Easter Parade in St. Augustine

Bloody Massacres near St. Augustine

Some terrible mass killings happened near St. Augustine 450 years before Maureen and I got there. On three separate occasions, Spanish troops killed hundreds of unarmed French soldiers. In the last instance, the soldiers asked if they could surrender. The Spanish said yes. Then, after they were disarmed, the French troops were tied up and clubbed to death or hacked to death with axes. All of this happened in September 1565.

I Do Not Judge

I do not sit here hundreds of years later and judge. They had their own reasons for doing what they did. The King of Spain sent his men to get the French out of Florida. When they got there, they found a Timucuan settlement. The Spanish explorers called the settlement St. Augustine because it was August 28th when a Spanish sailor first laid eyes on it. All the days of the year are named after a saint who died on that day. In some Catholic countries, you celebrate not only your birthday but your saint’s day as well.

Years earlier, Juan Ponce de Leon was the first European to land in Florida. They say he was looking for the Fountain of Youth. He probably was. But the initial purpose of his trip was to find gold in or around Puerto Rico.

The Mother Lode

St. Augustine would’ve made a perfect base from which to launch attacks on Spanish galleons bringing tons of gold and silver from South America. Between 1500 and 1650, the Spanish imported 181 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver from the New World. In today’s money, that would be 4 billion in gold and 7 billion in silver. That was a lot of money for that time. Not only did other countries want some of this, but they took it from Spanish ships every chance they got.

So life was cutthroat. There was a lot at stake. Massacres happened.

There is a river, a state forest, a fort, an inlet, a beach, and even a high school all called Matanzas. This word means “massacre” in Spanish.