Rachel Briggs (UNC Chapel Hill) will speak about eight Native women who were enslaved by a group of Spanish soldiers and Native warriors, forcing them into the brutal world of La Florida. This group of Native women become unlikely observers to one of history’s lost chapters, bearing witness to Spain’s repeated failed attempts at colonization of the Southeastern United States in the sixteenth century. In this presentation, she will focus on a small portion of their journey that took them to the Native town of Joara and the Spanish colonial site of Fort San Juan where they were expected to cook and care for at least thirty Spanish soldiers, before they were relocated to the Spanish colony of Santa Elena in early 1568.