FORTIFYING OF ST. AUGUSTINE--DISAFFECTIONS AND MUTINIES--APPROVAL OF
MENENDEZ' ACTS BY THE KING OF SPAIN. 1565-1568.
During the time of the several expeditions of the Adelantado against the
French Huguenots, the fortification and strengthening of the defenses of
the settlement at St. Augustine had not been neglected. The fort, or
Indian council-house, which had been first fortified, seems to have been
consumed in the conflagration spoken of; and thereupon a plan of a
regular fortification or fort was marked out by Menendez; and, as there
existed same danger of the return of the French, the Spaniards labored
unceasingly with their whole force, to put it in a respectable state of
defense. From an engraving contained in De Bry, illustrating the attack
of Sir Francis Drake, twenty years afterwards, this fort appears to have
been an octagonal structure of logs, and located near the site of the
present fort, while the settlement itself was probably made in the first
instance, at the lower end of the peninsula, near the building now
called "the powder-house."
He also established a government for the place, with civil and military
officials, a hall of justice, etc.
All of these matters were arranged by Menendez before his expedition
against the French at Canaveral, of whom one hundred and fifty returned
with him, and were received upon an equal footing with his own men, the
more distinguished being received at his own table upon the most
friendly terms; a clemency which, with a knowledge of his character, can
only be ascribed to motives of policy. The position of the French at
Canaveral was probably inaccessible, as they had their arms, besides
artillery brought from the vessels; and the duplicity which had
characterized his success with their comrades, was out of the question
here; the French could therefore exact their own terms, and unshackled
could forcibly resist any attempt at treachery.
The addition of this number to his force lessened the already diminished
supply of provisions which Menendez had brought with him; and want soon
began to threaten his camp. He sent as many of his soldiers as he could
into camp at San Matteo, and endeavored to draw supplies from the
Indians; but unfortunately for him, the country between the St. Johns
and St. Augustine was under the rule of the Indian Chief, Satouriara,
the friend (and ally of the French), whose hostility the Spaniards were
never able to overcome. Satouriara and his followers withdrew from all
peaceable intercourse with the Spaniards, and hung about their path to
destroy, harrass, and cut them off upon every possible occasion.
The winter succeeding the settlement of the Spaniards at St. Augustine,
was most distressing and discouraging to them. The lack of provisions in
their camp drove them to seek, in the surrounding country, subsistence
from the roots and esculent plants it might afford, or to obtain in the
neighboring creeks, fish and oysters; but no sooner did a Spaniard
venture out alone beyond, the gates of the fort, than he was grasped, by
some unseen foe, from the low underbrush and put to death, or a shower
of arrows from some tree-top was his first intimation of danger; if he
discharged his arquebuse towards his invisible assailants, others would
spring upon him before he could reload his piece; or, if he attempted to
find fish and oysters in some quiet creek, the noiseless canoe of an
Indian would dart in upon him, and the heavy war-club of the savage
descending upon his unprotected head, end his existence. Against such a
foe, no defense could avail; and it is related that more than one
hundred and twenty of the Spaniards were thus killed, including Captain
Martin de Ochoa, Captain Diego de Hevia, Fernando de Gamboa, and Juan
Menendez, a nephew of the Adelantado, and many others of the bravest and
most distinguished of the garrison.
In this crisis of affairs, the Governor concluded to go to Cuba himself,
to obtain relief for his colony. He in the meantime established a fort
at St. Lucia, near Canaveral. A considerable jealousy seems to have
existed on the part of the governor of Cuba; and he received Menendez
with great coolness, and in reply to his appeals for aid, only offered
an empty vessel. In this emergency, Menendez contemplated, as his only
means of obtaining what he wished, to go upon a filibustering expedition
against some Portuguese and English vessels which were in those waters.
While making preparations to do this, four vessels of the fleet with
which he had left Spain, and which had been supposed lost, arrived; and
after dispatching a vessel to Campeachy for provisions, he commenced
his return voyage to his colony, delaying however for a time in South
Florida, to seek intelligence among the Indians of his lost son.
In the meantime his garrisons at St. Augustine and San Matteo had
mutinied, and were in open revolt; provisions had become so scarce that
twenty-five reals had been given for a pound of biscuit, and but for the
fish they would have starved. They plundered the public stores,
imprisoned their officers, and seized upon a vessel laden with
provisions which had been sent to the garrison. The Master of the Camp
succeeded in escaping from confinement and releasing his fellow
prisoners, by a bold movement cut off the intercourse between the
mutineers on board the vessel and those on shore, and hung the Sergeant
Major, who was at the head of the movement. The Commandant then
attempted to attack those in the vessel, and was nearly lost with his
companions, by being wrecked on the bar. The vessel made sail to the
West India Islands. The garrison at San Matteo took a vessel there and
come around to St. Augustine, but arrived after their accomplices had
left.
Disease had already begun to make its ravages, and added to the general
wish to leave the country; which all would then have done had they had
the vessels in which to embark. They used for their recovery from
sickness, the roots of a native shrub, which produced marvelous cures.
At this period Menendez returned to the famished garrison, but was
forced to permit Juan Vicente, with one hundred of the disaffected, to
go to St. Domingo by a vessel which he dispatched there for supplies;
and it is said that the governors of the islands where they went,
harbored them, and that of some five hundred who on different occasions
deserted from the Adelantado, and all of whom had been brought out at
his cost, but two or three were ever returned to him; while the
deserters putting their own construction upon their acts, sent home to
the king of Spain criminations of the Adelantado, and represented the
conquest of Florida, as a hopeless and worthless acquisition; that it
was barren and swampy, and produced nothing.
After this defection, Menendez proceeded along the coast to San Matteo,
and thence to Guale, Amelia, and adjoining islands, Orista and St.
Helena; made peaceful proposals to the Indian tribes, lectured them upon
theology, and planted a cross at their council-houses. The cacique of
Guale asked Menendez how it was "that he had waged war upon the other
white men, who had come from the same country as himself?" He replied,
"that the other white people were bad Christians, and believers in lies;
and that those whom he had killed, deserved the most cruel death,
because they had fled their own country, and came to mislead and deceive
the caciques and other Indians, as they had already before misled and
deceived many other good Christians, in order that the devil may take
possession of them." While at St. Helena he succeeded in obtaining
permission of the Indians to erect a fort there, and he left a
detachment. On his return he also erected fort San Felipe, at Orista;
and after setting up a cross at Guale, the cacique demanded of him, that
as now they had become good Christians, he should cause rain to come
upon their fields; for a drought had continued eight months. The same
night a severe rain-storm happened, which confirmed the faith of the
Indians, and gained the Adelantado great credit with them. While here,
he learned that there was a fugitive Lutheran among the Indians, and he
took some pains to cause to be given to the fugitive hopes of good
treatment if he would come into the Spanish post at St. Helena, while he
gave private directions that he should be killed, directing his
lieutenant to make very strange of his disappearance; an incident very
illustrative of the vindictiveness and duplicity of Menendez.[16]
He returned to St. Augustine, and was received with great joy, and
devoted himself to the completion of the fort, which was to frighten the
savages, and enforce respect from strangers. It was built, it is said,
where it now stands, _donde este ahora_, (1722.)
The colony left at St. Helena mutinied almost immediately, and seizing a
vessel sent with supplies, sailed for Cuba, and were wrecked on the
Florida Keys, where they met at an Indian town the mutineers who had
deserted from the fort at St. Matteo: these had been also wrecked there.
The garrison again becoming much straitened for provisions, the
Adelantado, in June, was obliged to go to Cuba for succor. He was
received with indifference, and his wishes unheeded. He applied to the
governor of Mexico, and others who happened to be there, and who had the
power of assisting him; from all he received no encouragement, but the
advice to abandon his enterprise. He at last pawned his jewels, the
badge of his order, and his valuables, thus obtaining five hundred
ducats; with which he purchased provisions, and set sail on his return,
with only sixty-five men.
But just at this period succor came to the famished troops; a fleet of
seventeen vessels arrived with fifteen hundred men from Spain, under
Juan de Avila, as admiral. By this means all the posts were succored and
reinforced, and the enterprise saved from destruction; for the small
supplies brought by Menendez would have been soon exhausted, and further
efforts being out of his power, they would have been forced to withdraw
from the country.
The admiral of the fleet also had entrusted to him for the Adelantado a
letter from the king, written on the 12th of May, 1566, which, among
other matters, contained the following royal commendation of the acts of
Menendez. "Of the great success which has attended your enterprise, we
have the most entire satisfaction, and we bear in memory the loyalty,
the love, and the diligence, with which you have borne us service, as
well as the dangers and perils in which you have been placed; and as to
the _retribution_ you have visited upon the Lutheran pirates who sought
to occupy that country, and to fortify themselves there, in order to
disseminate in it their wicked creed, and to prosecute there their
wrongs and robberies, which they have done and were doing against God's
service and my own, we believe that you did it with every justification
and propriety, and we consider ourself to have been well served in so
doing."[17]
To this commendation of Philip II., it is unnecessary to add any
comment, save that no other action could have been expected of him. And
of Charles the Ninth, of France, the Spanish historian says that he
treated the memorial of the widows and orphans of the slain with
contempt, "considering their punishment to have been just, in that they
were equally enemies of Spain, of France, of the Church, and of the
peace of the world."
During the absence of Menendez to inspect his posts, disaffection again
broke out; and finding his force too numerous, he with sixteen vessels
went upon a freebooting expedition to attack pirates. He failed to meet
with any; but having learned that a large French fleet was on its way,
he visited and fortified the forts on the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola,
and Puerto Rico, and again returned to Florida; the expected French
fleet never having arrived. About this time, a small vessel brought from
Spain three learned and exemplary priests; one of whom, Padre Martinez,
landed upon the coast with some of the crew, and being unable to regain
the vessel, coasted along to St. George Island, where he was attacked
and murdered by the Indians, with a number of his companions.
The following year was principally occupied by Menendez, in
strengthening his fortifications at his three forts, in visiting the
Indian chiefs at their towns, and exploring the country. One of his
expeditions went as far north as the thirty-seventh degree of latitude
by sea, and another went to the foot of the Apalachian Mountains, about
one hundred and fifty leagues, and established a fort. The former was
about the mouth of the Chesapeake, called the Santa Maria,[18] and the
land expedition, probably to the up-country of Georgia, in the
neighborhood of Rome.
All attempts at pacifying their warlike neighbor were as fruitless as
their attempts to subjugate him; whether in artifice and duplicity, in
open warfare, or secret ambush, he was more than equal to the
Adelantado, and was a worthy ancestor of the modern Seminole,--never
present when looked for, and never absent when an opportunity of
striking a blow occurred.
The Adelantado having had built an extremely slight vessel of less than
twenty tons, called a frigate, concluded to visit Spain, and ran in
seventeen days to the Azores, sailing seventy leagues per day, an
exploit not often equaled in modern times. He was received with great
joy in Spain, and the king treated him with much consideration. The
Adelantado felt great anxiety to return to his colony, and deprecated
the delays of the court, fearing the result of the indignation at his
cruelty to the Huguenots, which, says his chronicler, increased day by
day.[19]