Old Spanish flag flies in the United Stated again

The Cross of Burgundy, which was the Spanish national flag in the XVI and XVII centuries, flies again very close to the place where Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés established the settlement of Santa Elena, considered the first European colonial capital in the modern-day United States.

The Santa Elena History Center was inaugurated on 30 April in the town of Beaufort, South Carolina, with an exhibition entitled “America’s Untold Story”, which reveals the tough competition between the Spanish, the French and the English in the conquest of the New World in the mid-16th century.

The inauguration was organised by the Santa Elena Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation devoted to the research, preservation and promotion of Santa Elena and the Spanish heritage in the US in general. Attendees included Andrew J. Beall, executive director of the Foundation; Lindsey Graham, US Senator from South Carolina; and Cándido Creis, Consul General of Spain in Miami, who was accompanied by the military attaché of the Spanish Embassy in Washington.

In the days before the event, a replica of the vessel San Pelayo, which brought Menéndez de Avilés to the American shores, was moored in the harbour of Port Royal, not far from Santa Elena.

Attendees during the inauguration of the Santa Elena History Center (Photo: AGRIL. EE.UU.)