Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

Thus, ruined on the very eve of success by a petty act of oppression, ended alike the first attempt at colonization by the French in North America and the first exploration of the St. Lawrence, which, though it formed no short cut to the Indies, was yet destined, as the largest body of fresh water in the world, to play a mighty part in history as a highway from the coast to the interior of North America.

COLIGNY.

Very different to that of any of his predecessors was the character of our next hero of North American discovery. Driven to bay in France by the long series of treacheries and cruelties which culminated in the awful massacre of St. Bartholomew on the 24th of August, 1572, the French Huguenots hoped to find in the New World a refuge from religious persecution; and after the failure of an attempt to found a colony in Rio Janeiro in 1555, the good Admiral Coligny sent out an expedition to that “long coast of the West India called La Florida,” under the command of John Ribault, of Dieppe.

Trained in the stern school of adversity, Ribault started on his voyage prepared to face any amount of danger and privation in carrying out his mission of founding a little Huguenot Church in the wilderness. He was accompanied by many heretic noblemen imbued with the same spirit, and by a little band of well-tried troops. After a stormy voyage, the little fleet came in sight of the coast of Florida, in about N. lat. 29½°, on the 27th April, 1562, and, after a brief halt, sailed northward till it reached the mouth of “a goodly and great river,” the modern St. John’s, to which the name of the “River of May” was in the first case given.

Entering the River of May in high delight with the beauty of the scenery lining its banks, the French refugees landed at a little distance from the sea, and set up a stone column bearing the arms of France, on a little hill overlooking the south bank, in token that the land henceforth belonged to his Majesty of France. The natives, who are described as “mild and courteous, well-shaped, of goodly stature, dignified, self-possessed, and of pleasant countenance,” gazed with wonder, but with no notion of its significance, on the strange pillar set up among them; and leaving it as the sole token of their visit, the Frenchmen pressed on up the coast, passing one river after another, till they came, on the 27th May, to the beautiful harbor of Port Royal, near the southern boundary of the present Carolina, where Ribault determined to plant a colony.

A fort was erected to begin with, and named Fort Charles, or Carolina, in honor of Charles IX. of France; and leaving thirty of his men, under the command of an experienced soldier named Pierria, to form the nucleus of a settlement, Ribault returned to France for reinforcements. On his arrival in his native land, however, he found his co-religionists in greater distress than ever, and not until after the peace of 1562 was the good Coligny able to devote any attention to the affairs of the emigrants in the West.

In 1564 three ships were sent out to their relief, under the command of Captain René de Laudonnière, who had been with Ribault on his first trip; but on his arrival at the River of May, he was met with the intelligence that Fort Charles had been abandoned, and by degrees the whole story of the sufferings of his predecessors leaked out. Relying on Ribault’s promise of speedy reinforcements, and missing his bracing influence, the unlucky Huguenots forgot all about the primary object of their exile, the founding of a church in the wilderness, and gave themselves up to indolence and luxury. As a result, their provisions quickly failed, and, though the Indians befriended them to the best of their ability, they began to succumb to famine. Discontent and mutiny ensued; Pierria was assassinated in revenge for the severe discipline he endeavored to maintain, and his successor, Nicolas Barre, determined to build a small pinnace, in which to return to France.

With infinite difficulty this plan was carried out. A vessel of some kind was constructed, and in it, with no provisions but a little corn given by the natives, the survivors embarked. For three weeks they tossed about at the mercy of the waves, unable to make any considerable progress eastward; and then, all the corn being consumed, they resorted to the awful expedient of obtaining food by slaying one of their number. Lots were drawn, and the ghastly ceremony resulted in the murder of a certain La Chère, a soldier who had been pre-eminent in insubordination under Captain Pierria, and banished by him to an island outside Port Royal, had been rescued by his comrades, only to meet with a yet more awful fate than death by starvation.

Soon after the awful banquet, the blood-stained cannibals—for such had the zealous sufferers for the Huguenot faith now become—were met by an English vessel and taken on board, some to be landed in France, others to be carried prisoners to England.