A little north Florida hist'ry lesson

[Desdamona]

Happy "Slaughter at Fort Caroline" Day!
Fort Caroline National Memorial commemorates the establishment in 1564 of the French settlement of La Caroline, which was to be an experimental outpost where the Huguenots (French Protestants) would be granted religious tolerance. Two years earlier, French explorer Jean Ribault had placed a stone column on a bluff nearby bearing the official seals of Charles IX. Ribault claimed everything in sight for France.

When Philip II of Spain learned that Ribault was reinforcing the colony with troops and much-needed provisions, he (King Philip) dispatched Admiral Pedro Menendez de Avilés to "remind" the French that Spain had laid claim to Florida, even though they really hadn't quite felt the urgency to occupy or settle it. Menendez set up shop in 1565 at Saint Augustine, 32 miles to the south. Ribault responded by gathering all his forces and sailing against Menendez. An unexpected hurricane (they were all unexpected in those days) scattered and wrecked the French ships all up and down the beaches of present-day Saint John's and Flagler Counties. Knowing that La Caroline was undefended, Menendez captured the village on September 20, 1565 and killed 140 defenders. 60 women and children were taken prisoner, 40 or 50 others escaped via ship to France. The Spanish troops then marched south down the beach and killed or captured the shipwrecked French. The survivors were rounded up and taken to the inlet of a river south of Saint Augustine, where the Spanish hacked 350 of them to death with swords.

That river came to be known as Matanzas (slaughter). France avenged the killings in 1568 by slaughtering the Spanish troops garrisoned at La Caroline, which the Spanish had renamed San Mateo. But the die was cast, the French gave up their attempt to colonize the American southeast, and La Caroline was never reoccupied by anyone. Eventually the shifting sands and water of the Saint John's obscured the original site.

Were it not for sixteenth-century Spanish attention to detail with regard to butchering the oppostion, Fort Caroline might be as well known to the average American as Jamestown, Plymouth, or Saint Augustine.

Sometimes I'm still amazed that we don't speak Spanish or French...

[chalksoperations]

Que?

[Desdamona]

Yo no hablo español.
Je ne parle pas le français ou.

[weirdo0521]

I used to go hang out at Fort Caroline frequently when I needed to get away form it all....I was always amazed with all the history in N. FL how quiet and off the radar screen it was

[son of a beach]

I love the Matanzas River.
That's usaully where I go boating/swimming/kayaking/fishing and a couple of other unmentionable history making things