The year is 1568 and three English sailors walk from Veracruz, Mexico to Cape Breton in Canada over three years. On the way, they see a Native North America that is entirely lost to us--countless cities and unimaginable wealth, exotic creatures and highly-developed societies with complex cultures. Yet... I must apologize. Even though I've been fascinated by the tale of David Ingram and his two companions for years, I understand that it falls outside our SAMA-defined time period of "Antiquity & the Middle Ages." My only defense for including a 16th century episode is that in a sense this document is one of our last glimpses back into a collection of civilizations that lived outside that timeframe and stretched back thousands of years into prehistory. Abandoned by the infamous English privateer and slaver Sir John Hawkins after a disastrous port battle with the Spaniards, 114 sailors had to fend for themselves on the Gulf coast as they watched their ships sail over the eastern horizon back home without them. Most surrendered to the Spanish garrison but a trio of men were drawn to the promise of an outpost to the north manned by the English or their French allies. Little did they know it would be nearly four thousand miles away and take three years to reach it. Recorded by another illustrious figure from history--Sir Francis Walsingham, the spymaster of Queen Elizabeth--this controversial account is generally accepted to be at least mostly true, and the details of North America that it revealed to the English Crown helped to convince the Queen to colonize and conquer these native peoples and their lands. To support the SAMA channel, become a Patron and make history matter! Patreon: https://patreon.com/make_history_matter?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink Donate directly to PayPal: https://paypal.me/NickBarksdale !!!!!!!!!!Above and beyond all -- visit this link to the gofundme for the family of our dear departed founder Nick Barksdale!!!!!!!!!! https://gofund.me/2bcd87e7