Murder, Martyrdom and the Struggle for Florida

The Threads of Memory Lecture Series

Nov 21, 2010

Dr. J. Michael Francis speaks on “Murder, Martyrdom, and the Struggle for La Florida: Rethinking Spanish Florida’s Mission History, 1565-1606,” at 2 pm, Sunday, Nov. 21, the next event in the Threads of Memory Lecture series. (Free with museum admission; Sundays free to NM residents.)

Francis's talk will introduce audiences to the remarkable, yet relatively unknown, history of the earliest Franciscan missions in what is now the United States. His talk includes the 1597 murders of five Franciscan friars stationed in the northern realm of Spanish Florida, a fascinating 16th-century murder mystery that will audiences to question the nature of Spanish rule in colonial Florida.

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