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The first multi-year European settlement in the continental United States was Pensacola, which was established on [[Santa Rosa Island]] at Emanuel Point in East Hill, a small neighborhood in modern Pensacola, by conquistador Don [[Tristán de Luna y Arellano]] in 1559. Two years later, in 1561, the settlement and its fleet were destroyed by a hurricane and the site was abandoned. Two survivors managed to walk the arduous journey to Mexico City. Pensacola was permanently reestablished by the Spanish in 1698 and became the largest city in Florida and the capital of the colony of West Florida. Another important Spanish settlement was established at Saint Marks in Wakulla county (San Marcos de Apalache). The Spanish settlers established a unique [[Louisiana Creole people|Creole]] culture in the region and brought in the first African slaves to the area and introduced the Roman Catholic Church.

The ravages of Reconstruction greatly damaged the region's economy, but also allowed newly freed slaves an opportunity that they did not possess prior to the Civil War. Within the years following the end of the Civil War, the Freedman's Bureau helped to establish schools to teach African-Americans and poor whites to read, helping them to become more active participants in the local government and the community as a whole. Florida was readmitted to the Union on June 25, 1868. Within years, Pensacola had for its first time several African-Americans, some who were enslaved only a few years before, serving in local government. One man, Salvador Pons, even served as mayor of Pensacola in 1878. However, with the end of Reconstruction, came a reassertion of white hegemony on the local political landscape that lasted for over a century afterward.

As for the economy, Cotton, worked largely by the sharecropper descendants of freed slaves, remained crucial to the economy but slowly economic diversification and urbanization reached the region. Vast pine forests, their wood used to produce paper, became an economic basis. A brickmaking industry thrived at the turn of the twentieth century. Shipping declined in importance, but the military and manufacturing became prominent. Harvesting of fish and other seafood are also vital. Aside from cotton and pine trees, major crops include peanuts, soybeans, and corn. The [[Historic Pensacola]] [[Museum of Industry]] gives a detailed account of these turn-of-the-century foundations of the local economy.