The Land We Live In | Page 8

and the salaries were usually but a small
part of the income. Viceroys who had been in office a few years, went
back to Spain with princely fortunes.
* * *
Such was the condition of affairs in Spain's vast American empire
when England, France and the United Provinces started on a career of
colonization in North America. It seems to have been providential that
the same generation which witnessed the discovery of America
witnessed the birth of Luther. In the century which followed the Theses
of Wittenberg the eyes of sufferers for conscience' sake turned eagerly
and hopefully toward the New World as a refuge from the oppression,
the scandal and the persecution of the old. The first to seek what is now
the Atlantic region of the United States with the object of making their
home here were French Huguenots, sent out by the great Admiral

Coligny, who afterward fell a victim in the massacre of Bartholomew's
Day. The Frenchmen planted a settlement first at Port Royal, which
was abandoned, and afterward built a fort about eighteen miles up the
St. John's River, Florida, and named it Fort Caroline. This was in the
year 1564. In the following year a Spanish fleet, commanded by Don
Pedro Menendez de Aviles, appeared at the mouth of the St. John's. In
answer to the French challenge as to his purpose the Spanish
commander replied that he came with orders from his king to gibbet
and behead all the Protestants in those regions. "The Frenchman, who
is a Catholic," he added, "I will spare. Every heretic shall die." The
Huguenots, had they held together, might have been able to offer a
successful resistance to the Spaniards, but Jean Ribault, the French
commander, unfortunately decided to sail out from the shelter of Fort
Caroline and seek a conflict at sea with the enemy. A storm destroyed
the French fleet, but the crews succeeded in escaping to land.
Menendez marched overland with his troops to the unprotected fort and
easily captured it with its handful of defenders. The Spaniards cruelly
murdered almost the entire colony of two hundred men, women and
children, some of them being hung to trees with the inscription: "Not as
Frenchmen, but as Lutherans."
Ribault, ignorant of the tragedy at the fort, sought to return there from
the place where he had been shipwrecked. His men were divided in two
detachments. Menendez went in search of them, and meeting one party
told them that Fort Caroline, with its inmates, had been destroyed. The
Frenchmen were helpless, and pleaded for mercy. Menendez asked:
"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?" They answered: "We are of the
reformed religion." The pitiless Spaniard replied that he was under
orders to exterminate all of that faith. They offered him fifty thousand
ducats if he would spare their lives. Menendez demanded that the
Frenchmen should place themselves at his mercy. They consented to do
so. A small stream divided the Huguenots from the Spaniards.
Menendez ordered that the French should cross over in companies of
ten. As they crossed they were taken out of sight of their companions
and bound with their arms behind them. When all of the Frenchmen,
about two hundred in number, had been thus secured, Menendez again
asked them: "Are you Catholics or Lutherans?" Some twelve professed

to be Catholics, and these with four mechanics who could be made
useful to the Spaniards, were led away. The remainder of the two
hundred were put to death. Menendez next intercepted Ribault and the
remnant of his men, and by similar treachery accomplished their
destruction, refusing an offer of one hundred thousand ducats to spare
their lives. Menendez wrote to King Phillip that the Huguenots "were
put to the sword, judging this to be expedient for the service of God our
Lord, and of your majesty."
Thus ended the first attempt of members of the reformed religion to
settle within the limits of what is now the United States. But the blood
of the victims did not cry in vain to Heaven for vengeance. A
Frenchman, himself a Roman Catholic, the Chevalier Dominic de
Gourges, determined to punish the Spaniards for their cruelty. He sold
his property to obtain money to fit out an expedition to Florida.
Arriving in Florida in the spring of 1568, he was joined by the natives
in an attack on two forts occupied by the Spaniards below Fort Caroline.
The forts were captured and their inmates put to the sword, except a
few whom de Gourges hung to trees with the inscription: "Not as
Spaniards and mariners, but as traitors, robbers and murderers."
CHAPTER II.
Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh--English Expedition to North
Carolina--Failure of Attempts to Settle There--Virginia Dare--The Lost
Colony--The Foundation of Jamestown--Captain John Smith--His Life
Saved by Pocahontas--Rolfe