After visiting a few sites in Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, we visited two sites at Fort Caroline.
Fort Caroline tells the story of the brief French settlement in the second half of the 1500s. As Europe raced to stake their claim in the New World, Spain and France butted heads a couple of times. If you dig in the archives, you’ll remember that we visited Santa Elena a couple of years ago, where the Spanish kicked the French out on what is now South Carolina soil. The same story happened here, with the same two protagonists: Jean Ribault and Pedro Menéndez.
Ribault is memorialized now in many place names, including a nearby school, neighborhoods, clubs, and the ferry we used earlier in the day. Today, there is a column erected on the top of a bluff, mimicking the pillar that Ribault erected in the area back in 1562 when he was claiming the area for France. (It is the second pillar I’ve seen in honor of him, the first being back at the Santa Elena site, where the French had established Charlesfort prior to Spanish arrival.)
The French built Fort Caroline in 1564 (both of these French forts paying homage to King Charles IX of France), but then the Spanish weren’t having the French’s presence. Menéndez and his crew came in the following year and ended up scattering and/or killing many of the French. The fort at that time was weakly guarded, as Ribault and his crew had gone south to St. Augustine to try and attack the Spanish. Menéndez’s crew then found and imprisoned them, eventually slaughtering them…hence the name Matanzas (meaning ‘slaughterings’ in Spanish) down in St. Augustine, but more on that in a later post.
Near the visitors center, there is a reconstruction of the fort, though much of it, including its precise location, is conjecture. The VC also contains a Spanish cannon from the 16th century, which was cool to see.
But the coolest thing about this site is that this is the first place I’ve been to that has a Senior Ranger program for adults like myself! While Junior Ranger programs don’t have age limits, it was neat to do a program along with my girls. We all three got sworn in as Junior/Senior Rangers when we finished.
Having had a successful day, we headed back up to our hotel to decompress. Another full day of exploring to come on our adventures! Click below for a couple of other pictures.
Beavers in the Park 