States. In his 1842 , Alegre said Father Juan Bautista de Segura and his companions called the province Axacan. The term Ajacán was coined by the crew of the Santa Catalina, seemingly overhearing it being named as such by two indigenous Algonquians onboard the vessel. Ajacán was later named La Tierre de Don Luis, or 'the homeland of Don Luis.'.

Some early 20th-century historians promoted the idea that the early Spanish explorers who made voyages into the Chesapeake Bay between 1565 and 1570 sailed