Menendez

You know those books — they’re always there — on the gift shop shelves of national parks and historic sites, those paperbacks that were printed in the 1960s by the local college or historical society and never updated, and they all look like they’ve been sitting on the dusty shelf for the past 20 years, but the price is right so you pick it up, feeling somehow culturally empowered by spending $8 on a paperback?  That’s the case with Florida’s Menendez: Captain General of the Ocean Sea, published in 1965 by the St. Augustine Historical Society.

I’m finally getting around to reading it.  It was purchased 12 years ago, and for all that time, I’ve only been pretending to be culturally empowered.

Pedro Menendez de Aviles was another one of those conquistadores employed in the “humane conquest” of the Americas.  (For more on that topic, see my post about Cabeza de Vaca.)  Unlike de Vaca, however, I at least know a little about Menendez, mainly because he was responsible for planting the Spanish flag in the ground at St. Augustine, Florida, and boy oh boy, mom and dad sure loved to take us to St. Augustine for vacations.

There’s a great controversy that pops up every year between the bored historians in New England and the bored historians in Florida about the location of the first “Thanksgiving.”  Of course, the winners write the history, so we all know the story of what happened in Plymouth in 1621, but an argument can be made that Menendez and crew had the first Thanksgiving (complete with Catholic mass, feasting, and socializing with the locals) on September 8, 1565, some 56 years before the pilgrims.  (And yes, we know the exact date because the Spaniards were Catholics, and those Catholics recorded everything.)  I’m not going to make too much of this Florida vs. New England thing, because now I understand that Texas is also claiming to have hosted the first Thanksgiving.  Oi.  But in my heart, I know Florida is the winner.

What I find most intriguing about Pedro Menendez de Aviles y Alonso de la Campa (to use his full name) was what happened at Matanzas Inlet.  Known to historians and college students not sleeping through Florida History 101, the “Massacre at Matanzas” is the story of a bloody mass execution of 111 Frenchman.  I had always associated this gruesome scene as an indicator of Menendez’s cold-blooded nature, but this book put things in a slightly different perspective.  Yes, he killed 111 people, but the book explained that this was a mere matter of practicality.  The Spanish simply didn’t have the manpower or resources to house so many prisoners, so he made the only logical choice.  In his honor, he did spare a few fellow Catholics and those saying they would convert from Protestantism, and the women, and the children.  Hey, that’s something.  But everyone else was killed on the spot.  It was one of those scenes where the movie narrator would say something like “The once-white sand turned crimson with the blood of the French.”

So this is how it happened, and it actually shows Menendez’s brilliance.  In 1565, the French had control of Fort Caroline, located at the mouth of the St. John’s River.  The Spanish wanted that fort, so Menendez was sent to take it over.  As he was chillaxin’ in Saint Augustine, the French decided that they wanted Saint Augustine for themselves.  They loaded up most of their men and arms and just about made it to the intended target when a mother of a hurricane rolled in, wreaking havoc on their plans to attack.  The never made landfall.  Instead, the hurricane left a trail of wrecked ships south from St. Augustine as far away as Daytona Beach and Cape Canaveral.  Nearly wetting his pants at the French predicament, Menendez knew that Fort Caroline was left with a skeletal crew.  He gathered his men and walked in the hurricane some 35 miles to Fort Caroline, sometimes up to their waists in flood water.  Menendez and his men easily overtook Fort Caroline (even though there were still about 200 Frenchman inside). On the return to St. Augustine, some local Native Americans told Menendez that the French shipwreck survivors were on the beach just south at the Matanzas Inlet.  (Okay, so that wasn’t the name of the inlet.  Yet.   Matanzas means The Slaughters.)  Menendez and his men surrounded the survivors at the inlet, and well, that’s about it. 

Near the inlet is Fort Matanzas, which was built much later, in the 1740s by the Spanish, as a way to guard the back entrance to Saint Augustine.  It’s a fun little fort, open to visitors via a pleasant boat ride provided by the National Park Service.  This is something I’d definitely like to include on the Florida Trip.  Every time I’ve been to the fort, I’ve seen touring cyclists stopping at the historic site for lunch or a break.

So, Mr. Menendez, I’m sorry that I misjudged you all these years.  You did what you had to do to preserve Florida for the king.  And now, those sands on the shores of the Matanzas Inlet are white as can be.  I know.  I took my daughter on her first St. Augustine trip last month.

P.S.  I’ve read so much about Fort Caroline, but I’ve never been there.  It seems like a logical destination for the Florida Trip.