasions by Spanish conquistadors Juan Ponce de León, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Pánfilo de Narváez, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and Hernando de Soto. Spanish armies were the first Europeans to travel inland into this vast unknown continent, the first to encounter these Native American tribes and chiefdoms - and the first to fail in an attempt to conquer North America. Ultimately, it was the unrelenting opposition of Native Americans to the Spanish invasions of their homeland that resulted in King Charles I going to his grave believing North America was unfit for Spanish occupation. Not until his son Philip inherited the throne some two decades later will a new generation of conquistadors offer a glimmer of hope that Spain could force this region into its global empire.