Ethnically, many of the Santa Elena colonists were Muslims of Berber origin and Sephardic Jews, recruited by the Portuguese Captain Joao Pardo in the thick Galician mountains of northern Portugal in 1567, i.e. less than a year before the climax of the Inquisition against Muslims. When Santa Elena fell, its inhabitants-including the converted Jews and Muslims-escaped into the mountains of North Carolina. And there survived, often marrying Native American, and then joining a second group that came to American shores, ironically in 1587, the same year that Santa Elena fell.[1]