|
- Influence
of
France
on
Florida
-
-
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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