Posted on 12/14/2016 6:27:49 AM PST by Red Badger
Treasure hunters have apparently found the 500-year-old remains of a naval expedition led by a colonizer who could have changed Florida's history, making it French-speaking at least for a while.
The big question is if the shipwreck is that of "La Trinite," the 32-gun flagship of a fleet led by Jean Ribault, a French navigator who tried to establish a Protestant colony in the southeast US under orders from King Charles IX.
They probably are, say authorities in Florida, the French government and independent archeologists.
And if they in fact are, this is an unparalleled find, said John de Bry, director of the Center for Historical Archeology, a not-for-profit organization.
"If it turns out to be 'La Trinite,' it is the most important, historically and archaeologically, the most important shipwreck ever found in North America," he told AFP.
All indications are that the shipwreck found is the real thing.
The artefacts found at the site off Cape Canaveral include three bronze cannons with markings from the reign of King Henri II, who ruled right before Charles IX; and a stone monument with the French coat of arms that was to be used to claim the new territory.
The remains are "consistent with material associated with the lost French Fleet of 1565," said Meredith Beatrice, director of communications with the Florida Department of State.
In 1565, Ribault set sail from Fort Caroline, today Jacksonville, to attack his arch-enemy, the Spaniard Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who had been sent to Florida by King Philip of Spain to thwart French plans to set up a colony.
[SNIP]
The find was finally made in May of this year by a treasure hunting firm called Global Marine Exploration.
Precisely where has not been disclosed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Hey, I’d love to have one of those cannons in front of the house.
Now called ‘Westside High School’................
Still have relatives there and come to visit once a year, or so.....................
Anything above force 12 is described with one word,"survival."
I love this! I wear a coin found in the Caribbean on the wreck of the Atocha,. This period of our history is fascinating to me. Thanks for posting.
IIRC, Livingston was stymied over the purchase...since there was no "how to purchase from a foreign nation" in our Laws.
I disagree. Wherever the French go, they keep their language. See Louisiana and Quebec. Italians, Polish, even Mexican speakers' decendants eventually speak English here, but not the French.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend...............
Treasure comes in many forms. I live in the Gold Country here in California. While spending time gold panning on the Bear River, I realized that there is more value in the river rocks than the gold. Now we go and load up river rocks for landscaping. Its actually less work than looking for gold. ;o)
That is true, but assuming there are any French left to speak. They were all massacred by Aviles ...............
One man’s rock is another man’s $24.95...................
Fascinating to consider what might of been in France if they did not driven out the Huguenots who were the roots of an emergent middle class. France lost much by driving out the Huguenots
Let’s not forget “Ribault and hundreds of other French Huguenots were massacred by Menendez de Aviles.” These were the original European settlers of what is now the USA (well before the Pilgrims, before Jamestown, before Roanoke colony) slaughtered as POW’s of the founder of St. Augustine, because they would not convert to Roman Catholicism.
This was close to 400 people—mostly civilians.
So the first permanent settlement by Europeans in what is now the USA, was NOT St. Augustine, FL, it was the Huguenot’s Fort Caroline (in GA or FL (?))—wiped out by the Spanish—after just a year.
Just 7 years later, as many as 100,000 of fellow Huguenots, French Calvinist Protestants, were slaughtered in France—in one of the worst butcheries of civilians in European history, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
New Brunswick is officially 50/50 (English and French).
La Florida was a brutal place at times.
French Protestant Huguenots transported on a French warship is interesting ... about the same time they were fleeing France to Holland and England to avoid persecution by the Catholics in France. The Dutch recruited those Huguenots with wine growing experience and shipped them to the Cape Town area of SA to establish vineyards, some of which exist to this day.
For one thing, it didn't sink in US waters--there was no US at the time. And the Spaniards will tell you that these were pirate ships, not warships.
Even the Spaniards would note the difference between a Flagged Warship and a pirate ship (privateer).........................
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