History
See also: Hispanic Heritage Sites (U.S. National Park Service)Spanish was the language spoken by the first permanent European settlers in North America. Spanish arrived in the territory of the contemporary United States with Ponce de León in 1513. In 1565, the Spaniards, by way of Juan Ponce de León, founded St. Augustine, Florida, and as of the early 1800s, it became the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States. The oldest city in all of the U.S. territory, as of 1898, is San Juan, capital of Puerto Rico, where Juan Ponce De León was its first governor and from where he left towards Florida seeking the fountain of youth, gold and slaves.
Historically, the Spanish-speaking population increased because of territorial annexation of lands claimed earlier by the Spanish empire and by wars with Mexico and by land purchases, while modern factors continue increasing the size of this population.
Read more about this topic: Spanish Language In The United States
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)