Ángel de Villafañe

Caught between the viceroy and the royal audiencia, he sought to extricate himself by sending a letter to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles I of Spain.

[2] In early June, when word of the disaster reached Mexico City, the viceroy requested a rescue fleet and immediately sent Villafañe marching overland to find the treasure-laden vessels.

Tristán de Luna y Arellano had suffered disease, in trying to relocate the Ochuse settlement decimated by the hurricane of September 19, 1559, and most native food (corn, beans, pumpkins) was also depleted.

Villafañe reached the Ochuse (Pensacola) settlement in early March 1561, and on April 9, he assumed authority as governor of both "provinces of La Florida and Punta de Santa Elena" in replacing Luna.

After three months in Cuba, Villafañe returned to Ochuse (Pensacola Bay) to remove the remaining 50 men of the colony, sailing back to Mexico.

Future efforts on the Atlantic seaboard were to be made from Spain, and no new colonial enterprise was undertaken on the northern Gulf shore until after the landing of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in Texas, more than a century later.