Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, January 26, 1999

Single Frenchman vows revenge for Menendez' massacre

Angry Sailor organizes ships, wild Indians attack

by Jim Bradshaw

King Philip II of Spain not only wrote words of praise to his lieutenant in North America, Pedro Menendez, he also wrote to the king of France to claim that the Frenchmen who had been killed at Fort Caroline, besides being fatally Protestant, were trespassers on Spanish territory. King Philip's complaint apparently outweighed cries from relatives of the French who has been slaughtered. King Charles of France did nothing .

But that's not to say that nothing was done.

Dominique de Gourgues hated the Spanish. When he was a young man, they took him prisoner and chained him to an oar as a galley slave. His ship was captured by the Turks, taken to Constantinople, and its crew became the slaves of even more tyrannical masters. Finally, the ship was captured by friendly Knights of Malta and De Gourgues was freed. He returned to France and again took up the sailor's life. When he heard of the massacre in Florida and that the French Crown would do nothing about it he decided to settle the score himself. He sold everything he had, borrowed what money he could, and equipped three small ships to carry 100 soldiers and 80 sailors. He sailed in August 1567 to regain the honor of France and to avenge the massacre. Meanwhile, Menendez had strengthened both Fort Caroline (which he now called Fort Mateo) and St. Augustine. He had also built two small forts at the mouth of the River of May. So the Spanish were not alarmed when they saw they sails steering toward them. They did not expect any French retaliation..

Sailing in the darkness of night, De Gourgues' ships sailed past the now Spanish fort and anchored north of the River of May. At daybreak, they found that the beach was filled with Indians, armed and ready for war. But there was a man traveling with the French fleet who had been in Florida and who knew the Indians. He went ashore and was greeted warmly. The Indians said that the Spanish had treated them cruelly, and that they would be glad to fight with the French. Within three or four days, the Indians were headed overland toward the Spanish stockades at Fort Caroline. The French headed there by sea. They were counting on surprise, since there were 400 well-armed Spaniards who could fight from behind the walls of the forts. De Gourgues planned to attack with his 100 soldiers and a band of 300 wild Indians.

The French soldiers and the friendly Indians met near one of the small forts on the River of May. The attack came at dawn. The Spanish were thoroughly surprised. Not one escaped from the little fort. But the attack alerted the Spanish in the second fort on the opposite bank of the river. Shots from its cannon began to boom across the river. De Gourgues loaded a longboat with his soldiers and rowed into the teeth of the fire. Hundreds of Indians swam behind him. The Spanish panicked and fled into the forest but it was too late. French and Indian fighters surrounded them. Only 15 Spaniards were saved. They would be hanged in sight of the main Spanish fort.

De Gourgues and his Indians destroyed the forts at the River of May, then sailed back to France. He did not try to take St. Augustine, knowing that the Spanish were too strong there.

The avenger reached La Rochelle on the day after Pentecost. The citizenry gave him a hero's welcome but the official reception was much cooler. The Spanish minister demanded his head, and rumor had it that the French Crown was going to provide it.

De Gourgues went into hiding. His fortune was gone, his debts were huge. He lived out the rest of his life in misery and obscurity. Menendez, meanwhile, returned to Spain to receive high honors for driving the French from Florida and protecting the strategic Gulf Stream passage for the Spanish treasure ship.

Menendez' work would have far reaching consequences. As English historian J.A. Doyle wrote, "Had not Menendez swept away the colony of Ribault... the English colonies in their infancy might have found themselves hemmed in by a vast belt of French outposts along the valleys of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the St. Lawrence. ... Later events showed that (uprooting the French from Fort Caroline) might have changed the whole history of America and the world." In Doyle's view, Menendez stopped "a movement which, left unchecked, would have meant French domination of the Atlantic from Labrador to Florida."

Even though there was no formal settlement, French pirates used the coast to establish camps from which they preyed on the Spanish treasure fleet. In 1578, a Spanish force marched up the east coast to drive out French pirates. They captured about 100 men and killed Nicolas Estrozi, the leader of the pirate band. Estrozi had many friends among the Caribbean pirates who retaliated by attacking Spanish forces in Florida whenever they could over the next several years.