Читать книгу History of Duval County - Pleasant Daniel Gold - Страница 7

PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILES, Knight of the Order of Santiago, though cruel and uncompromising, may be numbered among the greatest colonizers of all time. He was of noble birth and had spent his life in the service of his King, mainly upon the sea. When Philip of Spain appointed him Adelantado and Captain General of Florida, he assured him that he need have no fear in attacking the French Huguenots. The Spanish monarch felt secure in his position, for Catherine De Medici, his own mother-in-law and Queen mother of France, was in sympathy with his designs. When Ribault' s ships lay off the harbor of St. Augustine waiting to attack him, Menendez saw that their decks were crowded with soldiers, and while they seemed a dreadful menace then, he knew full well that the garrison left at Fort Caroline must be very small; he therefore determined to attack the fort at once, before Ribault could have time to return to its aid.

The storm which was still raging made a trip by sea perilous, covering the land with water, and although his officers grumbled at the idea of taking a journey through an unknown wilderness in such weather, Menendez overruled their objections and prepared for the attack. Meras, the historian of Menendez, gives the following account of the march of the Spanish forces from St. Augustine to Fort Caroline: " The next day, at daybreak, they sounded reveille with trumpets, fifes and drums; the bells chimed and all thronged to mass; and having heard it, they departed hopefully, all setting out marching in order. "

" The Adelantado took 20 soldiers, all Biscayans and Asturians, with their hatchets; a Biscayan captain with them who was called Martin Ochoa, and Indians who had come there, brothers, who seemed to be angels that God was sending; these told them by signs that they had been in the fort of the French 6 days before; and he went ahead, marching as far front as he could, making the path, blazing the trees with the hatchets, so that the men should not lose it and should know it on their return, ( and ) leaving the camp master and sergeant major to follow in good order; and whenever it seemed best to the Adelantado to call a halt in a suitable place where there was water, he did so; he waited until they were all assembled and gave them orders to rest, and would then depart at once, opening the way and making it, as has been said, and he would again call a halt in the place that seemed best to him to pass the night. ( Marching ) in this order, on the fourth day at sunset he went to reconnoiter the land around the fort, a half league therefrom, where he stopped; and as it was a wet and stormy night, and in order not to be discovered it seemed to him expedient to draw nearer into a pine grove, where he approached to less than a quarter of a league from the fort, where he decided to spend that night in a very bad and swampy place; and on account of the bad night he turned back to look for the rear-guard so that they should succeed in finding the way. It was after 10 when they finished arriving, and as during those 4 days there had been much rain, they had crossed many marshes, and had carried their arms and knapsacks with food, on their backs, the soldiers arrived very tired and weak; and because the showers that night were very heavy, there was no way to keep the powder and wicks from being all wet, and the little biscuit they had in their knapsacks, and no one wore anything on his body that was not wet with water; at this point the Adelantado feared greatly to take counsel with the captains, either as to going back or going forward to the fort of the Frenchmen, because some were beginning to be insolent; and his officers were saying abusive words against him so audibly that he heard many of them, especially those of an ensign Captain San Vicente, who placed himself near the Adelantado and said loudly, so that he might hear him:

" ( See ) how we have been sold by that Austrian corito, who knows no more about land warfare than an ass! If my advice had been followed on the first day we set forth from St. Augustine to make this journey, he would have been given the reward he must now take.' ".

" Then the Adelantado feared the more and pretended he did not hear him."

The route taken was almost a direct one from St. Augustine to St. Johns Bluff. Anyone familiar with the territory, can well imagine the difficulties encountered through the flooded swamps and flat woods in the trackless region of three hundred and sixty-two years ago. The men grumbled at the hardships and wished to retreat, but the indomitable Menendez was not discouraged. He called his officers together in the darkness before dawn, and in a steady downpour of rain, he boldly told them that without ammunition and food there was but one thing to do — capture the fort by surprise-assault with pike and halberd. He raised the drooping spirits of his followers, and they started forward only to be lost in the dense swamps and compelled to wait in water to their knees until daylight.

The condition of Fort Caroline on the morning of the nineteenth of September, 1565, the day of the attack, is best told by Le Moyne, who was one of the garrison at the time. He says: " Although the rains continued as constant and heavy as if the world was to be again overwhelmed with a flood, they set out, and marched all night towards us. On our part, those few who were able to bear arms were that same night on guard; for, out of about a hundred and fifty persons remaining in the fort, there were scarcely twenty in serviceable condition, since Ribault, as before mentioned, had carried off with him all the able soldiers except fourteen or fifteen, who were sick or mutilated, or wounded in the campaign against Outina. The remainder were either servants or mechanics who had never even heard a gun fired, or king' s commissaries better able to handle a pen than a sword; and, besides, there were some women, whose husbands, most of them, had gone on board the ships. M. de Laudonnière himself was sick in bed. "

" When the day broke, nobody being about the fort, M. de la Vigne, who was the officer of the guard, pitying the drenched and exhausted condition of the men, who were worn out with long watching, permitted them to take a little rest; but they scarcely had time to go to their quarters, and lay aside their arms, when the Spaniards, guided by a Frenchman named Francois Jean, who had seduced some of his messmates along with him, attacked the fort at the double quick in three places at once, penetrated the works without resistance, and, getting possession of the place of arms, drew up their force there. Then, parties searched the soldiers' quarters, killing all whom they found, so that awful outcries and groans arose from those who were being slaughtered. For my own part, whenever I call to mind the great wonder that God, to whom truly nothing is impossible, brought to pass in my case, I cannot be enough astonished at it, and am, as it were, stunned with the recollection. On coming in from my watch, I laid down my arquebuse; and, all wet through as I was, I threw myself into a hammock which I had slung up after the Brazilian fashion, hoping to get a little sleep. But on hearing the outcries, the noise of the weapons, and the sound of blows, I jumped up again, and was going out of the house to see what was the matter, when I met in the very doorway two Spaniards with their swords drawn, who passed on into the house without accosting me, although I brushed against them. When, however, I saw nothing was visible except slaughter, and that the place of arms itself was held by the Spaniards, I turned back at once, and made for one of the embrasures, where I knew I could get out. "

Le Moyne succeeded in escaping and returned to France to write his narrative and leave to history one of the few accounts of the destruction from the French viewpoint.

According to the Spanish account, the garrison was surprised and all killed excepting seventy who escaped to the woods, some of whom reached the ships anchored in the river. Among those who escaped was Laudonnière. Meras stated that Menendez gave orders that no women or boys under fifteen years of age should be killed.

Three ships were anchored in the river, with their prows close to the fort. They were under the command of Jacques Ribault, son of Jean Ribault. Menendez demanded the surrender of these vessels and claims that he offered the Frenchmen one of the ships to take the women and children to France. Young Ribault refused to surrender, and loading one of the cannon with powder found in the fort, the Spaniards fired a shot which hit one of the ships at the water line and sank it. The crew of the French ship took to their small boats; escaped to the other two ships, and cutting their cables, floated down the river with the outgoing tide to a point behind the bluff where the guns of Fort Caroline could not reach them. There they anchored again to pick up the refugee Frenchmen who had escaped and were now fleeing through the woods. This act of the younger Ribault saved the lives of Le Moyne and many of those Frenchmen who swam to the ships, and were in this way able to find their way back to France. Meras claims that there were only thirty of these, for the Spaniards hunted them through the forest and killed the remainder. He gives no account of the hanging of the prisoners to a tree which is the story of the French Chroniclers, yet, according to his own evidence all Frenchmen were killed except the women and boys under fifteen years of age, saved by order of Menendez. Meras in his memorial, however, makes no reference of the women or children being carried to St. Augustine. He does state that a vessel would be sent to take them to the Island of San Domingo, with the request to its government to send them to Seville, Spain, where they could proceed to France. Whether this feat was accomplished there seems to be no record.

Menendez having captured Fort Caroline and either expelled or killed all of the garrison, changed its name to Fort San Mateo because the day he captured it was Saint Matthew' s Day and this name it retained from September 19, 1565, until the time of its destruction several years later. From the same date the Riviere de la May became the Rio de San Mateo. The Spanish Adelantado placed Captain Gonzalo de Villarroel in charge of the fort, and made him alcaide and governor of the district. Rudiaz probably gives the best account of this in his " La Florida ": " Captain Gonzalo de Villarroel was made Commandant of that fort and governor of that district. Formerly he had been Sergeant-Major, and having labored well and with much diligence, he appeared to be a very good soldier of the government and worthy of every confidence. The fort was delivered over to him, which he named San Mateo, and ordered that from that day forward it should be held and defended in the name of His Majesty with 300 soldiers whom he left there as guard. He then ordered the Field-master to make a list of all the people who had been there, of those who were to remain, and of those who were to return with the Adelantado, and it was carried out. Then taking with him the Sergeant Major, having first placed Rodrigo Montes in the capacity of keeper of supplies of the fort, he delivered over into his keeping all the provisions which were there. And he took the morning of another day to make a record of the delivery and to leave instructions as to the manner of giving out rations. And the Adelantado resolved in this Council that the two Coats-of-Arms of the King of France and of the French Admiral of the fleet, which were above the principal door of the fort, should be taken down. But when they went to take them down they found that a soldier had already taken them down and demolished them. He then ordered that there be made a coat-of-arms with the royal arms of Spain, of His Majesty King Philip, Our Sovereign, with a cross of the angels above the crown, which were very well executed by some Flemish soldiers who were present, and he had it placed where the other escutcheons had been. "

With the same lumber which the French had prepared for the building of a ship, Menendez ordered a church to be erected upon a site which he selected, then hastened back to St. Augustine in order that he might dispatch two ships and intercept the French vessels which were still anchored in the river. He set out from Fort San Mateo on September 20, 1565, with only thirty-five soldiers and from his account the trip to St. Augustine through the woods and swamps was very arduous. There was even more water than when he came, and the party lost their way and a soldier who climbed a tree reported " that all he could see was water. " By felling trees and making a bridge they crossed the deeper streams and finally reached St. Augustine after three days' journey. He immediately ordered two armed ships to proceed to the San Mateo River to capture the French vessels, but before they could be prepared to depart the news came that the French ships had crossed the bar and proceeded out to sea. However, he sent one of the vessels with a full supply of arms and ammunition to Fort San Mateo.

The two ships, one under the command of Laudonnière and the other Jacques Ribault, became separated on the voyage across the Atlantic and the passengers on both endured considerable hardships. Yet they finally reached France to tell the story of the capture of Fort Caroline by the Spaniards.

Eight days after the Spaniards captured Fort Caroline, now Fort San Mateo, it was burned-probably accidentally — though some Spanish chroniclers suspect it may have been the result of internal dissensions among the officers. The fort was soon rebuilt, however, and made even stronger than when occupied by the French.