Who were the first Europeans to settle in Florida? WHY did the Spanish first land at St Augustine?
Posted By admin on August 19, 2009
Mugwump asked:
I am just asking this as a poll, because I find that schools (even here in Florida) do not teach the truth about the earliest Florida settlers. Everyday schoolchildren are dragged to St Augustine from all over Florida, but never are told WHY the Spanish landed there.
OK, I’ll give you a hint. They landed at St Augustine so they could KILL some Protestants.
I am just asking this as a poll, because I find that schools (even here in Florida) do not teach the truth about the earliest Florida settlers. Everyday schoolchildren are dragged to St Augustine from all over Florida, but never are told WHY the Spanish landed there.
OK, I’ll give you a hint. They landed at St Augustine so they could KILL some Protestants.
The French were in Florida first in 1562. The Spanish Governor of Florida, Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, had been dispatched from Spain with orders to remove the French settlers. Menéndez executed several hundred Frenchmen as Lutheran heretics at a place now known as Matanzas (massacres) Inlet. This atrocity shocked Europeans even in that bloody era of religious strife.
The Spaniards, of course, and long before there were any Huguenots to be killed.