Chapter IV: Ancient Florida (3)

Menendez himself more briefly writes: “I replied that they might surrender me their arms and put themselves under my pleasure, that I might do with them what our Lord might ordain; and from this resolution I do not and will not depart, unless our Lord God inspired me otherwise.” The words held out hopes that were delusive; but the French, hemmed in by the sea and by savages, saw no alternative. They crossed, laid down their arms, and were bound, by order of Menendez,—ostensibly to conduct them to the fort. Sixteen, chiefly Breton sailors, who professed to be Catholics, were spared; the rest, one hundred and eleven in all, were put to death in cold blood,—as ruthlessly as the French, ten years before, had despatched their prisoners amid the smoking ruins of Havana, and, like them, in the name of religion.[890]

Ribault himself, who was advancing by the same fatal route, was ignorant alike of the fall of Caroline and of the slaughter of the survivors of the advanced party; he too hoped to reach Laudonnière. Some days after the cruel treatment of the first band he reached the inlet, whose name to this day is a monument of the bloody work,—Matanzas.

The news of the appearance of this second French party reached Menendez on the 10th of October,—at the same time almost as that of the destruction of Fort San Mateo and its contents by fire, and while writing a despatch to the King, unfolding his plan for colonizing and holding Florida, by means of a series of forts at the Chesapeake, Port Royal, the Martyrs, and the Bay of Juan Ponce de Leon. He marched to the inlet with one hundred and fifty men. The French were on the opposite side, some making a rude raft. Both parties sounded drum and trumpet, and flung their standards to the breeze, drawing up in line of battle. Menendez then ordered his men to sit down and breakfast. Upon this, Ribault raised a white flag, and one of his men was soon swimming across. He returned with an Indian canoe that lay at the shore, and took over La Caille, an officer. Approaching Menendez, the French officer announced that the force was that of John Ribault, viceroy for the French king, three hundred and fifty men in all, who had been wrecked on the coast, and was now endeavoring to reach Fort Caroline. He soon learned how vain was the attempt. The fate of the fort and of its garrison, and the stark bodies of the preceding party, convinced him that those whom he represented must prepare to meet a similar fate. He requested Menendez to send an officer to Ribault to arrange terms of surrender; but the reply was that the French commander was free to cross with a few of his men, if he wished a conference.

When this was reported to him, the unfortunate Ribault made an effort in person to save his men. He was courteously received by Menendez, but, like his lieutenant, saw that the case was hopeless. According to Solis de Meras, Ribault offered a ransom of one hundred and fifty thousand ducats for himself and one part of his men; another part, embracing many wealthy nobles, preferring to treat separately. Menendez declined the offer, expressing his regret at being compelled to forego the money, which he needed. His terms were as enigmatical as before. He declared, so he himself tells us, “that they must lay down their arms and colors and put themselves under my pleasure; that I should do with their persons as I chose, and that there was nothing else to be done or concluded with me.”

Ribault returned to his camp and held a council with his officers. Some were inclined to throw themselves on the mercy of Menendez; but the majority refused to surrender. The next morning Ribault came over with seventy officers and men, who decided to surrender and trust to the mercy of the merciless. The rest had turned southward, preferring to face new perils rather than be butchered.

The French commander gave up the banner of France and that of Coligny, with the colors of his force, his own fine set of armor, and his seal of office. As he and his comrades were bound, he intoned one of the Psalms; and after its concluding words added: “We are of earth, and to earth we must return; twenty years more or less is all but as a tale that is told.” Then he bade Menendez do his will. Two young nobles, and a few men whom Menendez could make useful, he spared; the rest were at once despatched.[891]

The French who declined to surrender retreated unpursued to Cañaveral, where they threw up a log fort and began to build a vessel in order to escape from Florida. Menendez, recalling some of the men who remained at San Mateo, set out against them with one hundred and fifty men, three vessels following the shore with one hundred men to support his force. On the 8th of November apparently, he reached the fort. The French abandoned it and fled; but on promise that their lives should be spared, one hundred and fifty surrendered. Menendez kept his word. He destroyed their fort and vessel; and leaving a detachment of two hundred under Captain Juan Velez de Medrano to build Fort Santa Lucia de Cañaveral in a more favorable spot, he sailed to Havana. Finding some of his vessels there, he cruised in search of corsairs—chiefly French and English—who were said to be in great force off the coast of Santo Domingo, and who had actually captured one of his caravels; he was afraid that young Ribault might have joined them, and that he would attack the Spanish posts in Florida.[892] But encountering a vessel, Menendez learned that the King had sent him reinforcements, which he resolved to await, obtaining supplies from Campechy for his forts, as the Governor of Havana refused to furnish any.

The Spaniards in the three Florida posts were ill-prepared for even a Florida winter, and one hundred died for want of proper clothing and food. Captain San Vicente and other malcontents excited disaffection, so that mutinies broke out, and the insurgents seized vessels and deserted. Fort San Mateo was left with only twenty-one persons in it.

In February, 1566, Menendez explored the Tortugas and the adjacent coast, seeking some trace of the vessel in which his son had been lost. His search was fruitless; but he established friendly relations with the cacique Carlos, and rescued several Spanish prisoners from that cruel chief, who annually sacrificed one of them.

Meanwhile the French fugitives excited the Indians who were friendly to them to attack the Spanish posts; and it was no longer safe for the settlers to stir beyond the works at San Mateo and St. Augustine. Captain Martin de Ochoa, one of the bravest and most faithful officers, was slain at San Mateo; and Captain Diego de Hevia and several others were cut off at St. Augustine. Emboldened by success, the Indians invested the latter fort, and not only sent showers of arrows into it, but by means of blazing arrows set fire to the palmetto thatching of the storehouses. The Spaniards in vain endeavored to extinguish the flames; the building was consumed, with all their munitions, cloth, linen, and even the colors of the _adelantado_ and the troops. This encouraged the Indians, who despatched every Spaniard they could reach.

Menendez reached St. Augustine, March 20, to find it on the brink of ruin. Even his presence and the force at his command could not bring the mutineers to obedience. He was obliged to allow Captain San Vicente and many others to embark in a vessel. Of the men whom at great labor and expense he had brought to Florida, full five hundred deserted. After their departure he restored order; and, proceeding to San Mateo, relieved that place. His next step was to enter into friendly relations with the chief of Guale, and to begin a fort of stockades, earth, and fascines at Port Royal which he called San Felipe. Here he left one hundred and ten men under Stephen de las Alas. From this point the adventurous Captain Pardo, in 1566 and the following year, explored the country, penetrating to the silver region of the Cherokees, and visiting towns reached by De Soto from Cofitachiqui to Tascaluza.[893]

Returning to St. Augustine, Menendez transferred the fort to its present position, to be nearer the ship landing and less exposed to the Indians. All the posts suffered from want of food; and even for the soldiers in the King’s pay the _adelantado_ could obtain no rations from Havana, although he went there in person. He obtained means to purchase the necessary provisions only by pledging his own personal effects.

Before his return there came a fleet of seventeen vessels, bearing fifteen hundred men, with arms, munitions, and supplies, under Sancho de Arciniega. Relief was immediately sent to San Mateo and to Santa Elena, where most of the soldiers had mutinied, and had put Stephen de las Alas in irons, and sailed away. Menendez divided part of his reinforcements among his three posts, and then with light vessels ascended the St. John’s. He endeavored to enter into negotiations with the caciques Otina and Macoya; but those chiefs, fearing that he had come to demand reparation for the attacks on the Spaniards, fled at his approach. He ascended the river till he found the stream narrow, and hostile Indians lining the banks. On his downward voyage Otina, after making conditions, received the _adelantado_, who came ashore with only a few attendants. The chief was surrounded by three hundred warriors; but showed no hostility, and agreed to become friendly to the Spaniards.

On his return Menendez despatched a captain with thirty soldiers and two Dominican friars to establish a post on Chesapeake Bay; they were accompanied by Don Luis Velasco, brother of the chief of Axacan, who had been taken from that country apparently by Villafañe, and who had been baptized in Mexico. Instead, however, of carrying out his plans, the party persuaded the captain of the vessel to sail to Spain.

Two Jesuit Fathers also came to found missions among the Indians; but one of them, Father Martinez, landing on the coast, was killed by the Indians; and the survivor, Father Rogel, with a lay brother, by the direction of Menendez began to study the language of the chief Carlos, in order to found a mission in his tribe. To facilitate this, Menendez sent Captain Reynoso to establish a post in that part of Florida.[894]

News having arrived that the French were preparing to attack Florida, and their depredations in the Antilles having increased, Menendez sailed to Porto Rico, and cruised about for a time, endeavoring to meet some of the corsairs. But he was unable to come up with any; and after visiting Carlos and Tequeste, where missions were now established, he returned to St. Augustine. His efforts, individually and through his lieutenants, to gain the native chiefs had been to some extent successful; Saturiba was the only cacique who held aloof. He finally agreed to meet Menendez at the mouth of the St. John’s; but, as the Spanish commander soon learned, the cacique had a large force in ambush, with the object of cutting him and his men off when they landed. Finding war necessary, Menendez then sent four detachments, each of seventy men, against Saturiba; but he fled, and the Spaniards returned after skirmishes with small bands, in which they killed thirty Indians.

Leaving his posts well defended and supplied, Menendez sailed to Spain; and landing near Coruña, visited his home at Aviles to see his wife and family, from whom he had been separated twenty years. He then proceeded to Valladolid, where, on the 20th of July, he was received with honor by the King.

During his absence a French attack, such as he had expected, was made on Florida. Fearing this, he had endeavored to obtain forces and supplies for his colony; but was detained, fretting and chafing at the delays and formalities of the _Casa de Contratacion_ in Seville.[895]

An expedition, comprising one small and two large vessels, was fitted out at Bordeaux by Dominic de Gourgues, with a commission to capture slaves at Benin. De Gourgues sailed Aug. 22, 1567, and at Cape Blanco had a skirmish with some negro chiefs, secured the harbor, and sailed off with a cargo of slaves. With these he ran to the Spanish West Indies, and disposed of them at Dominica, Porto Rico, and Santo Domingo, finding Spaniards ready to treat with him. At Puerto de la Plata, in the last island, he met a ready confederate in Zaballos, who was accustomed to trade with the French pirates. Zaballos bought slaves and goods from him, and furnished him a pilot for the Florida coast. Puerto de la Plata had been a refuge for some of the deserters from Florida, and could afford definite information. Here probably the idea of Gourgues’ Florida expedition originated; though, according to the bombastic French account, it was only off the Island of Cuba that De Gourgues revealed his design. He reached the mouth of the St. John’s, where the French narratives place two forts that are utterly unknown in Spanish documents, and which were probably only batteries to cover the entrance. Saluted here as Spanish, the French vessels passed on, and anchored off the mouth of the St. Mary’s,—the Tacatacuru of the Indians. By means of a Frenchman, a refugee among the Indians, Gourgues easily induced Saturiba, smarting under the recent Spanish attack, to join him in a campaign against San Mateo. The first redoubt was quickly taken; and the French, crossing in boats, their allies swimming, captured the second, and then moved on Fort San Mateo itself. The French account makes sixty men issue from each of what it calls forts, each party to be cut off by the French, and then makes all of each party of sixty to fall by the hands of the French and Indians, except fifteen or thereabout kept for an ignominious death.

Gourgues carried off the artillery of the fort and redoubts; but before he could transport the rest of his booty to the vessels, a train left by the Spaniards in the fort was accidentally fired by an Indian who was cooking fish; the magazine blew up, with all in it. Gourgues hanged the prisoners who fell into his hands at San Mateo, and descending the river, hanged thirty more at the mouth, setting up an inscription: “Not as to Spaniards, but as to Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers.” Returning to his vessels, he hoisted sail on the 3d of May, and early in June entered the harbor of La Rochelle. His loss, which is not explained, is said to have been his smallest vessel, five gentlemen and some soldiers killed.[896]

[Cf. the “Florida et Apalche” in Acosta, German edition, Cologne, 1598 (also in 1605); that of Hieronymus Chaves, given in Ortelius, 1592; and later the maps of the French cartographer Sanson, showing the coast from Texas to Carolina.—ED.]]

When Gourgues made his descent, Menendez was already at sea, having sailed from San Lucar on the 13th of March, with abundant supplies and reinforcements, as well as additional missionaries for the Indians, under Father John Baptist Segura as vice-provincial. After relieving his posts in Florida and placing a hundred and fifty men at San Mateo, he proceeded to Cuba, of which he had been appointed governor. To strengthen his colony, he solicited permission to colonize the Rio Pánuco; but the authorities in Mexico opposed his project, and it failed. The Mississippi, then known as the Espiritu Santo, was supposed to flow from the neighborhood of Santa Elena, and was depended on as a means of communication.[897] The next year the _adelantado_ sent a hundred and ninety-three persons to San Felipe, and eighty to St. Augustine. Father Rogel then began missions among the Indians around Port Royal; Father Sedeño and Brother Baez began similar labors on Guale (now Amelia) Island, the latter soon compiling a grammar and catechism in the language of the Indians. Others attempted to bring the intractable chief Carlos and his tribe within the Christian fold. Rogel drew Indians to his mission at Orista; he put up houses and a church, and endeavored to induce them to cultivate the ground. But their natural fickleness would not submit to control; they soon abandoned the place, and the missionary returned to Fort San Felipe. A school for Indian boys was opened in Havana, and youths from the tribes of the coast were sent there in the hope of making them the nucleus of an Indian civilization. In 1570 Menendez, carrying out his project of occupying Chesapeake Bay, sent Father Segura with several other Jesuits to establish a mission at Axacan, the country of the Indian known as Don Luis Velasco, who accompanied missionaries, promising to do all in his power to secure for them a welcome from his tribe. The vessel evidently ascended the Potomac and landed the mission party, who then crossed to the shores of the Rappahannock. They were received with seeming friendship, and erected a rude chapel; but the Indians soon showed a hostile spirit, and ultimately massacred all the party except an Indian boy. When Menendez returned to Florida from Spain in 1572, he sailed to the Chesapeake, and endeavored to secure Don Luis and his brother; but they fled. He captured eight Indians known to have taken part in the murder of the missionaries, and hanged them at the yard-arm of his vessel.[898]

From this time Menendez gave little personal attention to the affairs of Florida, being elsewhere engaged by the King; and he died at Santander, in Spain, Sept. 17, 1574, when about to take command of an immense fleet which Philip II. was preparing. With his death Florida, where his nephew Pedro Menendez Marquez[899] had acted as governor, languished. Indian hostilities increased, San Felipe was invested, abandoned, and burned, and soon after the Governor himself was slain.[900] St. Augustine was finally burned by Drake.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

OUR account of the voyages of Ponce de Leon is mainly from the _cédulas_ to him and official correspondence, correcting Herrera,[901] who is supposed by some to have had the explorer’s diary, now lost. Oviedo[902] mentions Bimini[903] as forty leagues from Guanahani. The modern edition[904] of Oviedo is vague and incorrect; and gives Ponce de Leon two caravels, but has no details. Gomara[905] is no less vague. Girava records the discovery, but dates it in 1512.[906] As early as 1519 the statement is found that the Bay of Juan Ponce had been visited by Alaminos, while accompanying Ponce de Leon,[907]—which must refer to this expedition of 1513. The “Traza de las costas” given by Navarrete (and reproduced by Buckingham Smith),[908] with the Garay patent of 1521, would seem to make Apalache Bay the western limit of the discoveries of Ponce de Leon, of whose expedition and of Alaminos’s no report is known. Peter Martyr[909] alludes to it, but only incidentally, when treating of Diego Velasquez. Barcia, in his _Ensayo cronológico_,[910] writing specially on Florida, seems to have had neither of the patents of Ponce de Leon, and no reports; and he places the discovery in 1512 instead of 1513.[911] Navarrete[912] simply follows Herrera.

In the unfortunate expedition of Cordova Bernal Diaz was an actor, and gives us a witness’s testimony;[913] and it is made the subject of evidence in the suit in 1536 between the Pinzon and Colon families.[914] The general historians treat it in course.[915]

The main authority for the first voyage of Garay is the royal letters patent,[916] the documents which are given by Navarrete[917] and in the _Documentos inéditos_,[918] as well as the accounts given in Peter Martyr,[919] Gomara,[920] and Herrera.[921]

Of the pioneer expedition which Camargo conducted for Garay to make settlement of Amichel, and of its encounter with Cortés, we have the effect which the first tidings of it produced on the mind of the Conqueror of Mexico in his second letter of Oct. 30, 1520; while in his third letter he made representations of the wrongs done to the Indians by Garay’s people, and of his own determination to protect the chiefs who had submitted to him.[922] For the untoward ending of Garay’s main expedition, Cortés is still a principal dependence in his fourth letter;[923] and the official records of his proceedings against Garay in October, 1523, with a letter of Garay dated November 8, and evidently addressed to Cortés, are to be found in the _Documentos inéditos_,[924] while Peter Martyr,[925] Oviedo,[926] and Herrera[927] are the chief general authorities. Garay’s renewed effort under his personal leadership is marked out in three several petitions which he made for authority to colonize the new country.[928]

[This sketch follows Dr. Kohl’s copy of a map in a manuscript atlas in the British Museum (no. 9,814), without date; but it seems to be a record of the explorations (1520) of Ayllon, whose name is corrupted on the map. The map bears near the main inscription the figure of a Chinaman and an elephant,—tokens of the current belief in the Asiatic connections of North America. Cf. Brinton’s _Floridian Peninsula_, p. 82, 99, on the “Traza de costas de Tierra Ferme y de las Tierras Nuevas,” accompanying the royal grant to Garay in 1521, being the chart of Cristóbal de Tobia, given in the third volume of Navarrete’s _Coleccion_, and sketched on another page of the present volume (_ante_, p. 218) in a section on “The Early Cartography of the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent Parts,” where some light is thrown on contemporary knowledge of the Florida coast.—ED.]]

Of the preliminary expedition on the Atlantic coast of Gordillo and the subsequent attempt of his chief, Ayllon, to settle in Virginia, there is a fund of testimony in the papers of the suit which Matienzo instituted against Ayllon, and of which the greater part is still unprinted; but a few papers, like the complaint of Matienzo and some testimony taken by Ayllon when about to sail himself, can be found in the _Documentos inéditos_.[929] As regards the joint explorations of the vessels of Gordillo and Quexos, the testimony of the latter helps us, as well as his act of taking possession, which puts the proceeding in 1521; though some of Ayllon’s witnesses give 1520 as the date. Both parties unite in calling the river which they reached the San Juan Bautista, and the _cédula_ to Ayllon places it in thirty-five degrees. Navarrete in saying they touched at Chicora and Gualdape confounds the first and third voyages; and was clearly ignorant of the three distinct expeditions;[930] and Herrera is wrong in calling the river the Jordan,[931]—named, as he says, after the captain or pilot of one of the vessels,—since no such person was on either vessel, and no such name appears in the testimony: the true Jordan was the Wateree (Guatari).[932] That it was the intention of Ayllon to make the expedition one of slave-catching, would seem to be abundantly disproved by his condemnation of the commander’s act.[933]

Ayllon, according to Spanish writers, after reaching the coast in his own voyage, in 1526, took a northerly course. Herrera[934] says he attempted to colonize north of Cape Trafalgar (Hatteras); and the _piloto mayor_ of Florida, Ecija, who at a later day, in 1609, was sent to find out what the English were doing, says positively that Ayllon had fixed his settlement at Guandape. Since by his office Ecija must have had in his possession the early charts of his people, and must have made the locality a matter of special study, his assertion has far greater weight than that of any historian writing in Spain merely from documents.[935] It is also the opinion of Navarrete[936] that Ayllon’s course must have been north.

Oviedo[937] does not define the region of this settlement more closely than to say that it was under thirty-three degrees, adding that it is not laid down on any map. The Oydores of Santo Domingo, in a letter to the King in 1528,[938] only briefly report the expedition, and refer for particulars to Father Antonio Montesinos.[939]

The authorities for the voyage of Gomez are set forth in another volume.[940]

* * * * *

Upon the expedition of Narvaez, and particularly upon the part taken in it by Cabeza de Vaca, the principal authority is the narrative of the latter published at Zamora in 1542 as _La relacion que dio Aluar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca de lo acaescido en las Indias en la armada donde yua por gouernador Pãphilo de narbaez_.[941] It was reprinted at Valladolid in 1555, in an edition usually quoted as _La relacion y comentarios[942] del governador Aluar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca de lo acaescido en las dos jornadas que hizo á los Indios_.[943] This edition was reprinted under the title of _Navfragios de Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca_, by Barcia (1749) in his _Historiadores primitivos_,[944] accompanied by an “exámen apologético de la historia” by Antonio Ardoino, which is a defence of Cabeza de Vaca against the aspersions of Honorius Philoponus,[945] who charges Cabeza de Vaca with claiming to have performed miracles.

The _Relacion_, translated into Italian from the first edition, was included by Ramusio in his _Collection_[946] in 1556. A French version was given by Ternaux in 1837.[947] The earliest English rendering, or rather paraphrase, is that in Purchas;[948] but a more important version was made by the late Buckingham Smith, and printed (100 copies) at the expense of Mr. George W. Riggs, of Washington, in 1851, for private circulation.[949] A second edition was undertaken by Mr. Smith, embodying the results of investigations in Spain, with a revision of the translation and considerable additional annotation; but the completion of the work of carrying it through the press, owing to Mr. Smith’s death,[950] devolved upon others, who found his mass of undigested notes not very intelligible. It appeared in an edition of one hundred copies in 1871.[951] In these successive editions Mr. Smith gave different theories regarding the route pursued by Cabeza de Vaca in his nine years journey.[952]

The documents[953] which Mr. Smith adds to this new edition convey but little information beyond what can be gathered from Cabeza de Vaca himself. He adds, however, engravings of Father Juan Xuarez and Brother Juan Palos, after portraits preserved in Mexico of the twelve Franciscans who were first sent to that country.[954]

Some additional facts respecting this expedition are derived at second hand from a letter which Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes wrote after their arrival in Mexico to the _Andiencia_ of Hispaniola, which is not now known, but of which the substance is professedly given by Oviedo.[955]

The Bahia de la Cruz of Narvaez’ landing, made identical with Apalache Bay by Cabot, is likely to have been by him correctly identified, as the point could be fixed by the pilots who returned with the ships to Cuba, and would naturally be recorded on the charts.[956] Smith[957] believed it to be Tampa Bay. The _Relacion_ describes the bay as one whose head could be seen from the mouth; though its author seems in another place to make it seven or eight leagues deep.[958] Narvaez and his party evidently thought they were nearer Panuco, and had no idea they were so near Havana. Had they been at Tampa Bay, or on a coast running north and south, they can scarcely be supposed to have been so egregiously mistaken.[959] If Tampa was his landing place, it is necessary to consider the bay where he subsequently built his boats as Apalache Bay.[960] Charlevoix[961] identifies it with Apalache Bay, and Siguenza y Gongora finds it in Pensacola.[962]

Of the expedition of Soto we have good and on the whole satisfactory records. The Concession made by the Spanish King of the government of Cuba and of the conquest of Florida is preserved to us.[963] There are three contemporary narratives of the progress of the march. The first and best was printed in 1557 at Evora as the _Relaçam verdadeira dos trabalhos [=q] ho gouernador dō Fernādo de Souto e certos fidalgos portugueses passarom no descobrimēto da provincia da Frlorida_. _Agora nouamente feita per hū fidalgo Deluas._[964] It is usually cited in English as the “Narrative of the Gentleman of Elvas,” since Hakluyt first translated it, and reprinted it in 1609 at London as _Virginia richly valued by the Description of the Mainland of Florida, her next Neighbor_.[965] It appeared again in 1611 as _The worthye and famous Historie of the Travailles, Discovery, and Conquest of Terra Florida_, and was included in the supplement to the 1809 edition of the Collection of Hakluyt. It was also reprinted from the 1611 edition in 1851 by the Hakluyt Society as _Discovery and Conquest of Florida_,[966] edited by William B. Rye, and is included in Force’s _Tracts_ (vol. iv.) and in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana_ (vol. ii. pp. 111-220). It is abridged by Purchas in his _Pilgrimes_.[967]

[The sign-manual of Charles V. to the _Asiento y Capitulacion_ granted to De Soto, 1537, as given by B. Smith in his _Coleccion_, p. 146.—ED.]]

Another and briefer original Spanish account is the _Relacion del suceso de its jornada que hizo Hernando de Soto_ of Luys Hernandez de Biedma, which long remained in manuscript in the Archivo General de Indias at Seville,[968] and was first published in a French version by Ternaux in 1841;[969] and from this William B. Rye translated it for the Hakluyt Society.[970] Finally, the original Spanish text, “Relación de la Isla de la Florida,” was published by Buckingham Smith in 1857 in his _Coleccion de varios documentos para la historia de la Florida_.[971]

In 1866 Mr. Smith published translations of the narratives of the Gentleman of Elvas and of Biedma, in the fifth volume (125 copies) of the Bradford Club Series under the title of _Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida, as told by a Knight of Elvas, and in a Relation_ [presented 1544] _by Luys Hernandez de Biedma_.

From the _Coleccion_, p. 64, of Buckingham Smith.]

The third of the original accounts is the _Florida del Ynca_ of Garcilasso de la Vega, published at Lisbon in 1605,[972] which he wrote forty years after Soto’s death, professedly to do his memory justice.[973] The spirit of exaggeration which prevails throughout the volume has deprived it of esteem as an historical authority, though Theodore Irving[974] and others have accepted it. It is based upon conversations with a noble Spaniard who had accompanied Soto as a volunteer, and upon the written but illiterate reports of two common soldiers,—Alonzo de Carmona, of Priego, and Juan Coles, of Zabra.[975] Herrera largely embodied it in his _Historia general_.

Still another account of the expedition is the official Report which Rodrigo Ranjel, the secretary of Soto, based upon his Diary kept on the march. It was written after reaching Mexico, whence he transmitted it to the Spanish Government. It remained unpublished in that part of Oviedo’s _History_ which was preserved in manuscript till Amador de los Rios issued his edition of Oviedo in 1851. Oviedo seems to have begun to give the text of Ranjel as he found it; but later in the progress of the story he abridges it greatly, and two chapters at least are missing, which must have given the wanderings of Soto from Autiamque, with his death, and the adventures of the survivors under Mosçoso. The original text of Ranjel is not known.

These independent narratives of the Gentlemen of Elvas, Biedma, and Ranjel, as well as those used by Garcilasso de la Vega, agree remarkably, not only in the main narrative as to course and events, but also as to the names of the places.

There is also a letter of Soto, dated July 9, 1539, describing his voyage and landing, which was published by Buckingham Smith in 1854 at Washington,[976] following a transcript (in the Lenox Library) of a document in the Archives at Simancas, and attested by Muñoz. It is addressed to the municipality of Santiago de Cuba, and was first made known in Ternaux’s _Recueil des pièces sur la Floride_. B. F. French gave the first English version of it in his _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, part ii. pp. 89-93 (1850).[977]

[This sketch is from a copy in the Kohl Washington Collection, after a manuscript atlas in the Bodleian. It is without date, but seemingly of about the middle of the sixteenth century. The “B. de Miruello” seems to commemorate a pilot of Ponce de Leon’s day. The sketch of the Atlantic coast made by Chaves in 1536 is preserved to us only in the description given by Oviedo, of which an English version will be found in the _Historical Magazine_, x. 371.—ED.]]

The route of De Soto is, of course, a question for a variety of views.[978] We have in the preceding narrative followed for the track through Georgia a paper read by Colonel Charles C. Jones, Jr., before the Georgia Historical Society, and printed in Savannah in 1880,[979] and for that through Alabama the data given by Pickett in his _History of Alabama_,[980] whose local knowledge adds weight to his opinion.[981] As to the point of De Soto’s crossing the Mississippi, there is a very general agreement on the lowest Chickasaw Bluff.[982] We are without the means, in any of the original sources, to determine beyond dispute the most northerly point reached by Soto. He had evidently approached, but had learned nothing of, the Missouri River. Almost at the same time that Soto, with the naked, starving remnant of his army, was at Pacaha, another Spanish force under Vasquez de Coronado, well handled and perfectly equipped, must in July and August, 1541, have been encamped so near that an Indian runner in a few days might have carried tidings between them. Coronado actually heard of his countryman, and sent him a letter; but his messenger failed to find Soto’s party.[983] But, strangely enough, the cruel, useless expedition of Soto finds ample space in history, while the well-managed march of Coronado’s careful exploration finds scant mention.[984] No greater contrast exists in our history than that between these two campaigns.

* * * * *

A sufficient indication has been given, in the notes of the preceding narrative, of the sources of information concerning the futile attempts of the Spaniards at colonization on the Atlantic coast up to the time of the occupation of Port Royal by Ribault in 1562. Of the consequent bloody struggle between the Spanish Catholics and the French Huguenots there are original sources on both sides.

On the Spanish part we have the _Cartas escritas al rey_ of Pedro Menendez (Sept. 11, Oct. 15, and Dec. 5, 1565), which are preserved in the Archives at Seville, and have been used by Parkman,[985] and the _Memoria del buen suceso i buen viage_ of the chaplain of the expedition, Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales.[986] Barcia’s _Ensayo cronológico_ is the most comprehensive of the Spanish accounts, and he gives a large part of the _Memorial de las jornadas_ of Solis de Meras, a brother-in-law of Menendez. It has never been printed separately; but Charlevoix used Barcia’s extract, and it is translated from Barcia in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida_ (vol. ii. p. 216). Barcia seems also to have had access to the papers of Menendez,[987] and to have received this Journal of Solis directly from his family.

On the French side, for the first expedition of Ribault in 1562 we have the very scarce text of the _Histoire de l’expédition Française en Floride_, published in London in 1563, which Hakluyt refers to as being in print “in French and English” when he wrote his _Westerne Planting_.[988] Sparks[989] could not find that it was ever published in French; nor was Winter Jones aware of the existence of this 1563 edition when he prepared for the Hakluyt Society an issue of Hakluyt’s _Divers Voyages_ (1582), in which that collector had included an English version of it as _The True and Last Discoverie of Florida, translated into Englishe by one Thomas Hackit_, being the same text which appeared separately in 1563 as the _Whole and True Discovery of Terra Florida_.[990]

At Paris in 1586 appeared a volume, dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh, entitled, _L’histoire notable de la Floride, ... contenant les trois voyages faits en icelle par certains capitaines et pilotes François descrits par le Capitaine Laudonnière, ... à laquelle a esté adjousté un quatriesme voyage fait par le Capitaine Gourgues, Mise en lumiere par M. Basanier_. This was a comprehensive account, or rather compilation, of the four several French expeditions,—1562, 1564, 1565, 1567,—covering the letters of Laudonnière for the first three, and an anonymous account, perhaps by the editor Basanier, of the fourth. Hakluyt, who had induced the French publication, gave the whole an English dress in his _Notable History, translated by R. H._, printed in London in 1587,[991] and again in his _Principall Navigations_, vol. iii., the text of which is also to be found in the later edition and in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida_ (1869), i. 165.[992]

[This map of Delisle, issued originally at Paris, is given in the Amsterdam (1707) edition of Garcilasso de la Vega’s _Histoire des Incas et de la conquête de la Floride_, vol. ii; cf. _Voyages au nord_, vol. v., and Delisle’s _Atlas nouveau_. The map is also reproduced in French’s _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, and Gravier’s _La Salle_ (1870). Other maps of the route are given by Rye, McCulloch, and Irving; by J. C. Brevoort in Smith’s _Narratives of Hernando de Soto_, and in Paul Chaix’ _Bassin du Mississipi au seizième siècle_.

Besides the references already noted, the question of his route has been discussed, to a greater or less extent, in Charlevoix’ _Nouvelle France_; in Warden’s _Chronologie historique de l’Amérique_, where the views of the geographer Homann are cited; in Albert Gallatin’s “Synopsis of the Indian Tribes” in the _Archæologia Americana_, vol. ii.; in Nuttall’s _Travels in Arkansas_ (1819 and 1821); in Williams’s _Florida_ (New York, 1837); in McCulloch’s _Antiquarian Researches in America_ (Baltimore, 1829); in Schoolcraft’s _Indian Tribes_, vol. iii.; in Paul Chaix’ _Bassin du Mississipi au seizième siècle_; in J. W. Monette’s _Valley of the Mississippi_ (1846); in Pickett’s _Alabama_; in Gayarré’s _Louisiana_; in Martin’s _Louisiana_; in _Historical Magazine_, v. 8; in _Knickerbocker Magazine_, lxiii. 457; in _Sharpe’s Magazine_, xlii. 265; and in Lambert A. Wilmer’s _Life of De Soto_ (1858). Although Dr. Belknap in his _American Biography_ (1794, vol. i. p. 189), had sought to establish a few points of De Soto’s march, the earliest attempt to track his steps closely was made by Alexander Meek, in a paper published at Tuscaloosa in 1839 in _The Southron_, and reprinted as “The Pilgrimage of De Soto,” in his _Romantic Passages in Southwestern History_ (Mobile, 1857), p. 213. Irving, in the revised edition of his _Conquest of Florida_, depended largely upon the assistance of Fairbanks and Smith, and agrees mainly with Meek and Pickett. In his appendix he epitomizes the indications of the route according to Garcilasso and the Portuguese gentleman. Rye collates the statements of McCulloch and Monette regarding the route beyond the Mississippi, and infers that the identifying of the localities is almost impossible. Chaix (_Bassin du Mississipi_) also traces this part.—ED.]]

Jacques Lemoyne de Morgues, an artist accompanying Laudonnière, wrote some years later an account, and made maps and drawings, with notes describing them. De Bry made a visit to London in 1587 to see Lemoyne, who was then in Raleigh’s service; but Lemoyne resisted all persuasions to part with his papers.[993] After Lemoyne’s death De Bry bought them off his widow (1588), and published them in 1591, in the second part of his _Grands voyages_, as _Brevis narratio_.[994]

One Nicolas le Challeux, or Challus, a carpenter, a man of sixty, who was an eye-witness of the events at Fort Caroline, and who for the experiences of Ribault’s party took the statements of Dieppe sailors and of Christopher le Breton, published a simple narrative at Dieppe in 1566 under the title of _Discours de l’histoire de la Floride_, which was issued twice,—once with fifty-four, and a second time with sixty-two, pages,[995] and the same year reprinted, with some variations, at Lyons as _Histoire mémorable du dernier voyage fait par le Capitaine Iean Ribaut en l’an MDLXV_ (pp. 56).[996]

It is thought that Thevet in his _Cosmographie universelle_ (1575) may have had access to Laudonnière’s papers; and some details from Thevet are embodied in what is mainly a translation of Le Challeux, the _De Gallorum expeditione in Floridam anno MDLXV brevis historia_, which was added (p. 427) by Urbain Chauveton, or Calveton, to the Latin edition of Benzoni,—_Novæ novi orbis historiæ tres libri_, printed at Geneva in 1578 and 1581,[997] and reproduced under different titles in the French versions, published likewise at Geneva in 1579, 1588, and 1589.[998] There is a separate issue of it from the 1579 edition.[999]

It was not long before exaggerated statements were circulated, based upon the representations made in _Une requête au roi_ (Charles IX.) of the widows and orphans of the victims of Menendez, in which the number of the slain is reported at the impossible figure of nine hundred.[1000]

Respecting the expedition of De Gourgues there are no Spanish accounts whatever, Barcia[1001] merely taking in the main the French narrative,—in which, says Parkman, “it must be admitted there is a savor of romance.”[1002] That Gourgues was merely a slaver is evident from this full French account. Garibay notes his attempt to capture at least one Spanish vessel; and he certainly had on reaching Florida two barks, which he must have captured on his way. Basanier and many who follow him suppress entirely the slaver episode in this voyage. All the De Gourgues narratives ignore entirely the existence of St. Augustine, and make the three pretended forts on the St. John to have been of stone; and Prévost, to heighten the picture, invents the story of the flaying of Ribault, of which there is no trace in the earlier French accounts.

There are two French narratives. One of them, _La reprinse de la Floride_, exists, according to Gaffarel,[1003] in five different manuscript texts.[1004] The other French narrative is the last paper in the compilation of Basanier, already mentioned. Brinton[1005] is inclined to believe that it is not an epitome of the _Reprinse_, but that it was written by Basanier himself from the floating accounts of his day, or from some unknown relater. Charlevoix mentions a manuscript in the possession of the De Gourgues family; but it is not clear which of these papers it was.

The story of the Huguenot colony passed naturally into the historical records of the seventeenth century;[1006] but it got more special treatment in the next century, when Charlevoix issued his _Nouvelle France_.[1007] The most considerable treatments of the present century have been by Jared Sparks in his _Life of Ribault_,[1008] by Francis Parkman in his _Pioneers of France in the New World_,[1009] and by Paul Gaffarel in his _Histoire de la Floride Française_.[1010] The story has also necessarily passed into local and general histories of this period in America, and into the accounts of the Huguenots as a sect.[1011]