The first European woman in America was Francesca Hinestrosa of Spain.
She joined her husband on de Soto’s expedition from Florida through Georgia and the Carolinas and then west, across the Appalachians toward the Mississippi.
She was killed in an attack by Chickasaw warriors in 1541. Later, in 1565, Spanish women helped settle Saint Augustine in Florida.
There, in 1566, Senora Arguelles gave birth to a boy, the first known child of European parents in what is now the United States.
