Juan de Salinas was the governor of

Spanish Florida Spanish Florida () was the first major European land-claim and attempted settlement-area in northern America during the European Age of Discovery. ''La Florida'' formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and th ...

from August 2, 1618 - October 28, 1624.Ben Cahoon
U.S. States F-K
Salinas arrived at

Saint Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berbers, Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia (Roman province), Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced th ...

in 1618 to replace Juan Treviño de Guillamas as governor of the Spanish territory of ''La Florida''. Under his administration, living conditions for Christianized Native Americans living in the Spanish missions of the territory deteriorated. They retreated to the forests of Guale and San Pedro (now

Cumberland, Georgia Cumberland is an edge city in Cobb County located in an unincorporated area of the northwest Atlanta metropolitan area, Georgia, United States. It is situated northwest of downtown Atlanta. With approximately 122,000 workers and 103,000 reside ...

) to escape near slavery. Salinas's unsympathetic policy in dealing with the Natives caused problems in Spanish relations with the tribes. According to a later report by a Spanish soldier,

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Adrián de Cañizares y Osorio, Salinas dispatched him more than sixty leagues into the interior in Florida to punish the

Chisca The Chisca were a tribe of Native Americans living in present-day eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia in the 16th century. Their descendants, the Yuchi lived in present-day Alabama, Georgia, and Florida in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th ...

and Chichimeco peoples, "who were disturbing and robbing and killing the Christian Indians of the provinces of Timicua and Apalachee...". In 1623, Salinas received reports of an expedition of "blond men on horseback" (probably groups of English settlers from the area that later became the

Province of Carolina The Province of Carolina was a colony of the Kingdom of England (1663–1707) and later the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1712) that existed in North America and the Caribbean from 1663 until the Carolinas were partitioned into North and Sou ...

) exploring inland La Florida, territory claimed by the Spanish. Salinas sent two ''entradas'' (reconnaissance expeditions) of twenty soldiers and sixty Guale Native Americans led by a Timucuan chief, in search of them. His successor, Luis de Rojas y Borja, sent a third ''entrada'' of 10 soldiers and 60 Guale for the same purpose. It is not known if they ever found them.

References

{{Florida-bio-stub Royal governors of La Florida