Mission San Luis, the National Historical Landmark site of the western capital of Spanish Florida, will open its new Visitor Center. The public is cordially invited to attend the free gran opening on Sunday, December 13, 2009, from 3 to 5 PM.

The 24,000 square-foot Visitor Center's arquitecture evokes Spanish colonial traditions, but is designed to meet contemporary needs.

The España Florida Foundation 500 years has contributed to the construction with a donation of 2000$. In this sense, the Foundation will appear in the special number of the Tallahassee Democrat.

Also, the Foundation has achieved the donation to mission San Luis of a statue of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés by Asturian renown sculptor Favila.The statuewill be permanently displayed at the Mission’s new Cultural Center.

Mission San Luis provides a unique perspective on Spaniards’ moderate settlement principles and practices as expressed in the context of a powerful southeastern chiefdom, and the reasoned responses of Native Americans who were drawn into the European orbit under rapidly changing geopolitical conditions. As the first European immigrants to settle in western Florida, the Spaniards’ adaptive strategies were shaped by the dominating Apalachee presence and the natural resources of the Florida frontier. Traditional native practices were tempered by Spain’s recognition of individual rights, state religion, moderate social and political practices, and integration and assimilation. The resulting pattern of cultural development incorporated indigenous and European forms of government, deeply held belief systems, and a highly adaptable material and social order. Although these legal and social ideals were not uniformly expressed throughout Spanish America, the findings at Mission San Luis provide an important case study. The site also presents a significant counterpoint to Anglo-American perspectives on colonial history, and a 17th century preview of inclusion evident in American society today.

There are a number of preconditions that have made research at San Luis unique and significant. San Luis is one of two mission sites in Spanish Florida whose identity has never been lost (the other is Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine). St. Augustine and San Luis were La Florida’s eastern and western capitals, and served as the anchors of Spanish Florida’s El Camino Real or royal road. San Luis was also the only settlement beyond St. Augustine to have a significant European population; several hundred Spaniards resided there by the end of the 17th century, almost all of whom were related by blood or marriage to Spaniards in St. Augustine. This is significant since it is the only mission with a Spanish village where the native population had sustained contact with a range of Spaniards (rather than a single friar) and negotiated power sharing over the course of nearly three generations.

San Luis is also remarkable because it represents the establishment of Apalachee and Spanish capitals in the same location and at the same time. Thus the site has provided a critical material baseline from which to assess the conditions and practices of life, the nature of cultural exchange, and the development of early Hispanic-American culture and institutions from both Indian and Spanish perspectives.