Maria Vasquez and the Women of the Spanish Main: An Evening with Elizabeth Neily

March is Women's History month, so we are focusing this very special event on telling women's stories! Local artist and living history performer Elizabeth Neily will share her research on the ten women who arrived in the Tampa Bay Area in 1528 with the Panfilo de Narváez expedition. She will tell this story as one of those women, Maria Vasquez.

Women's roles in the development of Florida are often relegated to obscure footnotes in our history. As Neily reports, her husband encouraged her to start researching women's stories because he was concerned he was not reaching the female students while giving outreach programs at the Pinellas Pioneer Settlement. As an artist-in-residence at the Science Center of Pinellas County, she began sharing Maria Velasquez's story. Her talk explores the challenges women faced on a Spanish ship. 

Handy with a needle, Neily made her own reproduction period clothing and for other living history interpreters based on extensive research. She received commission to make clothing for the park ranger interpretive staff at DeSoto National Memorial in Bradenton. Neily was awarded a Florida Humanities Council grant to offer workshops on the correct way for 16th century reenactors to dress while participating in the Viva Florida Quincentennial celebration.  

This event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30pm.

More about the speaker: Elizabeth Neily, a native of Middleton, Nova Scotia, completed her Bachelor of Arts in English and Anthropology at Dalhousie University. She then pursued fashion design and photography studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Her move to Florida in 1980 sparked a deep fascination with the region's wildlife, landscapes, and ancient cultures that have since influenced her storytelling, paintings and fiber art. Elizabeth Neily has worked with museums, libraries, and parks throughout Florida as a living history presenter, telling women's stories and giving workshops. She has also created museum displays with her husband, Hermann Trappman. After retiring from the Panama Canal Museum, in Seminole in 2012, where she was the director for several years, Elizabeth returned to her first love, textile art and painting wildlife. Elizabeth has lived in Gulfport since 1988.