Why were the french corsairs brutally slaughtered in the Florida massacre?
1 Answer
The Spanish massacre of 200 French Hugenot prisoners at Matanzas, near Fort Augustine, Florida in 1565 resulted from Spanish colonial policy, French-Spanish wars, and the Wars of Religion in France.
Explanation:
In the 16th Century, Spain was the dominant power in Europe as well as overseas, and was eager to retain that mastery. Europe was in a turbulent transition, new states were emerging and taking control, and every institution was being being battered. Christianity had fragmented in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and central governments were new and fragile.
Spain, buoyed up by the success of the Reconquista, and by the wealth flooding in from the New World, was affirming its Catholic identity. The Hapsburg Monarchy also headed the vast-sprawling Austrian dominions and the two thrones represented a European superpower that everyone else felt compelled to challenge.
In the 16th Century, Spain was particularly anxious to curtail access to the Caribbean and its new possessions to other European powers, and the lodgement of French colonies in Florida was not something it was prepared to tolerate. Colonization is also expensive, and both French and English intruders in Spanish territory were eager to resort to piracy to support their own efforts.
To compound matters, France was undergoing a series of successive civil wars as traditional Catholics and French Protestant Huguenots strove for control over their fragile state. Spain had already proved it saw Catholicism as a powerful instrument of its national unity, and didn't tolerate Protestantism.
When a force of 500 French Huguenots appeared in Florida, to mount a campaign against Fort Augustine and set up a base for naval operations, the Spanish felt compelled to act. The Spanish knew Florida -- and its autumn weather -- better than the French did, and took advantage to ruthlessly knock out a French fort and fall on the stranded expedition. In three seperate incidents over 385 French were compelled to surrender and were then massacred. The Matanzas River around Fort. Augustine derives its name from these acts.
