“Some people, moved by malice and excessive envy, have accused Spain of having brought dominion over the whole of the New World at no greater outlay of fortune than the expenditure of stupid and persistent madmen.”
- Garcilaso de la Vega
Calderon’s Company is a group of “living-history” volunteers based at De Soto National Memorial, in Bradenton, Florida. The organization is named after Captain Pedro Calderón, who was left in charge of the base camp and port with approximately 100 soldiers and sailors, when Hernando de Soto began his entrada into La Florida in June of 1539. Members of the company have since 1993 researched, constructed arms and armor, and portrayed the garrison life of these sixteenth-century conquistadors in the Tampa Bay area. Additionally, Calderon’s Company has done public demonstrations at the De Soto Winter Encampment site in Tallahassee and at various State Parks and museums throughout Florida. As well, the group also frequently participates at sixteenth century reenactments in St. Augustine.
Introduction to the Site
I hope to provide in this website articles of interest to the sixteenth century Spanish colonial re-enactor. As was mentioned above our primary portrayal is that of the 1539 Hernando de Soto entrada and more particularly that of Captain Pedro Calderón's garrison. We also on occasion adopt the personas of some of the other less well known expeditions into Florida, including those of Juan Ponce de Leon (1513 & 1521), Panfilo de Narvaez (1528), Tristan de Luna, (1559) and the Menendez Era (1565 & 1586). The De Soto expedition itself is unusually well documented in that there are three first-hand accounts (without getting into the scholarly debate a to who may have stole what from who) and one extensive, if exaggerated, second-hand narrative along with a chronicle fragment, numerous court records and official letters. Still, even with this much information available there are no surviving muster/equipment lists, or manifests,a manual of arms or even standardized uniforms as with other later periods of re-enactment. Consequently, the original chronicles have to be examined carefully for small details, and other similar expeditions of the sixteenth-century have to be studied in order to create an impression supplemented with information from extremely rare but invaluable archaeological finds. In roughly descending order we study the Hernando de Soto expedition, other entradas in La Florida, the Spanish expeditions in the Southwest, other contemporary explorations in the Americas, and military science in Spain/Europe during the time of the conquest of the New World. Therefore the content on this site includes biographies, costuming, details from the history of expeditions, reviews of books and the best of conquistador movies, OK, any conquistador movies. Also, excerpts from those who have gone before in re-creating various aspects of the conquest as well as accounts of the food of the conquistadors, and of course its complement.
Sixteenth Century Reenactment in Florida
For those of you who are not familiar with sixteenth century reenactment and living history in Florida, I hope that this quick overview of some of the major events will serve. De Soto National Memorial has been presenting a living history program during the winter season (day after Christmas-Easter) for park visitors since 1973. The park rangers in period clothing interpret the history, arms, armor, and daily life of the De Soto expedition. The members of Calderon’s Company can usually be found in the Spanish Camp doing our own brand of interpretation on the 2nd Sunday of the month at the Memorial, especially during the Park's off season, unless we're at one of the other events held elsewhere in the state.
The De Soto Winter Encampment event is sponsored by the State's Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Parks and Recreation. The encampment is held in Tallahassee, Florida on the archaeologically determined location of the Apalachee village where Hernando de Soto spent the winter of 1539/1540. The event runs Wednesday - Saturday during the second week in January, the first three days are for school group tours and on Saturday the event is open to the general public.
The Men of Menéndez in St. Augustine hold three major events during the year. In late January/Early February there is the School of the 16th Century, an intensive school with classes on weapons handling and drill (cannon, musket, sword, pike, etc.), food, clothing, recreation, and daily life. A battle tactical is also held. Drake’s Raid, a re-enactment of Drake’s attack and burning of St. Augustine in 1586 takes place in early June. An encampment and demonstrations are held during the day with a battle between the English and Spanish forces occurring at dusk on downtown's St. George's street. The Menéndez Landing occurs in early September at the Catholic Church's Mission of Nombre de Dios, site of the original landing. The event is a re-enactment of Pedro Menéndez’s Landing of Troops and colonists on the Shores of St. Augustine. Many other events highlighting the First Encounters of Europeans with Native People are held throughout the year and around the state.
For more information on the sixteenth century reenactment groups and
events in Florida check out the propaganda on the "Of Like Mind" page
below
and the likewise named section on the linkpage.
Content:
This is divided up into a number broad catagories as follows, most of which contain several related articles and occasional cross linking between catagories.
Living History/Reenactment
Links to
all manner of related sites
Photo Galleries
Moderated by Kent Goff of MVEP this is an achived e-mail originally intended just for planning the De Soto 2000 event in Arkansas, but still maintained for event annoucements, questions and the like for Conquistador era reenactors.
*indicates known working & updated link
Hello, and welcome to version 2.0 of Calderon’s Company the unofficial website of Conquistador era re-enactment. This is primarily the result of my having three year’s worth of newsletter articles and research taking up hard drive space in the computer. As @home has gone bankrupt this site is migrating over to Comcast, at least for the time being. As I transfer files over [Late Feb. 2002] I'm trying to take the time to clean some of my early attempts at HTML. Portions are still under construction, but take a look around. Updates will be posted at irregular intervals (in other words whenever I get around to it- ie it looks like its going to take me a year to get the whole site up and running with little in the way of new info. ). I would appreciate feedback and will gladly consider article submissions.
-Timothy Burke-<):{)}
Calderon's Company
Questions, comments, suggestions, bad links, spelling mistakes, grammar errors and the five simple actions that will turn me into a mental wizard overnight can be directed to:
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Since February 1, 1999
