Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II | Page 3

Penn's Treaty with the Indians (1683). His Own Account
III. The Reality of Penn's Treaty. By George E. Ellis
THE CHARTER OAK AFFAIR IN CONNECTICUT (1682). By
Alexander Johnston
THE COLONIZATION OF LOUISIANA (1699). By Charles E.T.
Gayarré
OGELETHORPE IN GEORGIA (1733). By Joel Chandler Harris

THE PLANTING OF THE FIRST COLONIES
1562-1733
THE FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE MASSACRE BY
MENENDEZ
(1562-1565)
I.

THE ACCOUNT BY JOHN A. DOYLE[1]
In 1562 the French Huguenot party, headed by Coligny, made another
attempt[2] to secure themselves a refuge in the New World. Two ships
set sail under the command of Jean Ribault, a brave and experienced
seaman, destined to play a memorable and tragic part in the history of
America. Ribault does not seem to have set out with any definite
scheme of colonization, but rather, like Amidas and Barlow, to have
contented himself with preliminary exploration. In April he landed on
the coast of Florida....
After he had laid the foundations of a fort, called in honor of the king
Charlefort, Ribault returned to France. He would seem to have been
unfortunate in his choice alike of colonists and of a commander. The
settlers lived on the charity of the Indians, sharing in their festivities,
wandering from village to village and wholly doing away with any
belief in their superior wisdom and power which might yet have
possest their savage neighbors....
France was torn asunder by civil war, and had no leisure to think of an
insignificant settlement beyond the Atlantic. No supplies came to the
settlers, and they could not live forever on the bounty of their savage
neighbors. The settlers decided to return home. To do this it was
needful to build a bark with their own hands from the scanty resources
which the wilderness offered. Whatever might have been the failings of
the settlers, they certainly showed no lack of energy or of skill in
concerting means for their departure. They felled the trees to make
planks, moss served for calking, and their shirts and bedding for sails,
while their Indian friends supplied cordage. When their bark was
finished they set sail. Unluckily in their impatience to be gone, they did
not reckon what supplies they would need. The wind, at first favorable,
soon turned against them, and famine stared them in the face. Driven to
the last resort of starving seamen, they cast lots for a victim, and the lot,
by a strange chance, fell upon the very man whose punishment had
been a chief count against De Pierria. Life was supported by this
hideous relief, till they came in sight of the French coast. Even then
their troubles were not over. An English privateer bore down upon
them and captured them. The miseries of the prisoners seem, in some
measure, to have touched their enemies. A few of the weakest were
landed on French soil. The rest ended their wanderings in an English

prison.
The needs of the abandonment of the colony did not reach France till
long after the event. Before its arrival a fleet was sent out to the relief
of the colony. Three ships were dispatched, the largest of a hundred and
twenty tons, the least of sixty tons, under the command of René
Laudonnière, a young Poitevin of good birth. On their outward voyage
they touched at Teneriffe and Dominica, and found ample evidence at
each place of the terror which the Spaniards had inspired among the
natives. In June the French reached the American shore south of Port
Royal. As before, their reception by the Indians was friendly. Some
further exploration failed to discover a more suitable site than that
which had first presented itself, and accordingly a wooden fort was
soon built with a timber palisade and bastions of earthen work. Before
long the newcomers found that their intercourse with the Indians was
attended with unlooked-for difficulties. There were three tribes of
importance, each under the command of a single chief, and all more or
less hostile to the other. In the South the power of the chiefs seems to
have been far more dreaded, and their influence over the national
policy more authoritative than among the tribes of New England and
Canada. Laudonnière, with questionable judgment, entangled himself
in these Indian feuds, and entered into an offensive alliance with the
first of these chiefs whom he encountered, Satouriona....
A new source of trouble, however, soon beset the unhappy colonists.
Their quarrels had left them no time for tilling the soil, and they were
wholly dependent on the Indians for food. The friendship of the
savages soon proved but a precarious means of support. The
dissensions in the French camp must have lowered the new-corners in
the eyes of their savage neighbors. They would only part with their
supplies