1524 - France in America
The parts of North America neglected by Spain were attractive on that account to her ancient enemy -- France. Although the Treaty of Tordesillas had given France no share of the New World, the French crown ignored the arrangement. Francis I underwrote Verrazzano's exploratory voyage (1524) and the more ambitious enterprises of Cartier and Roberval on the St. Lawrence (1534-1543). Even though war with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire impeded French expansion in the 1520s and 1530s, and the death of Henry II in 1559 led to civil and religious strife that nearly tore the country apart, France was the largest and most populous kingdom in western Europe and still a formidable adversary.
Expecting a French challenge in North America, Spain sent a large contingent (1559-1561) to secure a settlement site on the Gulf and an overland route thence to the coast of Georgia or South Carolina. In 1561, Angel de Villafane followed the Atlantic coast north past Cape Fear, looking for suitable sites and any foreigners making unauthorized use of them. Villafane dismissed the area as worthless. The next year, however, Jean Ribault, under the banner of France, built Charlesfort, probably on Port Royal Sound, South Carolina. Charlesfort lasted only a few months, but this French incursion and well-founded rumors about a second, to the south, caused King Philip II of Spain to send Pedro Menendez de Aviles to establish a settlement in Florida, and to expel any Frenchmen in the area.
Menendez arrived in August 1565 and wasted no time laying out the first St. Augustine. In September and October he massacred the French Garrison of Fort Caroline, at the mouth of the St. Johns River. In due course he founded ten outposts in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina (1565-1567); ordered exploration of the North Carolina and Virginia coasts (1570); and personally avenged (1572) the Jesuits' murder by Indians. Menendez, a strong supporter of colonization, was nearly alone in his enthusiasm for the region. His death in 1574 resulted in a decline of Spanish colonies in the area. Through Philip II continued to be interested until his death in 1598, the lack of an on-site manager with the enthusiasm and ability of Menendez made it easier for another country ignored at Tordesillas to reenter the struggle for empire in the New World.
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