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Influence of France on Florida
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By Jerry Wilkinson
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- After the many
attempts to settle
Florida by the Spanish, it was beginning to seem like a hopeless goal.
Almost as on cue after Tristan de Luna's failure in 1559, France had
three
ships en route to Florida by February 1562. Although France never owned
Florida, she did have some effect on south Florida and the Keys. Some
of
the escaped Huguenots were captured in the vicinity of the Keys. A
concurrent
event in time is that William Shakespeare was born two years later on
April
23, 1564.
French Huguenot
Admiral Gaspard
de Coligny sent Admiral Jean Ribault to North America. He landed at the
mouth of a river they named "Mai" (the St. Johns River of Jacksonville)
because they landed in the month of May. Ribault's arrival also
provided
the first Protestant prayer offered up on North America. The Indians
were
friendly to Ribault. He then sailed north and established a small
settlement
near present-day Port Royal, South Carolina and returned to France. At
this time, all of the southeastern United States was called Florida.
In 1564 one of
Ribault's officers,
Rene Laudonniere, was sent back from France with 300 men and four
women.
They built Fort Caroline six miles up the St. Johns River. Again, the
Indians
welcomed the returning Frenchmen who survived with the help of Timucuan
Indian's grain, fruit and wild game. With this apparent success,
Laudonniere
called for music and a feast to celebrate their good fortune on June
30,
1564. Of this celebration he wrote: "We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving
unto
God, beseeching Him that it would please His Grace to continue His
accustomed
goodness toward us." This was 57 years before the better known
Thanksgiving
celebration at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Laudonniere retrieved two
Spanish
sailors thought to have been ship wrecked with Fontaneda from the
Indians
in 1564.
The following year,
French
Admiral Ribault sailed again with seven more ships to reinforce the
French
colony. Meanwhile back in Catholic Spain, the news of the French
Huguenots
(Protestant Lutherans) establishing a colony in Spanish Florida was not
received well. Spanish King Philip II reversed his position on not
settling
Florida and Pedro Menendez de Aviles was sent to the same area to
destroy
the "heretical" Frenchmen.
After the
many attempts to settle Florida by the Spanish, it was
beginning to seem like a hopeless goal. Almost as on cue after Tristan
de Luna's failure in 1559, France had three ships en route to Florida
by
February 1562. It had little effect on south Florida and the Keys. Some
of the escaped Huguenots were captured in the vicinity of the Keys. A
concurrent
event in time is that William Shakespeare was born two years later on
April
23, 1564.
In 1564 one
of Ribault's officers,
Rene Laudonniere, was sent back from France with 300 men and four
women.
They built Fort Caroline six miles up the St. Johns River. Again, the
Indians
welcomed the returning Frenchmen who survived with the help of Timucuan
Indian's grain, fruit and wild game. With this apparent success,
Laudonniere
called for music and a feast to celebrate their good fortune on June
30,
1564. Of this celebration he wrote: "We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving
unto
God, beseeching Him that it would please His Grace to continue His
accustomed
goodness toward us." This was 57 years before the better known
Thanksgiving
celebration at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Laudonniere retrieved two
Spanish
sailors thought to have been ship wrecked with Fontaneda from the
Indians
in 1564.
The following year,
French
Admiral Ribault sailed again with seven more ships to reinforce the
French
colony. Meanwhile back in Catholic Spain, the news of the French
Huguenots
(Protestant Lutherans) establishing a colony in Spanish Florida was not
received well. Spanish King Philip II reversed his position on not
settling
Florida and Pedro Menendez de Aviles was sent to the same area to
destroy
the "heretical" Frenchmen.
Menendez
arrived shortly after the French ships of Ribault with
Spain's largest force yet, 1,504 men in 19 ships. The French were not
expecting
a naval battle, so Menendez chose to challenge the French immediately.
Not prepared to do battle, French Admiral Ribault immediately got under
sail, but a storm wrecked his fleet at sea. Spanish Menendez then chose
not to attack, sailed south to St. Augustine, then marched back over
land
to capture the French Fort Caroline completely by surprise. He renamed
it San Mateo, which is now Jacksonville. Menendez got word of the
wrecked
French ships and slaughtered the two groups of the helpless Frenchmen
stranded
along the Florida coasts. The location was named Matanzas for the
slaughter
of the Frenchmen. This slaughter of Frenchmen could have mistakenly
gave
the name Matanza (slaughter) to early Indian Key.
The French were
outraged over
this slaughter by the Spanish. Seven months later in 1567, French
Dominque
de Gorgues retaliated. He hanged all the Spanish in San Mateo, and
renamed
it Fort Caroline. Menendez, who was away exploring and expanding St.
Augustine,
escaped. Menendez was the rescuer of the 30-year old Fontaneda. The
bloody
rivalry between the French and Spanish forces lasted for three years in
northeast Florida.
In 1586, the
English
made their first move on Florida when, by pillage and fire, the
aforementioned
Sir Francis Drake destroyed St. Augustine; however, it was sometime
later
that the English took any major interest in Florida. Please remember,
all
this happened before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620. The
history of Florida started very early, but developed very slowly.
The
French-Spanish-English
fight over the possession of Florida continued, but the Indians lost
every
time. Diseases from all parts of Europe were quickly taking their toll
on the native population. The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620
and settlements north of Florida were started.
This ushered in the
thirteen
English colonies with Georgia as the last. By 1660, the population of
the
north was 80,000. By 1700, it was 250,000.
The French shifted
their attention
to present-day Louisiana, where D'Iberville and De Bienville
established
French settlements. The Spanish, in an attempt to stabilize this
intrusion
by the French, established a settlement in Pensacola in 1698. In one
sense,
they re-established it, as Tristan de Luna had already done so in 1559.
At the beginning of
the 1700s
there were two significant settlements in Florida, Pensacola and St.
Augustine,
and they were both Spanish. The 13 English Colonies to the north had
about
250,000 people. Some of the Creek Indian Nation migrated down into
north
Florida due to westward expansion by the English settlers. These Creeks
became known as Seminoles. They soon spread as far south as Key West.
In
the Bahamas, wrecking had gone from privateering to pirating. Cuba's
population
had grown to 50,000 and its economy suffered by Spain's many wars.
Nothing
much was going on down in the Keys except shipwrecks, many of which
still
lay along the reefs. No doubt, there was somewhat of a fishing and
lumbering
industry. Key West was a natural deep-water seaport for foreign ships
to
anchor and avoid Havana. Fresh water could be obtained by digging a
seepage
hole in the ground. However, no permanent community is known to
have
been established.
New Orleans was
founded in
1718 and in September 1719, the French fleet arrived at Mobile,
Alabama.
De Bienville seized the opportunity to capture Pensacola from the
Spanish.
Pensacola was destroyed and the Spanish captives were sent to Havana,
where
they were traded for French captives. The Spanish negotiated a treaty
for
the return of Pensacola to Spain on March 27, 1721. Florida as a colony
was never owned by the French, as it was later by the English; however
France, who had excellent relations with the Indians, did not lack the
will to own it.
During this period,
a French
priest who was shipwrecked in the Keys gave his account at the hands of
the Keys' Indians. Traveling from Mississippi, the French ship Adour ran
aground some where in the Keys. The priest, Pierre de Charlevoix, and
survivors
while rowing ashore were met by friendly Indians. The cacique used a
Spanish
name, Don Antonio and offered to help guide the Frenchmen to St.
Augustine.
Reconsidering his offer, Don Antonio waited for his "King", a Don
Diego,
who did not wish to become involved with the Frenchmen. The ship was
refloated
and the Frenchmen were permitted to sail away on their own.
As a result of the
Seven Years
War in Europe, and the French and Indian War in America, the Treaty of
Paris
of 1763 ceded France's Louisiana to Spain, France's Canada to England
and
Spain's Florida to England. We bid adieu to the French in Florida and
hello
to the English. The French never made any impact in the Keys unless the
names Tavernier and Indian Key are also considered and this appears to
be in name only.
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