Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 11
September 8, 1565, were laid the foundations of the oldest city on the
Continent of North America—St. Augustine.
Without making any attempt to hold the country, a party of French
recaptured Fort Caroline, murdered its Spanish occupants and with
drew, leaving Spain in undisputed possession of Florida; and for more
than a century there were no further hostilities between these two rival
powers.
Five years subsequent to the hapless fate of Ribault's colony of
Huguenots, Admiral Coligny himself fell in the celebrated massacre of
St. Bartholomew.
Before we leave this subject, let us glance for a moment at Captain
Ribault's description of the Georgia coast. It is couched in glowing
terms, quaintly archaic; and, with respect to spelling is delightfully
reminiscent of Chaucer's old English. He calls the shore line between
St. John's River and Port Royal "'a fayre coast, stretching of a great
length and covered with an infinite number of fayre trees." He
describes the waters as '' boyling and roaring through the multitude of all
kinds of fish,'' and the inhabitants .as '' all naked and of a goodly stature,
mightie and as well shapen and proportioned of body as any people in
the world; very gentle, courteous and of a good nature." As for the
country itself, he characterized it as "the fayrest, fruitfulest and pleas-
antest of all the world, abounding in honey, venison, wilde foule, forests,
woods of all sorts, palm trees, cypresse and cedars, bays, ye highest and
greatest, with also the fayrest vines in all the world, with grapes accord
ing, which, without natural art and without man's helpe or trimming,
will grow to toppes of okes and other trees that be of a wonderfull great
ness and height." At sight of Georgia's "fayre medowes" he experi
enced a pleasure not to be expressed with the tongue. These meadows
were full of "hernes, Curlues, Bitters, Mallards, Egrepths, Wood-cocks
and all other kinds of small birds; with Harts, Hindes, Btickes, Wilde
Swine, and all other kinds of wilde beasts, as we perceived well both by
their footing there and also afterwards in other places by their crie and
roaring in the night.'' *
St. Augustine became the seat of Spanish government in America.
Nor was it long before mining expeditions were sent by the governors of
Florida into the Cherokee country of Georgia to dig gold. The fabulous
tales narrated by the returned soldiers of DeSoto 's expedition concerning
treasures to be found in the rich province of Coca or Coosa, consisting
not only of precious metals, like gold and silver, but also of rare pearls,
had so inflamed the imagination of the Spaniards that as soon as Florida
was settled the initial enterprise of its governors was directed toward the
Hills of Gold, in which these treasures were supposed to be embedded.
One of the earliest expeditions of which we have an account—ante
dating the foundation of St. Augustine—was organized in 1559 by Luis
de Velasco who dispatched 300 Spanish soldiers under Tristam de Luna
to open communication with the Province of Coosa by way of Pensacola
Bay. These soldiers equipped with mining tools, proceeded up the Chat-
tahoochee River into North Georgia, where implements of Spanish manu-
*"History of Georgia," Charles C. Jones, Jr., Vol. I, p. 35.