Gerald Ensley: Time to rethink Fort Caroline
Stop the presses! This is not the 450th anniversary of the French settling Florida.
Or maybe it is.
But controversy is afoot over one of the long-held tenets of Florida history: The French were the first to colonize Florida.
The controversy may not be on a par with saying, “Columbus did not discover America” (OK, Puerto Rico). But for Florida history, it’s big.
As they teach fourth-graders, France was the first European nation to settle Florida when French colonists and soldiers established Fort Caroline near Jacksonville in 1564. A year later, the Spanish established their own fort at St. Augustine, marched north during a hurricane, killed the French and destroyed Fort Caroline.
Though the exact location of Fort Caroline has never been found, historians have long held it was on the east bank of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville. Since 1950, the Fort Caroline National Memorial park has been there.
Because of Fort Caroline, the state of Florida this year is celebrating the 450th anniversary of France in Florida. This follows last year’s 500th anniversary celebration of Ponce de Leon discovering Florida in 1513. It precedes next year’s 450th anniversary celebration of the founding of St. Augustine, the nation’s oldest continually occupied European settlement.
(Actually, French explorer Jean Ribault visited the mouth of the St. Johns River in 1562 and erected a stone monument, before sailing up the coast and establishing a fort on Parris Island in South Carolina.)
But a month ago, two researchers threw a monkey wrench into the Fort Caroline history: They said the fort was never in Florida. They said the fort was 60 to 70 miles north into present-day Georgia. They say the French never stepped foot in present-day Florida until many years later (give or take Ribault’s visit to a Jacksonville river bank).
Granted, the researchers haven’t found the Fort Caroline site in Georgia yet. But they believe they will.
“When it is confirmed, it will make big waves,” said historian Fletcher Crowe. “All the Florida textbooks will have to be rewritten. It is a major change.”
Crowe earned his Ph.D. in history from Florida State University, taught at several universities and now is retired in Gainesville. Crowe and collaborator Anita Spring, a retired University of Florida archaeologist, made their announcement at an FSU conference on Feb. 21.
Crowe and Spring’s theory is based on “seven or eight lines of evidence,” Crowe said, most notably a re-reading of French maps. Crowe, who visited France to examine original maps, said “several French documents” show Fort Caroline to be at 31 degrees north latitude — “which is nowhere near Jacksonville (30 degrees latitude).”
Crowe and Spring also found French documents that recorded about 20 words spoken by the Native Americans at Fort Caroline. Those words were in Guale, the language of the coastal Indians of Georgia, not the language of the Timucuan of North Florida. They also brandish British maps that show the River of May — long thought to refer to the St. Mary’s River that divides Georgia and Florida — was actually the Altamaha River 60 miles north between Brunswick and Savannah, Ga.
“For over 150 years, scholars have been trying to find Fort Caroline,” Crowe said. “We believe they were looking in the wrong place.”
The assertions of Crowe and Spring have not been met with universal acceptance. Chuck Meide, director of archaeological research at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum, believes they are flat wrong.
Meide, writing in his museum newsletter, takes issue with Crowe’s reading of French maps: “For every map presented that seemed to show the River of May further north, we can find another in which it is depicted in the Jacksonville area.”
Mostly, Meide argues, there is no way for Fort Caroline to have been 90 miles north of St. Augustine, when numerous Spanish accounts contend the Spanish marched to Fort Caroline in one day.
Crowe and Spring say St. Augustine was farther north than today. And while Meide agreed St. Augustine was moved a couple times before landing in its current location, “There is no evidence it was as far north” as Crowe and Spring suggest.
“This new theory doesn’t stand up to the archaeological and historical information that has been amassed by scholars over the past 50 years,” Meide wrote.
Crowe and Spring expect to receive a grant soon to begin archaeological digging along the Altamaha River. They recognize they are proposing a radical change in history, but they think it’s important.
“It would be a psychological change,” Crowe agreed. “But it would give a proper foundation and attitude toward colonial history, which is needed.”
In the meantime, the 450th anniversary, never intended to be as big as last year’s 500th anniversary of Ponce de Leon, will continue.
The Florida Department of State has created a French Heritage website. The Museum of Florida History assembled a traveling exhibit of reproductions of illustrations by French painter Jacques LeMoyne, who was part of the 1564 expedition. The exhibit will split time between Jacksonville and Naples.
And life will go on at the Fort Caroline National Memorial.
“The mystery of Fort Caroline remains a mystery,” said Barbara Goodman, longtime superintendent of the federal memorial. “They have presented a different theory, which we would welcome if they ever found the actual fort. However, it’s just a theory until evidence is recovered. As of this point, nothing has changed. So we and the state will carry on.”
Contact senior writer Gerald Ensley at firstname.lastname@example.org or 850-599-2310.
To learn more about the French in Florida, visit: http://www.flheritage.com/preservation/trails/frenchheritage/index.cfm