Latino Archeology in the National Parks: Seven Places to Visit

The Lugano shipwreck, Biscayne National Park. NPS.

Latino heritage is a web of many origins and crossings, and archeology helps untangle it. The earliest Latino archeological sites in the U.S. date to 16th-century Spanish colonization. Late-20th-century sites are scarce in the record only because most aren't yet fifty years old — the baseline under federal law. These sites, in national parks and on the National Register of Historic Places, show both the imposition and suppression of religion, culture and language under colonialism and the growth of Latino heritage in its many branches.

Biscayne National Park, Florida

Archeology happens underwater too — a need that grew as divers and looters found shipwrecks. The Lugano, bound from Liverpool to Havana with silks, wine and food, sank off south Florida carrying 116 passengers, nearly all Spanish immigrants headed for new lives in Cuba. All survived. Divers can visit it on the park's Maritime Heritage Trail.

Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida

Dry Tortugas National Park. NPS.

Ponce de León named these coral islands west of Key West for their many sea turtles (tortugas) and lack of fresh water. They became important to trade between Spain and the Gulf Coast — and a graveyard for ships, among them the 600-ton Nuestra Señora del Rosario, wrecked in a storm sailing from Cuba to Spain.

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, Florida

Castillo de San Marcos. NPS.

The oldest masonry fort in the United States, in the first Spanish settlement to last in what is now the U.S., has served as fort, prison and refuge. Its story reflects a colonial culture blending Spanish, African and Indigenous customs, and visitors can see archeological finds from the settlement on display.

Petroglyph National Monument, New Mexico

Crosses carved by early Spanish settlers. NPS.

Petroglyphs — images chiseled into rock — show how people used a landscape. The park has more than 24,000 carvings along a 17-mile basalt escarpment, some dating back to 2,000 BCE. The most recent were made by Spanish settlers in the colonial era, including religious crosses.

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, Texas

The Espada aqueduct. NPS.

The missions along the San Antonio River were about far more than conversion: they housed soldiers, sustained cultural life and practiced integrated farming. Archeology shows Native corn, squash and beans grew beside European wheat and barley, watered by acequias (irrigation ditches) from the river. The park holds the ruins of the oldest aqueduct and the churches of San José and San Juan.

Ybor City National Historic District, Florida

Casitas in Ybor City. NPS.

Archeology can be recent. In Tampa's Ybor City, home to Cuban immigrants since the late 1800s and once the "cigar factory of the world," exiles found refuge from political turmoil, and poet and activist José Martí spoke outside its social clubs for Cuba's independence from Spain. The district has 950 historic buildings. Excavations at the casitas that factory owners built for workers' families found everyday things such as pencils and medicine bottles; the Ybor City Museum displays such finds.

Caparra Archeological Site, Puerto Rico

Stone foundations of La Ciudad de Puerto Rico. NPS.

In the 1930s, archeologists found the foundations of Puerto Rico's first capital. Ponce de León founded La Ciudad de Puerto Rico in 1508; its first building, the Casa de Tapias, was built in the Spanish tapia manner, and a chapel served its 200 residents. Resistance by the Taíno people drove the Spanish to move the capital to San Juan, and Caparra, abandoned in 1521, lay largely untouched until excavation. Visitors can see its foundations, including Ponce de León's house, and artifacts at the Museum of the Conquest and Colonization of Puerto Rico. See the Caparra site.

Sources

Based on "Visit Latino Archeology," National Park Service, published in English and Spanish; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The English text says all but two of the Lugano's passengers were Spanish immigrants; the Spanish text reads as if only two were. The source also says Ponce de León settled the Dry Tortugas; it describes only his naming them.