Salvation - the above post demonstrates to never expect more than half-truths from non-Catholics set on denigrating the church.
From the NPS, here is the truth:
The settlement barely survived that first year. Good relations with the Indians eventually soured and by the following spring the colonists were close to starvation. Twice mutinous parties had sailed off to make their own fortunes and some were eventually captured by the Spanish, revealing the presence of the French colony. The remaining colonists were about to leave Florida in August 1565, when they spotted sails on the horizon. Ribault had arrived with a relief expedition of supplies and 600 soldiers and settlers, including more women and some children.
On learning of Ribaults departure for Florida, Phillip II of Spain sent Admiral Pedro Menendez to remove the French from Florida. Menendez established a base to the south at St. Augustine. Ribault sailed down the coast seeking to attack the Spanish, but his ships were scattered by a hurricane and beached far to the south.
Seizing the opportunity, Menendez marched north with 500 soldiers to attack the weakly guarded colony. It is believed that the Spanish camped overnight nearby, and attacked early. Forty or fifty French people, including Laudonniere, escaped and sailed for France. Out of the remaining 200 people, only about 60 women and children were spared.
Menendez next marched south and found the shipwrecked Frenchmen, Ribault among them. They threw themselves on his mercy, but to Menendez they were heretics and enemies of his king. At a place later named Matanzas (Slaughter), he put to the sword about 350 men - all but those professing to be Catholics and a few musicians. France never again strongly challenged Spanish claims in North America.
Thanks for the truth.
So, no these were not just innocent Huguenots minding their own business. The King had sent de Avilés to protect Spain's shipping lanes from pirates, including the 2 mutinous groups from Fort Caroline, and to remove the French from Spanish claimed territory.
I'm not sure where exactly you get the information that these particular French Huguenots were pirating. That seems like a slander.
However, the Spaniard Menendez was sent by the Spanish King to remove French colonists from the area. He may have initiated the initial skirmishes which the French Protestants and the Spanish Catholics engaged in. After which the Norman Ribault did attempt to follow Menendez's forces & ships South, but lost all his own ships and many sailors. So he did pursue, looking to fight, but storms busted up that effort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Caroline
As for Ribault's fleet, all of the ships either sank or ran aground south of St. Augustine during the storm, and many of the Frenchmen onboard were lost at sea. Ribault and his marooned sailors were located by Menéndez and his troops and summoned to surrender. Apparently believing that his men would be well treated, Ribault capitulated. Menéndez then executed Ribault and several hundred Huguenots (French Protestants) as heretics at what is now known as the Matanzas Inlet. The atrocity shocked Europeans even in that bloody era of religious strife.[2] A fort built much later, Fort Matanzas, is in the vicinity of the site. This massacre put an end to France's attempts at colonization of the southeastern Atlantic coast of North America.
So what we see is that Menedez's actions were quite horrific, and much as AnalogReigns characterized it. Perhaps you both might apologize to that freeper? He is quite intelligent, you know? And he brought no untruths here. Menendez engaged in two separate slaughters, adding up to approx 600 victims.
In fact, it does appear that Titanites is the one hoping to spin here, what happened those centuries ago, which is sad, for the slaughtering didn't end with the bloody Spaniard, sent by a Spanish king to do the very thing that he did...
More background; Dominique de Gourgue
Philip II of Spain was a Catholic king who hated Protestants and considered them heretics, including the French Huguenots. His troops were ordered to kill any they found in the colonies. Thus, in 1565 there was a notorious massacre around Fort Caroline in what is now Jacksonville, Florida, by troops under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. After capturing the fort and slaying nearly all his prisoners, Menéndez hung their bodies on trees, with the inscription, Not as Frenchmen but as Lutherans.[2] The massacre aroused indignation in France among Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. The king sent complaints to the Spanish court, but Menéndez and his associates, instead of being punished for the deed, received rewards and honors.
Pretty sick, huh? It disgusted many Catholics, too, but not Phillip II. One cannot but help to wonder how such news contributed to religious animosities in Europe at the time, and for generations afterward. Meanwhile in Florida;
Embittered by the cruelty and indignity that he had received from the Spaniards, de Gourgue determined to avenge the death of his Protestant compatriots, though he was himself a Catholic.[1] He sold everything he had and borrowed money from his brother Antoine in order to recruit a crew and charter three boats. He sailed to Cuba with two hundred men, never telling them the goal of their trip. Once in Cuba he made his intentions clear, and his crew approved his choice of revenge. Gourgue then moved to attack Spanish-held Fort Caroline, which they had renamed as Fort San Mateo, enlisting the aid of Fort Caroline's old allies, the Saturiwa and Tacatacuru, Timucua peoples from the area. The fort soon surrendered to de Gourgues' forces. The French and Indians killed the Spanish prisoners in retribution for the Fort Caroline and other massacres of Protestants.[3] They hung the garrison with the inscription, Not as Spaniards but as murderers".
From such as the above, we can see clearly that in this particular instance, it most certainly is not the case that the info is merely
In fact, it appears that quite the opposite sort of thing is occurring on this thread, but this time, with yet another repeated refrain of "but the Huguenots started it!" employed as a cover-up or excuse for mass slaughter of Protestants by Catholics being unjustifiable, unless one wishes to consider the killings more as continuance of the wars of religion being fought in Europe in that century.
Real groundbreakers, those Spaniards of old.