Jean Ribault

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Jean Ribault (also spelled Ribaut) (1520 – October 12, 1565) was a French naval officer, navigator, and a colonizer of what would become the

Biography

Early life and first colony

Ribault was born in the town of

Laudonnière ultimately set sail on April 22, 1564 and arrived at Florida two months later.^[2] The plan for Ribault was to follow him in Spring 1565 with reinforcements and fresh supplies. As Charlesfort was now abandoned, the expedition decided to found a new colony on the banks of the St. Johns River, the same area Ribault and company had explored on the prior voyage. They christened the settlement Fort Caroline.^[7]

Fort Caroline sustained itself for the next year, but Ribault found himself caught up in the fresh outbreak of war in France and was unable to set sail at the appointed time. As a result, the colony experienced food shortages and deteriorating conditions, and some soldiers mutinied and became pirates, attacking Spanish vessels in the Caribbean. The situation was exacerbated by a clash with the Utina, a Timucua Indian tribe up the river to the south. Ribault finally organized his fleet in the summer of 1565, ultimately departing from France with 800 new settlers and five ships. He arrived in Florida on August 28, just as the despairing Laudonnière was preparing to sail home. Ribault promptly relieved Laudonnière as governor and assumed command of Fort Caroline.^[2]

In the meantime, the Spanish, who had long maintained a claim over Florida, had made preparations to find and oust the French from Fort Caroline. In early September Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, newly-appointed adelantado of Florida, encountered Ribault's ships at anchor off the River of May. After a brief naval skirmish, the French ships cut their anchor lines and fled, and Menéndez retreated to the next inlet to the south, landing his men on 7 September and establishing the settlement of St. Augustine.^[2]

Disaster

The Spanish hastily threw up palm-log and earthworks around an existing Timucua Indian village at their newly founded settlement and began unloading their ships. Before all of the equipment and supplies could be unloaded, Menéndez sent his flagship San Pelayo away to Hispaniola, as it was too big to enter the St. Augustine Inlet and Menéndez expected an attack from Ribault. Jean Ribault did attack only hours later, and almost captured Menéndez who was on a smaller vessel offshore, but the Spaniard risked crossing the sandbar at the mouth of the inlet and made it to the harbor. As the French galleons were also too large to cross the inlet, Ribault took his fleet south to pursue San Pelayo when the hurricane struck on September 11, driving his ships further south to their destruction on the Canaveral coast.^{[citation needed]}

Assuming that the majority of the French men-at-arms were on board Ribault's ships, leaving Fort Caroline defenseless, Menéndez ordered his infantrymen to march 40 miles (64 km) north to Fort Caroline, during the hurricane.^[2] On 20 September, the Spanish captured the now-lightly-defended French settlement; 140 men were immediately put to death. In the eyes of the king of Spain, the Protestant religion and acts of piracy committed from Fort Caroline made the entire settlement a dangerous nest of pirates, heretics, and trespassers on Spanish territory. Only about 60 women and children were spared. René Laudonnière and about 40 others escaped the wrath of the Spaniards, and eventually returned to Europe to tell their tales.^{[citation needed]}

The same hurricane that masked the approach of Menéndez's troops on Fort Caroline, utterly destroyed all of Ribault's fleet, driving them up on the beach many miles south of their intended target. Several hundred soldiers and sailors made it ashore barely alive and then walked from near present-day

In 1568 French nobleman-turned-pirate Dominique de Gourgues avenged Ribault. He and 200 men attacked Spanish-held Fort Caroline, secured the garrison's surrender, and then put all the defenders to death.^[8]

Legacy

In 2018 the shipwreck of Ribault's flagship, La Trinité, was located off of the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida.^[9][10]

Several places and institutions in Jacksonville are named for Ribault, including Jean Ribault Middle School

• 
  "Jean Ribault and a party of Huguenots landed the morning of May 1, 1562 on this island. Here they knelt in prayer, beseeching God's guidance and commending the natives to his care. This was the first Protestant prayer in North America."

References