ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – One month after sailing from Spain on a mission commissioned by King Phillip to conquer La Florida, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sailed into what appeared to be a hospitable inlet on August 28, 1565. Because it was the feast day of St. Augustine of Hippo, he named the site that would be come the first permanent settlement by Europeans in the new world after the saint.
Menéndez and his band of five ships would not go ashore for another 10 days, where historians report Menéndez held the first Catholic Mass in what is now the continental United States.
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The settlement was founded in the former Timucua village of Seloy, chosen for its defensibility and proximity to a fresh water artesian spring. It would into the most significant city in the region for the next three centuries.
Earlier that year, King Phillip declared that all earlier claims by Spanish explorers to be void and that Menéndez and his descendants would rule Florida, signing a contract on March 20, 1565.
Led by his flagship the San Pelayo, Menéndez's lead ships reached Puerto Rico on August 8. He left Puerto Rico on August 15 with five ships, reached Cape Canaveral on August 25, turned north and spent the next few days looking in vain for the French. Indians directed him north to what the French called the River of Dolphins, which is believed to be the St. Johns River.
He spotted the inlet for St. Augustine first.
Menendez continued searched the area for the Huguenot French, which the Catholic Spanish considered to be dangerous heretic and which were also trying to claim Florida.
A French attack on St. Augustine was thwarted by a violent squall that ravaged the French naval forces. Taking advantage of this, Menéndez marched his troops overland to Fort Caroline, on the St. Johns River, where the Spanish easily overwhelmed the lightly defended French garrison.
Menéndez renamed the fort San Mateo and marched back to St. Augustine, where he discovered that the shipwrecked survivors from the French ships had come ashore to the south of St. Augustine. A Spanish patrol encountered the remnants of the French force and took them prisoner. Menéndez accepted their surrender, but then executed all of them except a few professing Catholics and some Protestant workers with useful skills, at an inlet now named Matanzas, the Spanish word for slaughter.
Five days of celebration of the founding of St. Augustine 450 years ago begin Friday. For full details on all the events, download the Explore St. Augustine app or visit ExploreStAugustine.info. News4Jax will air live specials at 8 p.m. next Friday as the festivities begin, and the morning of Sept. 8, as the city reenacts the Menéndez's landing and the first Catholic Mass in the New World.