Читать книгу History of Duval County - Pleasant Daniel Gold - Страница 8

CHAPTER V. THE FATE OF RIBAULT. ( 1565. )

ACCOUNTS of the massacre of Admiral Jean Ribault and his company who were. wrecked on the east coast of Florida is given by both French and Spanish chroniclers and differ but slightly in detail. Although these happenings occurred beyond the borders of Duval territory it was the destruction of colonists who had established themselves there and in the History of Duval County the story has its place.

Le Moyne gives an account which he received from a sailor of Dieppe, who was stabbed and left for dead beneath a pile of bodies and after nightfall succeeding in extricating himself from the dead mass and crawled away in the darkness. Some friendly Indians found and cared for him and long afterwards he reached France to tell his story. The best Spanish account is from the pen of Gonzolo Solis de Meras, a priest and brother-in-law of Pedro Menendez, who was present and boldly gives in detail his account of the slaughter.

From these two stories the facts are gleaned that Ribault' s party of about five hundred and fifty men started northward along the hard beach, after the wrecking of their ships, endeavoring to reach Fort Caroline. About two hundred of the company in vessels wrecked at a more northerly point came ahead of Ribault and his party and finding a barrier at Matanzas Inlet, the southerly point of Anastasia Island, prepared to construct rafts to cross.

Menendez, the day after his return to St. Augustine from Fort Caroline, received news through Indians that there were white men at an arm of the sea four leagues to the south, and taking forty men with him he went to reconnoiter. Seeing the banners of France on the opposite shore of the narrow inlet he readily knew that they were all, or a part, of Ribault' s company. A Frenchman swam across to the Spaniards and explained their predicament, and asked that the company be allowed to proceed to Fort Caroline. Here the French and Spanish accounts disagree. The former claim that Menendez promised them free passage to France if they would surrender to him. Meras asserts that the Adelantado only promised that " if they wanted to give up their flags and arms to him and place themselves at his mercy they could do so in order that he might do with them what God should direct him. "

The two hundred Frenchmen surrendered, and the following is the story of the subsequent happenings in Meras' own words: " Then the Adelantado ordered twenty soldiers to enter the boat to bring the Frenchmen over, ten at a time; the river was narrow and easy to cross; and he instructed Diego Florez de Valdes, the Admiral of the fleet, to receive the flags and arms, and go in a boat to bring the Frenchmen across; ( he ordered ) that the soldiers should not give them ill treatment; and the Adelantado withdrew from the shore a distance of about two arquebuse shots, behind a sand dune, among some bushes, where the men in the approaching boat, who were bringing the French, could not see him; then he said to the French captain and the other eight Frenchmen who were with him:

" Gentlemen, I have but few soldiers, and they are not very experienced; and you are many, and if you are not bound, it would be an easy thing for you to avenge yourselves on us for the death of your people, whom we killed when we took the fort; and so it is necessary that you march with your hands tied behind you, to a place four leagues from here where I have my camp. "

" The Frenchmen replied that so it should be done; and with ropes from the soldiers' fuses they fastened their hands behind them very securely; and the ten who came over ( each time ) in the boat could not see those whose hands were being tied behind them, until they met them, because it was expedient so to do in order that the Frenchmen who had not crossed the river might not understand what was happening and be warned; and thus two hundred and eight Frenchmen were bound, * * * * * * * * "

" The Adelantado commanded that they should march, after having first given them food and drink when they arrived in tens, before they were bound; this was done before the next ten came; and he told one of his captains, who is called * * * * that he was to march with them in the vanguard, and that at a cross-bow shot' s distance from there he would find a line which he ( the Adelantado ) would draw with a jineta he carried in his hand; ( that place ) was a sandy stretch over which they had to march to the Fort of St. Augustine; and there he was to kill them all, and he ordered the captain who came with the rear-guard to do likewise; and so it was done, and they were all left there dead; and that night he returned to St. Augustine toward dawn, because the sun had already set when those men died. "

On the day following his return to St. Augustine, Menendez received another message through Indians that other white men were on the same arm of the sea. He correctly surmised that these were Admiral Jean Ribault and the remainder of his company, so he immediately took one hundred and fifty soldiers and returned to Matanzas Inlet. Here again a parley ensued in which Ribault was invited to cross over in a boat, which invitation he accepted, accompanied by eight of his officers. Food and drink were given them by the Spaniards.

Again the accounts disagree. Le Moyne says that Menendez " made oath in the presence of all his men and drew up a writing sealed with his seal, repeating the oath and promising that he would without fraud, faithfully, and like a gentleman and a man of honesty preserve the lives of Ribault and his men. "

Meras, however, states that Menendez frankly told Ribault of the destruction of Fort Caroline and the massacre of the Frenchmen, and that Ribault offered to pay a ransom of one hundred thousand ducats to be allowed to go free; that Ribault returned to the other side of the inlet and after conference with his men stated that he and one hundred and fifty would surrender, but that two hundred preferred to take their chances with the Indians and had departed to the south.

Again Meras' own words can best tell the story of what followed: " The Adelantado immediately directed the Captain Diego Florez de Valdes, the Admiral of his armada, should have them brought over as he had the others, ten at a time; and taking Juan Ribao behind the sand dune, between the bushes, where he had taken the others, he had his hands and those of all the rest, tied behind their backs, as was done to the previous ones, telling them that they had to march four leagues on land, and by night, so that he could not allow them to go unbound, * * * * * *

" Juan Ribao * * * * * * began to sing the psalm, Domine memento mei, and when it was finished he said that from earth they came and unto earth must they return; that twenty years more or less were of little account; that the Adelantado was to do with them as he wished. And the Adelantado, giving the order that they should march, as he had to the others, in the same order and to the same line in the sand, commanded that the same be done to them as to the others; he only spared the fifers, drummers, trumpeters, and four more * * * * * in all sixteen persons; all the others were put to the knife. "

This practically completed the destruction of the French colony that had come to the territory of Duval and the region was thereafter under Spanish control for one hundred and ninety years, or until 1763.

The two hundred Frenchmen who had gone south were not allowed to long dwell in peace. Menendez learned through the Indians that they were building a fort near Cape Canaveral and, determined that the French power in Florida should be forever broken, organized a force of three hundred men, one hundred and thirty of whom were taken from Fort San Mateo, and on October 26, 1565, set out in search of them.

The soldiers marched by land but three boats provisioned for forty days went down the coast and were seen by the Frenchmen, who fled from their fort. Menendez sent a messenger assuring them that if they would return " he would give them the same treatment he gave the other Frenchmen. " Meras claims that about one hundred and fifty gave themselves up and were well treated, but that the captain with twenty others sent word that they preferred to be eaten by the Indians than surrender to the Spaniards.

Menendez set fire to the fort and continued to explore the coast of south Florida; arrived on November fourth at an Indian village called Ays from the tribe of that name, near the site of the city of Miami, where he left part of his company, and in the middle of November sailed with two of his boats to Havana, taking some of the Frenchmen with him.