Fort Caroline was by far the oldest fort I visited on this trip, dating to the 1560s. Well, it would have been if any of it still existed! The Park Service has constructed a complete fort on this site that they THINK may be similar to what Fort Caroline might have looked like. There are no surviving plans or drawings of the real fort. Furthermore, as we walk around the "best-guess" fort, we find out that the location is also a best-guess of where the actual fort was located. There is a reason that so little information remains about Fort Caroline.

The original settlement was France's attempt to edge itself in on Florida's wealth, currently controlled by Spain. In addition, French Huguenots, who were being persecuted in France, were welcome to relocate here for religious freedoms (some 50 years before Pilgrims and Puritans left England for similar reasons). Sadly, they would regret this move.

Spain, of course, did not like the new neighbors living along the St John River in northeastern Florida. They harassed the settlement to the point where the French were about to leave. Before they could, French reinforcements arrived. The French decided to attack first and many of the troops sailed south toward St Augustine. During hurricane season in Florida. A hurricane struck the fleet scattering the ships which landed well to the south.

The Spanish now took advantage of the "lost" troops to attack the fort. The French were overwhelmed and they surrendered. Unimpressed, the Spanish leader Pedro Menendez slaughtered all but about 60 women and children.

He then headed south to find the remains of the French fleet. Once he found them, he slaughtered another 350, sparing only a few who professed to be Catholic. The Spanish word for "slaughter" - matanzas - was given to the area, the river, and subsequently, a Spanish fort.

Fort Caroline is one of those few "not fully independent" National Park Sites. It exists inside the very large expanse of the Timucuan Ecological & Historical Preserve, and is not even given the dignity of its own web page (being a sub-page in the Timucuan site's web pages). However, the Visitor's Center for both Fort Caroline and Timucuan is on the Fort Caroline land. I don't fully understand why this site does not rate a full web presence like most of the parks, even if it is located within another unit. But then again, no one at the Park Service asked me!