An account drawn from The History of St. Augustine, by William W. Dewhurst, 1885

   Pedro Menendez learned of the disaster which had overtaken his posts on the St. Johns - their defeat by the French nobleman Dominique de Gourges with a force of 180 - after his return to St. Augustine with supplies from Havana.

   So humiliating a disaster as the capture of three of his forts, well fortified and garrisoned with four hundred trained men, was the occasion of no little mortification, especially since the victors were the avengers of the former colonists, and the forces that accomplished the affair were so greatly outnumbered by his soldiers, who were also well defended by strong forts.

   To add to his discouragement, he found the St. Augustine garrison was nearly naked, the colonists half starved, and the Indian attacks growing more frequent and reckless as the weakness and despondency of the Spaniards became more apparent.

   Menendez did not bend under these obstacles which would have crushed a nature of ordinary mold. His extraordinary and comprehensive genius opened a way, in the midst of almost superhuman difficulties, for the maintenance of his colony and the extension of the Catholic faith, to which his life was now devoted.

   Realizing the insecurity of garrisons at a distance from each other and the principal post, he wisely concluded to preserve his forces entire at St. Augustine, and thus maintain the colony and a base of operations.

   The spread of the Catholic faith he determined to secure by inducing the different tribes of Indians to receive and support one or more missionaries or teachers. Large numbers of priests, friars, and brothers of the various religious orders of the Catholic Church were sent to Florida by the King of Spain. Mission-houses were built from the Florida capes on the south to the Chesapeake on the north and the Mississippi on the west, to which these teachers, mostly Franciscans, were sent.

   By the mildness of their manners, the promises of future joys and rewards which their teachings declared, and the interest excited by the introduction of the arts of civilized life, they gained a powerful ascendency over the native tribes, that promised at one period the conversion of the whole North American Indian race to the religion and customs of their Christian teachers.

   That the ultimate success of the efforts to Christianize the Indians was not attained was probably owing to the political changes that occurred in Europe in the eighteenth century.

   In both France and Spain the Jesuits fell into disgrace, and the most rigorous measures of suppression and banishment were adopted against them. The Jesuit missions in Florida shared the fate of their order in the Old World, and thus was the encouraging prospect of Christianizing the Indians swept away forever.

Image: Collection of Mission San Luis, Tallahassee