After two years of fighting, Menéndez returned to his family, having conceived a plan to use part of his inheritance to build his own vessel. He built a
patache, a small but fast row-sailer, suitable for patrolling the coast. He recruited a number of his relatives to sail with him in search of adventure. In this ship, the young Menéndez won his first victory of command in an engagement with French corsairs who had attacked three slow Spanish freighters off the coast of
Galicia. By effective captainship, he separated the two swift
zabras (Biscayan frigates) that pursued him and captured them both, and drove away the third. The exploits of Pedro Menéndez soon became a topic of conversation on the waterfronts of Spain and France, and in the royal courts. Meanwhile, the Seville merchants and the
Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) were chagrined by Menéndez's success and his growing influence with the Crown.
Treasure fleet Menéndez is credited as the Spanish leader who first surveyed and authorized the building of the royal fortresses at major
Caribbean ports. He was appointed by the Crown in 1554 as Captain-General of the Fleet of the Indies, the Spanish treasure fleet; that year he departed with the fleet and brought it back safely to Spain. He was affirmed in his belief of the strategic importance of the
Bahama Channel and that
Havana, on the island of Cuba, was the key port to conduct a rendezvous of the annual
Flota of treasure galleons. The appointment was highly prestigious, and it was unusual for the Crown to make the appointment. In the past the Casa de Contratación had controlled this position. In 1559, Philip II again appointed Menéndez as Captain General, and his brother
Bartolomé Menéndez as Admiral, of the Fleet of the Indies. He sailed for the Indies that October as captain general and commanded the
galleons of the great
Armada de la Carrera, or
Spanish Treasure Fleet, on their return voyage from the Caribbean and Mexico to Spain. Menéndez determined the route they followed, which led through the
Florida Strait () and up the east coast of Florida, taking advantage of the current of the
Gulf Stream. In 1561, however, Menéndez was jailed by Casa officials for alleged smuggling, but he got his case transferred to court and won his release. Menéndez is credited as the chief planner of the formalized Spanish treasure fleet convoy system that became the main link between Spain and her overseas territories. In 1561, he designed and built a twelve-ship flotilla of 230-ton
galley-like
galleons (
galeones agalerados) inspired by the Atlantic
galleasses built by
Álvaro de Bazán the Elder. The ships were used to escort the treasure fleet, being soon known as the "
Twelve Apostles" for their reliability and success at hunting down foreign piracy and privateering. They were also used in combination with two heavy, 800-ton galleasses built by Cristóbal de Barros. Furthermore, in partnership with
Bazán the Younger, he helped design the great galleons that carried the trade between
Cádiz in Spain and
Vera Cruz in Spanish Mexico. Later, in his capacity as
adelantado, Menéndez was required to explore this vast territory, which extended from the Gulf coast of present-day western Florida around the Florida keys to Newfoundland. He also was commanded by the king to establish two or three fortified
presidios and settle them with settlers and slaves, and to begin the conversion of the Indians to Catholicism.
Enterprise of La Florida In 1562, a group of
Huguenots led by
Jean Ribault arrived in territory claimed by Spain and called
La Florida. They explored the mouth of the
St. Johns River in Florida, calling it
la Rivière de Mai (the River May). The French sailed northward and established a settlement called
Charlesfort at
Port Royal Sound in present-day South Carolina. On 19 August 1563, Pedro Menéndez and his brother Bartolomé were imprisoned by the Casa de Contratación, accused of accepting bribes and smuggling silver into Spain. In September, he received news that
La Concepción, flagship of the New Spain fleet and commanded by his son Admiral Juan Menéndez, had disappeared off the coast of South Carolina, and Juan was assumed to be dead. The ship was lost in a hurricane that scattered the fleet as it was returning to Spain, at the latitude of
Bermuda off the coast of South Carolina. Menéndez conceived a plan for a voyage to
La Florida to search for his son, who he believed might have reached there, but he was powerless to initiate it from prison, and his petitions to King
Philip II went unanswered. Spain learned of the French expedition to Florida through its spies at ports on the Atlantic coast of France. Philip II was alarmed when Dr. Gabriel de Enveja reported that Jean Ribault had been appointed as "Captain-General and Viceroy of New France". He also said that a large expedition of ships, soldiers and supplies was being fitted at
Dieppe for a voyage to Florida: it was to have more than 500
arquebusiers, and many dismounted bronze cannons were loaded aboard the vessels. After his release from prison, Menéndez was available again to serve the king's purposes. He was appointed as
adelantado of
La Florida, with the promise of a large land grant and the title of marquis if he was successful. He advised the king of the strategic importance of exploring the Florida coast for discovery of trade passages to the riches of China and Molucca. There was the hope that such waterways might also lead to the mines of New Spain in central Mexico and to the Pacific. He proposed colonizing several areas to defend the territory against incursions by the Indians and foreign powers. Menéndez expected to make vast profits for himself and to increase the royal treasury with this Florida enterprise, as it was to include the development of agriculture, fisheries, and
naval stores. This ambitious venture was supported materially and politically by his kinship alliance of seventeen families from northern Spain, all tied by blood relations and marriage. They pledged their persons and fortunes to the adelentado, hoping to enrich themselves later with large grants of lands and royal honors of civil and military offices in
La Florida. This support gave Menéndez a loyal cadre of lieutenants and officials who had blood connection to him, and had invested their own futures in his success. In early 1564 Menéndez asked permission to go to Florida to search for
La Concepcion and his son, Admiral Juan Menéndez, who had been its commander. As noted above, they were lost in 1563 in a hurricane. Desiring to protect its claimed territories in North America against further incursions by European powers, the
Spanish Crown issued an
asiento to Menéndez, signed by Philip II on 20 March 1565, granting him expansive trade privileges, the power to distribute lands, and licenses to sell 500 slaves, as well as various titles, including that of
adelantado of Florida. Menéndez was commissioned to reconnoiter North America from the
Florida Keys to present-day Canada, and report on its coastal features, with a view to establishing a permanent settlement for the defense of the Spanish treasure fleet. He was ordered as well to drive away any intruders who were not subjects of the Spanish crown. On 28 July 1565, Menéndez set sail from
Cádiz with a fleet led by his 600-ton flagship, the
San Pelayo, accompanied by several smaller ships, and carrying over 1,000 sailors, soldiers, and settlers. On the feast day of
St. Augustine, 28 August, the fleet sighted land and anchored off the north inlet of the
Matanzas River that the French called the River of Dolphins. This was developed as the site of the present-day city of St. Augustine. Menéndez sailed north and confronted Ribault's fleet outside the bar of the River May in a brief skirmish. On 6 September, he returned to his first landfall, naming the site it after the Catholic saint, disembarked his troops, and quickly constructed fortifications to protect his people and supplies. Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, the chaplain of the expedition, celebrated the first Thanksgiving
Mass on the grounds. The formal
Franciscan outpost,
Mission Nombre de Dios, was founded at the landing point, perhaps the first mission in what would become the
continental United States. The mission served nearby villages of the
Mocama, a
Timucua group, and was at the center of an important
chiefdom in the late 16th and 17th century. Menéndez marched his soldiers overland from St. Augustine to destroy the French settlement at
Fort Caroline on the
St. Johns River. On 20 September 1565, they made a surprise attack and killed all the adult men they encountered, but spared women and children; 132 Frenchmen
were killed. Laudonnière and several score Frenchmen escaped into the woods. Menéndez left a Spanish garrison at the captured fort, now renamed San Mateo. (In 1568 French soldiers led by
Dominique de Gourgues returned and destroyed it, killing the Spanish garrison in retaliation for the 1565 massacre.) Menéndez pursued Jean Ribault, who had already left with four ships to attack the Spanish at St. Augustine. After Ribault had put out to sea, he was surprised by a storm that wrecked three of his ships near what is now the
Ponce de Leon Inlet. His flagship was grounded near present-day Cape Canaveral. Informed by Indian allies that the French survivors were walking northward on the coast, Menéndez began to search for them, finding the party at the banks of the Matanzas River's south entrance. After several parleys with the Spanish, Ribault and the 150–350 Frenchmen with him (sources differ) surrendered. The Spanish executed nearly all of them in the dunes near the inlet. It was later known as
Matanzas (Spanish for "slaughters"). Having taken control of the Florida coast, Menéndez had his soldiers complete the fort in St. Augustine. He also established missions to the natives for the Catholic Church, and explored the east coast and interior of the peninsula. In May 1566, as relations with the neighboring
Timucua Indians deteriorated, Menéndez moved the Spanish settlement to a more defensible position on the north end of the
barrier island between the mainland and the sea, building a wooden fort there. In 1572, the settlement was relocated to the mainland, in the area just south of the future town plaza. Secure as governor, Menéndez explored the area and built additional fortifications. He also commissioned the
Juan Pardo expedition, to travel from
Santa Elena, at
Port Royal Sound in present-day South Carolina, into the interior of the Southeast. Captain Pardo was to find and supply an alternate overland route to the Spanish silver mines in central Mexico, as the Spanish mistakenly thought the Appalachian Mountains were part of a range extending that far. In the next couple of years, Pardo and his men traveled into present-day South Carolina and
Western North Carolina, stopping at the Mississippian chiefdom of
Joara, where they built Fort San Juan and wintered over. In total, his expedition built six forts along this route, including one known as San Pedro at Olamico, the principal town of
Chiaha in southeastern Tennessee. Pardo left the expedition for other business. In 1568 all the Spanish men but one in the garrisons were killed by Native Americans resisting their treatment, and the forts were destroyed. The Spanish did not attempt other colonization in this region. Confident that he had fulfilled his primary contract with the King, including construction of forts along the coast of
La Florida, Menéndez returned to Spain in 1567. He was appointed governor of Cuba, in October of that year. After several more transatlantic crossings, Menéndez fell ill and died on 17 September 1574. ==Later years==