RIBAULT, LAUDONNIERE, AND MENENDEZ--SETTLEMENTS OF THE HUGUENOTS, AND
FOUNDATION OF ST. AUGUSTINE.
1562-1565-1568.
The settlement of Florida had its origin in the religious troubles
experienced by the Huguenots under Charles IX. in France.
Their distinguished leader, Admiral Coligny, as early as 1555 projected
colonies in America, and sent an expedition to Brazil, which proved
unsuccessful. Having procured permission from Charles IX. to found a
colony in Florida--a designation which embraced in rather an indefinite
manner the whole country from the Chesapeake to the Tortugas--he sent an
expedition in 1562 from France, under command of Jean Ribault, composed
of many young men of good family. They first landed at the St. John's
River, where they erected a monument, but finally established a
settlement at Port Royal, South Carolina, and erected a fort. After some
months, however, in consequence of dissensions among the officers of the
garrison, and difficulties with the Indians, this settlement was
abandoned.
In 1564 another expedition came out under the command of Rene de
Laudonniere, and made their first landing at the River of Dolphins,
being the present harbor of St. Augustine, and so named by them in
consequence of the great number of Dolphins (Porpoises) seen by them at
its mouth. They afterwards coasted to the north, and entered the River
St. Johns, called by them the River May.
Upon an examination of this river, Laudonniere concluded to establish
his colony on its banks; and proceeding about two leagues above its
mouth, built a fort upon a pleasant hill of "mean height," which, in
honor of his sovereign, he named Fort Caroline.
The colonists after a few months were reduced to great distress, and
were about taking measures to abandon the country a second time, when
Ribault arrived with reinforcements.
It is supposed that intelligence of these expeditions was communicated
by the enemies of Coligny to the court of Spain.
Jealousy of the aggrandizement of the French in the New World,
mortification for their own unsuccessful efforts in that quarter, and a
still stronger motive of hatred to the faith of the Huguenot, induced
the bigoted Philip II. of Spain, to dispatch Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a
brave, bigoted and remorseless soldier, to drive out the French colony,
and take possession of the country for himself.
The compact made between the King and Menendez was, that he should
furnish one galleon completely equipped, and provisions for a force of
six hundred men; that he should conquer and settle the country. He
obligated himself to carry one hundred horses, two hundred horned
cattle, four hundred hogs, four hundred sheep and some goats, and five
hundred slaves, (for which he had a permission free of duties), the
third part of which should be men, for his own service and that of those
who went with him, to aid in cultivating the land and building. That he
should take twelve priests, and four fathers of the Jesuit order. He was
to build two or three towns of one hundred families, and in each town
should build a fort according to the nature of the country. He was to
have the title of Adelantado of the country, as also to be entitled a
Marquis, and his heirs after him, to have a tract of land, receive a
salary of 2,000 ducats, a percentage of the royal duties, and have the
freedom of all the other ports of New Spain.[2]
His force consisted, at starting, of eleven sail of vessels, with two
thousand and six hundred men; but, owing to storms and accidents, not
more than one half arrived. He came upon the coast on the 28th August,
1565, shortly after the arrival of the fleet of Ribault. On the 7th day
of September, Menendez cast anchor in the River of Dolphins, the harbor
of St. Augustine. He had previously discovered and given chase to some
of the vessels of Ribault, off the mouth of the River May. The Indian
village of Selooe then stood upon the site of St. Augustine, and the
landing of Menendez was upon the spot where the city of St. Augustine
now stands.
Fray Francisco Lopez de Mendoza, the Chaplain of the Expedition, thus
chronicles the disembarkation and attendant ceremonies:--
"On Saturday the 8th day of September, the day of the nativity of
our Lady, the General disembarked, with numerous banners displayed,
trumpets and other martial music resounding, and amid salvos of
artillery.
"Carrying a cross, I proceeded at the head, chanting the hymn _Te
Deum Laudamus_. The General marched straight up to the cross,
together with all those who accompanied him; and, kneeling, they
all kissed the cross. A great number of Indians looked upon these
ceremonies, and imitated whatever they saw done. Thereupon the
General took possession of the country in the name of his Majesty.
All the officers then took an oath of allegiance to him, as their
general, and as adelantado of the whole country."
The name of St. Augustine was given, in the usual manner of the early
voyagers, because they had arrived upon the coast on the day dedicated
in their calendar to that eminent saint of the primitive church, revered
alike by the good of all ages for his learning and piety.
The first troops who landed, says Mendoza, were well received by the
Indians, who gave them a large mansion belonging to the chief, situated
near the banks of the river. The engineer officers immediately erected
an entrenchment of earth, and a ditch around this house, with a slope
made of earth and fascines, these being the only means of defense which
the country presents; for, says the father with surprise, "there is not
a stone to be found in the whole country." They landed eighty cannon
from the ships, of which the lightest weighed two thousand five hundred
pounds.
But in the meantime Menendez had by no means forgotten the errand upon
which he principally came; and by inquiries of the Indians he soon
learned the position of the French fort and the condition of its
defenders. Impelled by necessity, Laudonniere had been forced to seize
from the Indians food to supply his famished garrison, and had thus
incurred their enmity, which was soon to produce its sad results.
The Spaniards numbered about six hundred combatants, and the French
about the same; but arrangements had been made for further accessions to
the Spanish force, to be drawn from St. Domingo and Havana, and these
were daily expected.
It was the habit of those days to devolve almost every event upon the
ordering of a special providence; and each nation had come to look upon
itself almost in the light of a peculiar people, led like the Israelites
of old by signs and wonders; and as in their own view all their actions
were directed by the design of advancing God's glory as well as their
own purposes, so the blessing of Heaven would surely accompany them in
all their undertakings.
So believed the Crusaders on the plains of Palestine; so believed the
conquerors of Mexico and Peru; so believed the Puritan settlers of New
England (alike in their Indian wars and their oppressive social polity);
and so believed, also, the followers of Menendez and of Ribault; and in
this simple and trusting faith, the worthy chaplain gives us the
following account of the miraculous escape and deliverance of a portion
of the Spanish fleet:--
"God and his Holy Mother have performed another great miracle in
our favor. The day following the landing of the General in the
fort, he said to us that he was very uneasy because his galley and
another vessel were at anchor, isolated and a league at sea, being
unable to enter the port on account of the shallowness of the
water; and that he feared that the French might come and capture or
maltreat them. As soon as this idea came to him he departed, with
fifty men, to go on board of his galleon. He gave orders to three
shallops which were moored in the river to go out and take on board
the provisions and troops which were on board the galleon. The next
day, a shallop having gone out thither, they took on board as much
of the provisions as they could, and more than a hundred men who
were in the vessel, and returned towards the shore; but half a
league before arriving at the bar they were overtaken by so
complete a calm that they were unable to proceed further, and
thereupon cast anchor and passed the night in that place. The day
following at break of day they raised anchor as ordered by the
pilot, as the rising of the tide began to be felt. When it was
fully light they saw astern of them at the poop of the vessel, two
French ships which during the night had been in search of them. The
enemy arrived with the intention of making an attack upon us. The
French made all haste in their movements, for we had no arms on
board, and had only embarked the provisions. When day appeared, and
our people discovered the French, they addressed their prayers to
our Lady of _Bon Secours d'Utrera_, and supplicated her to grant
them a little wind, for the French were already close up to them.
They say that _Our Lady_ descended, herself, upon the vessel; for
the wind freshened and blew fair for the bar, so that the shallop
could enter it. The French followed it; but, as the bar has but
little depth and their vessels were large, they were not able to go
over it, so that our men and the provisions made a safe harbor.
When it became still clearer they perceived besides the two vessels
of the enemy, four others at a distance, being the same which we
had seen in port the evening of our arrival. They were well
furnished with both troops and artillery, and had directed
themselves for our galleon and the other ship, which were alone at
sea. In this circumstance God accorded us two favors. The first
was, that the same evening after they had discharged the provisions
and the troops I have spoken of, at midnight the galleon and other
vessel put to sea without being perceived by the enemy; the one
for Spain, and the other for Havana, for the purpose of seeking the
fleet which was there; and in this way neither was taken.
"The second favor, by which God rendered us a still greater
service, was that on the day following the one I have described
there arose a storm, and so great a tempest that certainly the
greater part of the French vessels must have been lost at sea; for
they were overtaken upon the most dangerous coast I have ever seen,
and were very close to the shore; and if our vessels, that is the
galleon and its consort, are not shipwrecked, it is because they
were already more than twelve leagues off the coast, which gave
them the facility of running before the wind, and maneuvering as
well as they could, relying upon the aid of God to preserve
them."[3]
Menendez had ascertained from the Indians that a large number of the
French troops had embarked on board of the vessels which he had seen off
the harbor, and he had good ground for believing that these vessels
would either be cast helpless upon the shore, or be driven off by the
tempest to such a distance as would render their return for some days
impossible. He at once conceived the project of attacking the French
fort upon the river May, by land.
A council of war was held, and after some discussion, for the most part
adverse to the plan proposed by him, Menendez spoke as follows:
"Gentlemen and Brothers! we have before us now an opportunity which
if improved by us will have a happy result. I am satisfied that the
French fleet which four days since fled from me, and has now come
to seek me, has been reinforced with the larger part of the
garrison of their fort, to which, nor to port, will they be able to
return for many days according to appearances; and since they are
all Lutherans, as we learned before we sailed from Spain, by the
edicts which Jean Ribault published before embarking, in order that
no Catholic at the peril of his life should go in his fleet, nor
any Catholic books be taken; and this they themselves declared to
us the night they fled from us, and hence our war must be to blood
and fire, not only on account of the orders we are under, but
because they have sought us in order to destroy us, that we should
not plant our holy religion in these regions, and to establish
their own abominable and crazy sect among the Indians; so that the
more promptly we shall punish them, we shall the more speedily do
a service to our God and our king, and comply with our conscience
and our duty.
"To accomplish this, we must choose five hundred arquebuse men and
pikemen, and carry provisions in our knapsacks for eight days,
divided into ten companies, each one with its standard and its
captain, and go with this force by land to examine the settlements
and fort of our enemies; and as no one knows the road, I will guide
you within two points by a mariner's compass; and where we cannot
get along, we will open a way with our axes; and moreover, I have
with me a Frenchman who has been more than a year at their fort,
and who says he knows the ground for two leagues around the fort.
"If we shall arrive without discovery, it may be that falling upon
it at daylight we may take it, by planting upon it twenty scaling
ladders, at the cost of fifty lives. If we are discovered, we can
form in the shelter of the wood, which I am assured is not more
than a quarter of a league distant, and planting there ten
standards, send forward a trumpeter requiring them to leave the
fort and the country, and return to their own country, offering
them ships and provisions for the voyage. They will imagine that we
have a much greater army with us, and they may surrender; and if
they do not, we shall at least accomplish that they will leave us
undisturbed in this our own settlement, and we shall know the way,
so that we may return to destroy them the succeeding spring."
After some discussion it was concluded that after hearing mass they
should undertake the expedition on the third day. Considerable
opposition was manifested on the part of the officers; but, with a
consummate knowledge of human nature, the Adelantado got up the most
splendid dinner in his power, and invited his recreant officers to the
repast, and dexterously appealed to their fears, as well as their pride,
and overcame their reluctance to undertake the unknown dangers of a
first march through Florida at a wet season, an actual acquaintance with
which would still more have dampened their ardor.
The troops assembled promptly upon the day appointed, at the sound of
the trumpet, the fife and the drum, and they all went to hear mass,
except Juan de Vicente, who said he had a disorder of the stomach, and
in his leg; and when some friends wished to urge his coming, he replied:
"I vow to God, that I will wait until the news comes that our force is
entirely cut off, when we who remain will embark in our three vessels,
and go to the Indies, where there will be no necessity of our all
perishing like beasts."
This Juan Vicente seems to have been an apt specimen of a class of
croakers not peculiar to any age or country. Of his future history the
chronicle gives other instances of a similar spirit; and his sole claim
to immortality, like that of many an other, is founded upon his
impudence.