Fort Caroline

When the Spanish conquistador Pedro Menéndez, who had black crew members in his fleet, founded St. Augustine in 1565, he wrote that his settlers had been preceded by free Africans in the French settlement at Fort Caroline. The fort also employed Black slave labor. Together, Fort Caroline and the St. Augustine area represent some of the earliest points of history for the Black (and Black Catholic) community of what would become the United States. == The Timucua People ==

The term Timucua refers to the language and culture of a large group rather than a single tribe. Timucua peoples are split into different independent chiefdoms based from south Georgia to north Florida. Regional diversity is very important to the different Timucua groups. Each group has different regional factor that affect strategy and lifestyle. Even with these factors, the hierarchy of these chiefdom's remained the same Mocama and Saturiwa’s Group A major group of the Timucua people were the Mocama, who were mostly along the northeastern Florida coast. The Mocama were one of the first groups to have contact with the Europeans. Chief Saturiwa was the leading figure of the Mocama group. When French Hugueonot settlers arrived at Fort Caroline in 1564, Saturiwa and his group formed an alliance with them. They bonded over the ideal of mutual benefit. The French would get support against other indigenous groups and the Spanish. The Mocama would get more power in their region. The Saturiwa's interaction with the French is one of the first documented alliances in the southeast United States French Settlement Interactions The French coming into Florida in the region, as the Spanish also wanted to claim the land. This conflict is what led to the Spanish attack on Fort Caroline in 1565. Timucua groups had different alliances during this conflict. Depending on how it can help the group some would fight with the French and others with the Spanish. Impact of European Contact The impact of European contact for the Timucua was detrimental. Warfare, forced labor, and European spread diseases led to the decline of Timucua population. Many colonist ignored Timucua culture and just used them for missions. By the end, almost all surviving members of the Timucua people had either joined other indigenous groups or colonials. Now there is almost just historical records to show the groups existence. == Reproductions of Fort Caroline and speculation ==

The original site of Fort de la Caroline has never been determined, but it is believed to have been located near the present-day Fort Caroline National Memorial. The National Park Service constructed an outdoor exhibit of the original fort in 1964, but it was destroyed by Hurricane Dora in the same year. Today, the second replica, a near full-scale "interpretive model" of the original Fort de la Caroline, also constructed and maintained by the National Park Service, illustrates the modest defenses upon which the 16th-century French colonists depended. ==Proposed alternative location==

On 21 February 2014, researchers Fletcher Crowe and Anita Spring presented claims at a conference hosted by Florida State University that Fort Caroline was located not on the St. Johns River, but on the Altamaha River in southeast Georgia. The scholars proposed that period French maps, particularly a 1685 map of "French Florida" from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, support the more northern location. They further argued that the Native Americans living near the fort spoke Guale, the language spoken in what is now Coastal Georgia, rather than Timucua, the language of northeast Florida. Other scholars have been skeptical of the hypothesis. University of North Florida archaeologist Robert Thunen considers the documentary evidence weak and believes the location is implausibly far from St. Augustine, considering the Spanish were able to march overland to Fort Caroline in two days amid a hurricane. ==Gallery==

File:Ft. Caroline, Jacksonville, NC.jpg|alt=|Fort Caroline Entrance 2021 File:Jean Ribault Monument.jpg|alt=|Jean Ribault Monument 2019 File:Fort Caroline Trails.jpg|alt=Reproductions of chickee huts along the Fort Caroline trails. |Reproductions of chickee huts along the Fort Caroline trails, 2023 ==See also==