soldiers and officers. He sailed straight for Florida,
intending to attack Fort Caroline with no delay. In fact he
sighted the mouth of the port [Sept. 4, 1565] two months after
starting; but, considering the position occupied by the French
ships, he judged it prudent to defer the attack, and make it,
if possible, from the land. A council of war was held in Fort
Caroline, presided over by Ribaut. Laudonnière proposed that,
while Ribaut held the fort with the ships, he, with his old
soldiers, who knew the country well, aided by the Floridans as
auxiliaries, should engage the Spaniards in the woods, and
harass them by perpetual combats in labyrinths to which they
were wholly unaccustomed. The advice was good, but it was not
followed. Ribaut proposed to follow the Spanish fleet with his
own--lighter and more easily handled--fall on the enemy when
the soldiers were all disembarked, and, after taking and
burning the ships, to attack the army. In the face of
remonstrances from all the officers, he persisted in this
project. Disaster followed the attempt. A violent gale arose.
The French ships were wrecked upon the Floridan coast; the men
lost their arms, their powder, and their clothes; they escaped
with their bare lives. There was no longer the question of
conquering the Spaniards, but of saving themselves. The
garrison of Caroline consisted of 150 soldiers, of whom 40
were sick. The rest of the colony was composed of sick and
wounded Protestant ministers, workmen, royal commissioners,'
and so forth. Laudonnière was in command. They awaited the
attack for several days, yet the Spaniards came not. They were
wading miserably through the marshes in the forests, under
tropical rains, discouraged, and out of heart." But when, at
length, the exhausted and despairing Spaniards, toiling
through the marshes, from St. Augustine, where they had landed
and established their settlement, reached the French fort
(Sept. 20), "there was actually no watch on the ramparts.
Three companies of Spaniards simultaneously rushed from the
forest, and attacked the fortress on the south, the west and
the south-west. There was but little resistance from the
surprised garrison. There was hardly time to grasp a sword.
About 20 escaped by flight, including the Captain,
Laudonnière; the rest were every one massacred. None were
spared except women and children under fifteen; and, in the
first rage of the onslaught, even these were murdered with the
rest. There still lay in the port three ships, commanded by
Jacques Ribaut, brother [son] of the unfortunate Governor. One
of these was quickly sent to the bottom by the cannon of the
fort; the other two cut their cables, and slipped out of reach
into the roadstead, where they lay, waiting for a favourable
wind, for three days. They picked up the fugitives who had
been wandering half-starved in the woods, and then set sail
from this unlucky land. ... There remained, however, the
little army, under Ribaut, which had lost most of its arms in
the wreck, and was now wandering along the Floridan shore."
When Ribaut and his men reached Fort Caroline and saw the
Spanish flag flying, they turned and retreated southward. Not
many days later, they were intercepted by Menendez, near St.
Augustine, to which post he had returned. The first party of
the French who came up, 200 in number, and who were in a
starving state, surrendered to the Spaniard, and laid down
their arms. "They were brought across the river in small
companies, and their hands tied behind their backs. On
landing, they were asked if they were Catholics. Eight out of
the 200 professed allegiance to that religion; the rest were
all Protestants.' Menendez traced out a line on the ground
with his cane. The prisoners were marched up one by one to the
line; on reaching it, they were stabbed. Next day, Ribaut
arrived with the rest of the army. The same pourparlers began.
But this time a blacker treachery was adopted." An officer,
sent by Menendez, pledged his honor to the French that the
lives of all should be spared if they laid down their arms.
"It is not clear how many of the French accepted the
conditions. A certain number refused them, and escaped into
the woods. What is certain is, that Ribaut, with nearly all
his men, were tied back to back, four together. Those who said
they were Catholics, were set on one side; the rest were all
massacred as they stood. ... Outside the circle of the
slaughtered and the slaughterers stood the priest, Mendoza,
encouraging, approving, exhorting the butchers."
_W. Besant,
Gaspard de Coligny,
chapter 7._
The long dispatch in which Menendez reported his fiendish work
to the Spanish king has been brought to light in the archives
at Seville, and there is this endorsement on it, in the
hand-writing of Philip II.: "Say to him that, as to those he
has killed, he has done well; and as to those he has saved,
they shall be sent to the galleys."
_F. Parkman,
Pioneers of France in the New World,
chapters 7-8._
{1151}
ALSO IN:
_C. W. Baird,
History of the Huguenot Emigration to America,
volume 1, introduction._
FLORIDA: A. D. 1567-1568.
The vengeance of Dominic de Gourgues.
"As might have been expected, all attempts to rouse the French
court into demanding redress were vain. Spain, above all other
nations, knew the arts by which a corrupt court might be
swayed, and the same intrigues which, fifty years later, sent
Raleigh to the block and well-nigh ended the young colony of
Virginia, now kept France quiet. But though the court refused
to move, an avenger was not wanting. Dominic de Gourgues had
already known as a prisoner of war the horrors of the Spanish
galleys. Whether he was a Huguenot is uncertain. Happily in
France, as the history of that and all later ages proved, the
religion of the Catholic did not necessarily deaden the
feelings of the patriot. Seldom has there been a deed of more
reckless daring than that which Dominic de Gourgues now
undertook. With the proceeds of his patrimony he bought three
small ships, manned by eighty sailors and a hundred
men-at-arms. He then obtained a commission as a slaver on the
coast of Guinea, and in the summer of 1567 set sail. With
these paltry resources he aimed at overthrowing a settlement
which had already destroyed a force of twenty times his
number, and which might have been strengthened in the
interval. ... To the mass of his followers he did not reveal
the true secret of his voyage till he had reached the West
Indies. Then he disclosed his real purpose. His men were of
the same spirit as their leader. Desperate though the
enterprise seemed, De Gourgues' only difficulty was to
restrain his followers from undue haste. Happily for their
attempt, they had allies on whom they had not reckoned. The
fickle savages had at first welcomed the Spaniards, but the
tyranny of the new comers soon wrought a change, and the
Spaniards in Florida, like the Spaniards in every part of the
New World, were looked on as hateful tyrants. So when De
Gourgues landed he at once found a ready body of allies. ...
Three days were spent in making ready, and then De Gourgues,
with a hundred and sixty of his own men and his Indian allies,
marched against the enemy. In spite of the hostility of the
Indians, the Spaniards seem to have taken no precaution
against a sudden attack. Menendez himself had left the colony.
The Spanish force was divided between three forts, and no proper
precautions were taken for keeping up the communications
between them. Each was successively seized, the garrison slain
or made prisoners, and, as each fort fell, those in the next
could only make vague guesses as to the extent of the danger.
Even when divided into three the Spanish force outnumbered
that of De Gourgues, and savages with bows and arrows would
have counted for little against men with fire arms and behind
walls. But after the downfall of the first fort a panic seemed
to seize the Spaniards, and the French achieved an almost
bloodless victory. After the death of Ribault and his
followers nothing could be looked for but merciless
retaliation, and De Gourgues copied the severity, though not
the perfidy of his enemies. The very details of Menendez' act
were imitated, and the trees on which the prisoners were hung
bore the inscription: 'Not as Spaniards, but as traitors,
robbers, and murderers.' Five weeks later De Gourgues anchored
under the walls of Rochelle. ... His attack did not wholly
extirpate the Spanish power in Florida. Menendez received the
blessing of the Pope as a chosen instrument for the conversion
of the Indians, returned to America and restored his
settlement. As before, he soon made the Indians his deadly
enemies. The Spanish settlement held on, but it was not till
two centuries later that its existence made itself remembered
by one brief but glorious episode in the history of the
English colonies."
_J. A. Doyle,
The English in America: Virginia, &c.,
chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_W. W. Dewhurst,
History of St. Augustine, Florida,
chapter 9._
FLORIDA: A. D. 1628.
Claimed by France, and placed, with New France, under the
control of the Company of the Hundred Associates.
See CANADA: A. D. 1616-1628.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1629.
Claimed in part by England and embraced in the Carolina grant
to Sir Robert Heath.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1680.
Attack on the English of Carolina.
See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1680.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1702.
Adjustment of western boundary with the French of Louisiana.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1740.
Unsuccessful attack on St. Augustine by the English of Georgia
and Carolina.
See GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (February).
Ceded to Great Britain by Spain in the Treaty of Paris.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (July).
Possession taken by the English.
"When, in July [1763], possession was taken of Florida, its
inhabitants, of every age and sex, men, women, children, and
servants, numbered but 3,000; and, of these, the men were
nearly all in the pay of the Catholic king. The possession of
it had cost him nearly $230,000 annually; and now it was
accepted by England as a compensation for Havana. Most of the
people, receiving from the Spanish treasury indemnity for
their losses, had migrated to Cuba, taking with them the bones
of their saints and the ashes of their distinguished dead. The
western province of Florida extended to the Mississippi, on
the line of latitude of 31°. On the 20th of October, the
French surrendered the post of Mobile, with its brick fort,
which was fast crumbling to ruins. A month later, the slight
stockade at Tombigbee, in the west of the Chocta country, was
delivered up. In a congress of the Catawbas, Cherokees,
Creeks, Chicasas, and Choctas, held on the 10th of November,
at Augusta, the governors of Virginia and the colonies south
of it were present, and the peace with the Indians of the
South and South-west was ratified."
_G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision.),
volume 3, page 64._
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (October).
English provinces, East and West, constituted by the King's
proclamation.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA: A. D. 1763.
{1152}
FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.
Reconquest of West Florida by the Spanish commander at New
Orleans.
"In the summer of 1779 Spain had declared war against Great
Britain. Galvez [the Spanish commander at New Orleans]
discovered that the British were planning the surprise of New
Orleans, and, under cover of preparations for defense, made
haste to take the offensive. Four days before the time he had
appointed to move, a hurricane destroyed a large number of
houses in the town, and spread ruin to crops and, dwellings up
and down the 'coast,' and sunk his gun flotilla. ... Repairing
his disasters as best he could, and hastening his ostensibly
defensive preparations, he marched, on the 22d of August,
1779, against the British forts on the Mississippi. His ...
little army of 1,434 men was without tents, other military
furniture, or a single engineer. The gun fleet followed in the
river abreast of their line of march along its shores,
carrying one 24-pounder, five 18-pounders, and four
4-pounders. With this force, in the space of about three
weeks, Fort Bute on bayou Manchac, Baton Rouge and Fort
Panmure. 8 vessels, 556 regulars, and a number of sailors,
militia-men, and free blacks, fell into the hands of the
Spaniards. The next year, 1780, re-enforced from Havana,
Galvez again left New Orleans by way of the Balize with 2,000
men, regulars, militia, and free blacks, and on the 15th of
March took Fort Charlotte on Mobile river. Galvez next
conceived the much larger project of taking Pensacola. Failing
to secure re-enforcements from Havana by writing for them, he
sailed to that place in October, to make his application in
person, intending to move with them directly on the enemy.
After many delays and disappointments he succeeded, and early
in March, 1781, appeared before Pensacola with a ship of the
line, two frigates, and transports containing 1,400 soldiers
well furnished with artillery and ammunition. Here he was
joined by such troops as could be spared from Mobile, and by
Don Estevan Mirò from New Orleans, at the head of the
Louisiana forces, and on the afternoon of the 16th of March,
though practically unsupported by the naval fleet, until
dishonor was staring its jealous commanders in the face, moved
under hot fire, through a passage of great peril, and took up
a besieging position. ... It is only necessary to state that,
on the 9th of May, 1781, Pensacola, with a garrison of 800
men, and the whole of West Florida, were surrendered to
Galvez. Louisiana had heretofore been included under one
domination with Cuba, but now one of the several rewards
bestowed upon her governor was the captain-generalship of
Louisiana and West Florida."
_G. E. Waring, Jr., and G. W. Cable,
History of New Orleans
(United States Tenth Census, volume 19)._
ALSO IN:
_C. Gayarré,
History of Louisiana: Spanish Domination,
chapter 3._
FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787.
The question of boundaries between Spain and the United
States, and the question of the navigation of the Mississippi.
"By the treaty of 1783 between Great Britain on the one part
and the United States and her allies, France and Spain, on the
other, Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the
colonies, and recognized as a part of their southern boundary
a line drawn due east from a point in the Mississippi River,
in latitude 31° north, to the middle of the Appalachicola; and
at the same time she ceded to Spain by a separate agreement
the two Floridas, but without defining their northern
boundaries. This omission gave rise to a dispute between Spain
and the United States as to their respective limits. On the
part of Spain it was contended that by the act of Great
Britain, of 1764, the northern boundary of West Florida had
been fixed at the line running due east from the mouth of the
Yazoo to the Chattahoochee, and that all south of that line
had been ceded to her; whilst on the other hand, the United
States as strenuously maintained that the act fixing and
enlarging the limits of West Florida was superseded by the
recent treaty, which extended their southern boundary to the
31st degree of north latitude, a hundred and ten miles further
south than the line claimed by Spain. Spain, however, had
possession of the disputed territory by right of conquest, and
evidently had no intention of giving it up. She strengthened
her garrisons at Baton Rouge and Natchez, and built a fort at
Vicksburg, and subsequently one at New Madrid, on the Missouri
side of the Mississippi, just below the mouth of the Ohio; and
of the latter she made a port of entry where vessels from the
Ohio were obliged to land and declare their cargoes. She even
denied the right of the United States to the region between
the Mississippi and the Alleghany Mountains, which had been
ceded to them by Great Britain, on the ground that the
conquests made by Governor Galvez, of West Florida, and by Don
Eugenio Pierre, of Fort St. Joseph, 'near the sources of the
Illinois,' had vested the title to all this country in her;
and she insisted that what she did not own was possessed by
the Indians, and could not therefore belong to the United
States. Even as late as 1795, she claimed to have bought from
the Chickasaws the bluffs which bear their name, and which are
situated on the east bank of the Mississippi some distance
north of the most northerly boundary ever assigned by Great
Britain to West Florida. Here, then, was cause for 'a very
pretty quarrel,' and to add to the ill feeling which grew out
of it, Spain denied the right of the people of the United
States to the 'free navigation of the Mississippi,'--a right
which had been conceded to them by Great Britain with all the
formalities with which she had received it from France. ...
What was needed to make the right of any value to the people
of the Ohio valley was the additional right to take their
produce into a Spanish port, New Orleans, and either sell it
then and there, or else store it, subject to certain
conditions, until such time as it suited them to transfer it
to sea-going vessels. This right Spain would not concede; and
as the people of the Ohio valley were determined to have it,
cost what it might, it brought on a series of intrigues
between the Spanish governors of Louisiana and certain
influential citizens west of the Alleghanies which threatened
the stability of the American Union almost before it was
formed."
_L. Carr,
Missouri,
chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_E. Schuyler,
American Diplomacy,
chapter 6._
FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.
Continued occupation of West Florida by the Spaniards.
Revolt of the inhabitants.
Possession taken by the Americans from the Mississippi to the
Perdido.
"The success of the French in Spain, and the probability of
that kingdom being obliged to succumb, had given occasion to
revolutionary movements in several of the Spanish American
provinces. This example ... had been followed also in that
portion of the Spanish province of West Florida bordering on
the Mississippi. The inhabitants, most of whom were of British
or American birth, had seized the fort at Baton Rouge, had met
in convention, and had proclaimed themselves independent,
adopting a single star for their flag, the same symbol
afterward assumed by the republic of Texas.
{1153}
Some struggles took place between the adherents of the Spanish
connection and these revolutionists, who were also threatened
with attack from Mobile, still held by a Spanish garrison. In
this emergency they applied, through Holmes, governor of the
Mississippi Territory, for aid and recognition by the United
States. ... The president, however, preferred to issue a
proclamation, taking possession of the east bank of the
Mississippi, occupation of which, under the Louisiana treaty,
had been so long delayed, not, it was said, from any defect of
title, but out of conciliatory views toward Spain. ...
Claiborne, governor of the Orleans Territory, then at
Washington, was dispatched post-haste to take possession." The
following January Congress passed an act in secret session
"authorizing the president to take possession as well of East
as of West Florida, under any arrangement which had been or
might be entered into with the local authorities; or, in case
of any attempted occupation by any foreign government, to take
and to maintain possession by force. Previously to the passage
of this act, the occupation of the east bank of the
Mississippi had been already completed by Governor Claiborne;
not, however, without some show of resistance. ... Captain
Gaines presently appeared before Mobile with a small
detachment of American regulars, and demanded its surrender.
Colonel Cushing soon arrived from New Orleans with several
gun-boats, artillery, and a body of troops. The boats were
permitted to ascend the river toward Fort Stoddard without
opposition. But the Spanish commandant refused to give up
Mobile, and no attempt was made to compel him." By an act of
Congress passed in April, 1812, "that part of Florida recently
taken possession of, as far east as Pearl River, was annexed to
the new state [of Louisiana]. The remaining territory, as far
as the Perdido, though Mobile still remained in the hands of
the Spaniards, was annexed, by another act, to the Mississippi
Territory." A year later, in April, 1813, General Wilkinson
was instructed to take possession of Mobile, and to occupy all
the territory claimed, to the Perdido, which he accordingly
did, without bloodshed.
_R. Hildreth,
History of the United States, 2d series,
chapters 23, 24, 26 (volume 3)._
FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.
The fugitive negroes and the first Seminole War.
Jackson's campaign.
"The tranquillity of Monroe's administration was soon
seriously threatened by the renewal of trouble with the
Southern Indians [the Seminoles, and the refugee Creeks]. ...
The origin of the difficulty was twofold: first, the injustice
which has always marked the treatment of Indian tribes whose
lands were coveted by the whites; and secondly, the revival of
the old grievance, that Florida was a refuge for the fugitive
slaves of Georgia and South Carolina. ... The Seminoles had
never withheld a welcome to the Georgia negro who preferred
their wild freedom to the lash of an overseer on a cotton or
rice plantation. The Georgians could never forget that the
grand-children of their grandfathers' fugitive slaves were
roaming about the Everglades of Florida. ... So long as there
were Seminoles in Florida, and so long as Florida belonged to
Spain, just so long would the negroes of Georgia find an
asylum in Florida with the Seminoles. ... A war with the
Indians of Florida, therefore, was always literally and
emphatically a slave-hunt. A reclamation for fugitives was
always repulsed by the Seminoles and the Spaniards, and, as
they could be redeemed in no other way, Georgia was always
urging the Federal Government to war."
_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 4, chapter 10._
During the War of 1812-14, the English, who were permitted by
Spain to make use of Florida with considerable freedom, and
who received no little assistance from the refugee negroes and
Creek Indians, "had built a fort on the Appalachicola River,
about 15 miles from its mouth, and had collected there an
immense amount of arms and ammunition. ... When the war ended,
the English left the arms and ammunition in the fort. The
negroes seized the fort, and it became known as the 'Negro
Fort.' The authorities of the United States sent General
Gaines to the Florida frontier with troops, to establish peace
on the border. The Negro Fort was a source of anxiety both to
the military authorities and to the slave-owners of Georgia,"
and a pretext was soon found--whether valid or not seems
uncertain--for attacking it. "A hot shot penetrated one of the
magazines, and the whole fort was blown to pieces, July 27, 1816.
There were 300 negro men, women and children, and 20 Choctaws
in the fort; 270 were killed. Only three came out unhurt, and
these were killed by the allied Indians. ... During 1817 there
were frequent collisions on the frontiers between Whites and
Indians. ... On the 20th of November, General Gaines sent a
force of 250 men to Fowltown, the headquarters of the chief of
the 'Redsticks,' or hostile Creeks. They approached the town
in the early morning, and were fired on. An engagement
followed. The town was taken and burned. ... The Indians of
that section, after this, began general hostilities, attacked
the boats which were ascending the Appalachicola, and
massacred the persons in them. ... In December, on receipt of
intelligence of the battle at Fowltown and the attack on the
boats, Jackson was ordered to take command in Georgia. He
wrote to President Monroe: 'Let it be signified to me through
any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that the possession of the
Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty
days it will be accomplished.' Much was afterwards made to
depend on this letter. Monroe was ill when it reached
Washington, and he did not see or read it until a year
afterwards, when some reference was made to it. Jackson
construed the orders which he received from Calhoun with
reference to this letter. ... He certainly supposed, however,
that he had the secret concurrence of the administration in
conquering Florida. ... He advanced through Georgia with great
haste and was on the Florida frontier in March, 1818. He ...
immediately advanced to St. Mark's, which place he captured.
On his way down the Appalachicola he found the Indians and
negroes at work in the fields, and unconscious of any
impending attack. Some of them fled to St. Mark's. His theory,
in which he supposed that he was supported by the
administration, was that he was to pursue the Indians until he
caught them, wherever they might go; that he was to respect
Spanish rights as far as he could consistently with that
purpose; and that the excuse for his proceedings was that
Spain could not police her own territory, or restrain the
Indians.
{1154}
Jackson's proceedings were based on two positive but arbitrary
assumptions: (1) That the Indians got aid and encouragement
from St. Mark's and Pensacola. (This the Spaniards always
denied, but perhaps a third assumption of Jackson might be
mentioned: that the word of a Spanish official was of no
value.) (2) That Great Britain kept paid emissaries employed
in Florida to stir up trouble for the United States. This
latter assumption was a matter of profound belief generally in
the United States." Acting upon it with no hesitation, Jackson
caused a Scotch trader named Arbuthnot, whom he found at St.
Mark's, and an English ex-lieutenant of marines, Ambrister by
name, who was taken prisoner among the Seminoles, to be
condemned by court martial and executed, although no
substantial evidence of their being in any way answerable for
Indian hostilities was adduced. "It was as a mere incident of
his homeward march that Jackson turned aside and captured
Pensacola, May 24, 1818, because he was told that some Indians
had taken refuge there. He deposed the Spanish government, set
up a new one, and established a garrison. He then continued
his march homewards. "Jackson's performances in Florida were
the cause of grave perplexities to his government, which
finally determined "that Pensacola and St. Mark's should be
restored to Spain, but that Jackson's course should be
approved and defended on the grounds that he pursued his enemy
to his refuge, and that Spain could not do the duty which
devolved on her."
_W. G. Sumner,
Andrew Jackson as a public man,
chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_J. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson,
volume 2, chapters 31-39._
_J. R. Giddings,
The Exiles of Florida,
chapters 1-4._
FLORIDA: A. D. 1819-1821.
Cession by Spain to the United States.