The slaughter at Matanzas

Jay Kislak Foundation

Pedro Menéndez de Aviles captured Fort Caroline and killed Jean Ribault.

On this day in 1565, French naval officer Jean Ribault and about 200 of his men were slaughtered by Spanish soldiers on the banks of the Matanzas River south of St. Augustine. If it hadn't been for his earlier accomplishments, Rebault might have been merely a footnote in history.

augustine.com

Jean Ribault

In 1562, Rebault led a Huguenot expedition to the New World to establish a colony for France. He explored the area around the mouth of the St. Johns River, then moved north and built a settlement on present-day Parris Island, S.C.

The settlement was named Charlesfort, for the king of France. He left a small group of men there and returned to Europe for more supplies and settlers.

He got caught up in the Religious Wars in Europe, was arrested in England and charged with spying so he couldn't return as planned. The group he left in the New World ran out of supplies, and, faced with hostile local tribes, built a crude open boat and set sail for Europe. Most didn't survive the trip. 

In 1564, René Goulaine de Laudonnière, Ribault's second-in-command in the earlier expedition, returned to the New World and established a colony at the mouth of the St. Johns River, the area the two had explored two years earlier. He called it Fort Caroline.

Laudonnière met the local Timucua tribe who helped the Frenchmen at first. But soon Fort Caroline was beset with troubles and unrest. Some colonists took a ship and sailed to the Gulf of Mexico where they became pirates and attacked Spanish ships. The Timucua stopped helping the remaining colonists, who became increasingly disenchanted.

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés

They were on the verge of revolt when Rebault finally returned from Europe with supplies and took control of Fort Caroline. Laudonnière was ready to depart for France, unhappy that he had been relieved of command.

But the Spanish, who had laid claim to Florida way back in 1513 when Juan Ponce de Leon first arrived, took a dim view of the arrival of the French. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés brought a Spanish fleet with the mission to remove the French Protestants from the New World. They attacked Ribault's ships near the mouth of the St. Johns but the weather was so bad that neither side prevailed. The deteriorating weather was an approaching hurricane. Menéndez sailed south and built a camp at St. Augustine near a Timucua village.

Ribault left Laudonnière with 100 men and sailed south to attack Menéndez at St. Augustine.  Menéndez sent men overland during the hurricane to attack Fort Caroline. They overwhelmed the fort, killing most of the men but sparing the women and children. Laudonnière escaped and eventually returned to Europe.

Meanwhile, Ribault's fleet got caught in the hurricane and his forces were scattered south toward where Daytona Beach is today. The ships were destroyed and Ribault and his men washed ashore. They started walking north along the beach. The Spanish found them at Matanzas Inlet. Ribault, believing his forces would be treated well, promptly surrendered.

But Menéndez had most of the survivors, including Ribault, executed.

Information from The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1607-1689 by Wesley Frank Craven, the Fort Caroline National Memorial Web site and Charlesfort: Return to Port Royal: 1564 by Chester B. DePpratter was used in this report.