Lucas Vásquez d'Ayllón (1475? - 1526) Spanish explorer

A licentiate and sugar planter on Hispaniola, Luc Vasquez d'Ayllon commanded six vessels with 500 colonists, supplies and livestock, sailing from Santo Domingo in mid-July, 1526. After exploring the Georgia and Carolina coast (to Cape Fear or northward), they landed in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South Carolina, September 29, 1526 (Feast of Archangels).

Founding the first pre-mission, European settlement in North America (continental US), Ayllon's rough-hewn town, named San Miguel de Gualdape after a nearby river, withstood a three-month scarcity of supplies, hunger, disease, and troubles with the local Chicorean(?) natives.

After Ayllon's death. purportedly in the arms of a Dominican friar, and having endured great hardships, a surviving contingent of 150 colonists returned to Hispaniola in despair.

While scholars consider the location of San Miguel (Tierra d'Ayllon) to be conjecture, assertions the settlement existed as far north as the James River (Ajacan; Jacan) are probably inaccurate.