CHAPTER IX.
FORTIFYING OF ST. AUGUSTINE--DISAFFECTIONS AND MUTINIES--APPROVAL OF MENENDEZ' ACTS BY THE KING OF SPAIN. 1565-1568.
During the time of the several expeditions of the Adelantado against the French Huguenots, the fortification and strengthening of the defenses of the settlement at St. Augustine had not been neglected. The fort, or Indian council-house, which had been first fortified, seems to have been consumed in the conflagration spoken of; and thereupon a plan of a regular fortification or fort was marked out by Menendez; and, as there existed same danger of the return of the French, the Spaniards labored unceasingly with their whole force, to put it in a respectable state of defense. From an engraving contained in De Bry, illustrating the attack of Sir Francis Drake, twenty years afterwards, this fort appears to have been an octagonal structure of logs, and located near the site of the present fort, while the settlement itself was probably made in the first instance, at the lower end of the peninsula, near the building now called "the powder-house."
He also established a government for the place, with civil and military officials, a hall of justice, etc.
All of these matters were arranged by Menendez before his expedition against the French at Canaveral, of whom one hundred and fifty returned with him, and were received upon an equal footing with his own men, the more distinguished being received at his own table upon the most friendly terms; a clemency which, with a knowledge of his character, can only be ascribed to motives of policy. The position of the French at Canaveral was probably inaccessible, as they had their arms, besides artillery brought from the vessels; and the duplicity which had characterized his success with their comrades, was out of the question here; the French could therefore exact their own terms, and unshackled could forcibly resist any attempt at treachery.
The addition of this number to his force lessened the already diminished supply of provisions which Menendez had brought with him; and want soon began to threaten his camp. He sent as many of his soldiers as he could into camp at San Matteo, and endeavored to draw supplies from the Indians; but unfortunately for him, the country between the St. Johns and St. Augustine was under the rule of the Indian Chief, Satouriara, the friend (and ally of the French), whose hostility the Spaniards were never able to overcome. Satouriara and his followers withdrew from all peaceable intercourse with the Spaniards, and hung about their path to destroy, harrass, and cut them off upon every possible occasion.
The winter succeeding the settlement of the Spaniards at St. Augustine, was most distressing and discouraging to them. The lack of provisions in their camp drove them to seek, in the surrounding country, subsistence from the roots and esculent plants it might afford, or to obtain in the neighboring creeks, fish and oysters; but no sooner did a Spaniard venture out alone beyond, the gates of the fort, than he was grasped, by some unseen foe, from the low underbrush and put to death, or a shower of arrows from some tree-top was his first intimation of danger; if he discharged his arquebuse towards his invisible assailants, others would spring upon him before he could reload his piece; or, if he attempted to find fish and oysters in some quiet creek, the noiseless canoe of an Indian would dart in upon him, and the heavy war-club of the savage descending upon his unprotected head, end his existence. Against such a foe, no defense could avail; and it is related that more than one hundred and twenty of the Spaniards were thus killed, including Captain Martin de Ochoa, Captain Diego de Hevia, Fernando de Gamboa, and Juan Menendez, a nephew of the Adelantado, and many others of the bravest and most distinguished of the garrison.
In this crisis of affairs, the Governor concluded to go to Cuba himself, to obtain relief for his colony. He in the meantime established a fort at St. Lucia, near Canaveral. A considerable jealousy seems to have existed on the part of the governor of Cuba; and he received Menendez with great coolness, and in reply to his appeals for aid, only offered an empty vessel. In this emergency, Menendez contemplated, as his only means of obtaining what he wished, to go upon a filibustering expedition against some Portuguese and English vessels which were in those waters. While making preparations to do this, four vessels of the fleet with which he had left Spain, and which had been supposed lost, arrived; and after dispatching a vessel to Campeachy for provisions, he commenced his return voyage to his colony, delaying however for a time in South Florida, to seek intelligence among the Indians of his lost son.
In the meantime his garrisons at St. Augustine and San Matteo had mutinied, and were in open revolt; provisions had become so scarce that twenty-five reals had been given for a pound of biscuit, and but for the fish they would have starved. They plundered the public stores, imprisoned their officers, and seized upon a vessel laden with provisions which had been sent to the garrison. The Master of the Camp succeeded in escaping from confinement and releasing his fellow prisoners, by a bold movement cut off the intercourse between the mutineers on board the vessel and those on shore, and hung the Sergeant Major, who was at the head of the movement. The Commandant then attempted to attack those in the vessel, and was nearly lost with his companions, by being wrecked on the bar. The vessel made sail to the West India Islands. The garrison at San Matteo took a vessel there and come around to St. Augustine, but arrived after their accomplices had left.
Disease had already begun to make its ravages, and added to the general wish to leave the country; which all would then have done had they had the vessels in which to embark. They used for their recovery from sickness, the roots of a native shrub, which produced marvelous cures.
At this period Menendez returned to the famished garrison, but was forced to permit Juan Vicente, with one hundred of the disaffected, to go to St. Domingo by a vessel which he dispatched there for supplies; and it is said that the governors of the islands where they went, harbored them, and that of some five hundred who on different occasions deserted from the Adelantado, and all of whom had been brought out at his cost, but two or three were ever returned to him; while the deserters putting their own construction upon their acts, sent home to the king of Spain criminations of the Adelantado, and represented the conquest of Florida, as a hopeless and worthless acquisition; that it was barren and swampy, and produced nothing.
After this defection, Menendez proceeded along the coast to San Matteo, and thence to Guale, Amelia, and adjoining islands, Orista and St. Helena; made peaceful proposals to the Indian tribes, lectured them upon theology, and planted a cross at their council-houses. The cacique of Guale asked Menendez how it was "that he had waged war upon the other white men, who had come from the same country as himself?" He replied, "that the other white people were bad Christians, and believers in lies; and that those whom he had killed, deserved the most cruel death, because they had fled their own country, and came to mislead and deceive the caciques and other Indians, as they had already before misled and deceived many other good Christians, in order that the devil may take possession of them." While at St. Helena he succeeded in obtaining permission of the Indians to erect a fort there, and he left a detachment. On his return he also erected fort San Felipe, at Orista; and after setting up a cross at Guale, the cacique demanded of him, that as now they had become good Christians, he should cause rain to come upon their fields; for a drought had continued eight months. The same night a severe rain-storm happened, which confirmed the faith of the Indians, and gained the Adelantado great credit with them. While here, he learned that there was a fugitive Lutheran among the Indians, and he took some pains to cause to be given to the fugitive hopes of good treatment if he would come into the Spanish post at St. Helena, while he gave private directions that he should be killed, directing his lieutenant to make very strange of his disappearance; an incident very illustrative of the vindictiveness and duplicity of Menendez.[16]
He returned to St. Augustine, and was received with great joy, and devoted himself to the completion of the fort, which was to frighten the savages, and enforce respect from strangers. It was built, it is said, where it now stands, _donde este ahora_, (1722.)
The colony left at St. Helena mutinied almost immediately, and seizing a vessel sent with supplies, sailed for Cuba, and were wrecked on the Florida Keys, where they met at an Indian town the mutineers who had deserted from the fort at St. Matteo: these had been also wrecked there.
The garrison again becoming much straitened for provisions, the Adelantado, in June, was obliged to go to Cuba for succor. He was received with indifference, and his wishes unheeded. He applied to the governor of Mexico, and others who happened to be there, and who had the power of assisting him; from all he received no encouragement, but the advice to abandon his enterprise. He at last pawned his jewels, the badge of his order, and his valuables, thus obtaining five hundred ducats; with which he purchased provisions, and set sail on his return, with only sixty-five men.
But just at this period succor came to the famished troops; a fleet of seventeen vessels arrived with fifteen hundred men from Spain, under Juan de Avila, as admiral. By this means all the posts were succored and reinforced, and the enterprise saved from destruction; for the small supplies brought by Menendez would have been soon exhausted, and further efforts being out of his power, they would have been forced to withdraw from the country.
The admiral of the fleet also had entrusted to him for the Adelantado a letter from the king, written on the 12th of May, 1566, which, among other matters, contained the following royal commendation of the acts of Menendez. "Of the great success which has attended your enterprise, we have the most entire satisfaction, and we bear in memory the loyalty, the love, and the diligence, with which you have borne us service, as well as the dangers and perils in which you have been placed; and as to the _retribution_ you have visited upon the Lutheran pirates who sought to occupy that country, and to fortify themselves there, in order to disseminate in it their wicked creed, and to prosecute there their wrongs and robberies, which they have done and were doing against God's service and my own, we believe that you did it with every justification and propriety, and we consider ourself to have been well served in so doing."[17]
To this commendation of Philip II., it is unnecessary to add any comment, save that no other action could have been expected of him. And of Charles the Ninth, of France, the Spanish historian says that he treated the memorial of the widows and orphans of the slain with contempt, "considering their punishment to have been just, in that they were equally enemies of Spain, of France, of the Church, and of the peace of the world."
During the absence of Menendez to inspect his posts, disaffection again broke out; and finding his force too numerous, he with sixteen vessels went upon a freebooting expedition to attack pirates. He failed to meet with any; but having learned that a large French fleet was on its way, he visited and fortified the forts on the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico, and again returned to Florida; the expected French fleet never having arrived. About this time, a small vessel brought from Spain three learned and exemplary priests; one of whom, Padre Martinez, landed upon the coast with some of the crew, and being unable to regain the vessel, coasted along to St. George Island, where he was attacked and murdered by the Indians, with a number of his companions.
The following year was principally occupied by Menendez, in strengthening his fortifications at his three forts, in visiting the Indian chiefs at their towns, and exploring the country. One of his expeditions went as far north as the thirty-seventh degree of latitude by sea, and another went to the foot of the Apalachian Mountains, about one hundred and fifty leagues, and established a fort. The former was about the mouth of the Chesapeake, called the Santa Maria,[18] and the land expedition, probably to the up-country of Georgia, in the neighborhood of Rome.
All attempts at pacifying their warlike neighbor were as fruitless as their attempts to subjugate him; whether in artifice and duplicity, in open warfare, or secret ambush, he was more than equal to the Adelantado, and was a worthy ancestor of the modern Seminole,--never present when looked for, and never absent when an opportunity of striking a blow occurred.
The Adelantado having had built an extremely slight vessel of less than twenty tons, called a frigate, concluded to visit Spain, and ran in seventeen days to the Azores, sailing seventy leagues per day, an exploit not often equaled in modern times. He was received with great joy in Spain, and the king treated him with much consideration. The Adelantado felt great anxiety to return to his colony, and deprecated the delays of the court, fearing the result of the indignation at his cruelty to the Huguenots, which, says his chronicler, increased day by day.[19]