Jean Ribault
French naval officer, navigator, and colonizer
1520 CE to 1565 CE
Jean Ribault (1520, Dieppe, Seine-Maritime – October 12, 1565) is a French naval officer, navigator, and a colonizer of what will become the southeastern United States.
He is a major figure in the French attempts to colonize Florida.
A Huguenot and officer under Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, Ribault leads an expedition to the New World in 1562 that founds the outpost of Charlesfort on Parris Island in present-day South Carolina.
Two years later, he takes over command of the French colony of Fort Caroline in what is now Jacksonville, Florida.
He and many of his followers are killed by Spanish soldiers near St. Augustine in 1565.
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Jean Ribault has traveled north from present Jacksonville, charting more of the coastline and noting several rivers.
Eventually the colonists arrive to the Port Royal Sound in present-day South Carolina, and Ribault elects to establish a settlement on Parris Island, one of the Sea Islands off the coast.
He oversees the layout of a small fort, which is named Charlesfort in honor of the French king Charles IX.
Leaving twenty-seven men under the command of Albert de la Pierria to man the fort, Ribault sets sail for France in July 1562, but will be unable to bring back assistance because of the eruption of civil war in France between Huguenots and Catholics.
The undersuppplied colonists will soon abandon the settlement.
French naval officer Jean Ribault, born in the town of Dieppe on the English Channel, had entered into the French navy under the command of the great Huguenot admiral Gaspard de Coligny, who in 1562 chooses him to lead an expedition to the New World to found a colony.
Leaving France on February 18 with a fleet of one hundred and fifty colonists, he crosses the Atlantic Ocean and explores the mouth of the St. Johns River in modern-day Jacksonville, Florida.
He names it the "River May", as this is the month when he finds it, and erects a stone column claiming the territory for France.
Ribault's fleet now proceeds north.
Jean Ribaut, arrested in England due to complications arising from the French Wars of Religion, is thus unable to arrange the delivery of supplies for his newly founded Huguenot colony of Charlesfort on Parris Island.
Without supplies or leadership, and beset by hostility from the native Timucua, most of the Huguenot colonists follow Ribaut’s aide René Goulaine de Laudonnière south to establish a fort on the Saint John's River, near present Jacksonville, on June 22, 1564, naming it Fort Caroline for the reigning French king Charles IX.
The colonists attempt to establish further settlements along the St. John's River.
After initial conflict, the Huguenots establish friendly relations with the local natives in the area, primarily the Timucua under the cacique Satouriona.
Sketches of the Timucua drawn by Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, one of the French settlers, have proven valuable resources for modern ethnographers in understanding these people.
Painting in the Calvinist style, le Moyne is mostly known for his artistic depictions of the landscape, flora, fauna, and, most importantly, the inhabitants of the New World.
His drawings of the cultures commonly referred to as the Timucua (known through their reproduction by the Dutch publisher Theodor de Bry) are largely regarded as some of the most accessible data about the cultures of the Southeastern Coastal United States; however, many of these depictions and maps are currently being questioned by historians and archaeologists as to their authenticity.
The feuding colonists of Fort Caroline are about to abandon the new settlement when Ribault arrives from France in August 1565.
Upon learning of the Spanish colony of St. Augustine just thirty-five miles (sixty kilometers) to the south, Ribault sets out with several ships carrying two hundred sailors and four hundred soldiers to dislodge the Spanish, but he is surprised at sea by a violent storm lasting several days.
Menéndez, taking advantage of the tempest, marches his troops overland and surprises the Fort Caroline garrison at dawn on September 20, which numbers about two hundred to two hundred and fifty people.
The Spaniards attack and kill most of the defenders, except for about fifty women and children who are taken prisoner and twenty-six defenders who manage to escape, including de Laudonnière.
As for the men of Ribault's fleet, several had drowned; ...
...the Spanish pick up about three hundred and fifty survivors, (including Ribault), south on the coast where their ships had been wrecked, only to put them to the sword, sparing about twenty (not including Ribault).
This place is known today by a fort built much later, Fort Matanzas (Fort Massacre).
This massacre ends France's attempts at colonization in Florida.