An irony of the location of the Santa Elena History Center, on Beaufort’s Bay Street, is that it is located just around the corner from Ribaut Road, which was named after the Frenchman who settled Parris Island several years before their arch-enemies, the Spanish, who ended up settling Santa Elena there 450 years ago in 1556.
a sweep up the coast of La Florida to ensure he had not missed any nests of French holdouts, to let the Native American communities all know that Spain was now the undisputed king of the hill and to once and for all establish Santa Elena for King Phillip. The work on Santa Elena began during summer and by fall Fort San Felipe proudly stood just a few yards away from where Charlesfort had been raised by the French on the southern tip of the island. The Spanish victory rested squarely on the shoulders of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the man King Phillip II went to when everything else was not working. His strategy, commanding personality, sometimes ruthlessness and loyalty to the King and Spain was what caused men to follow 22 PREMIER SUMMER 2016
him faithfully. Without him there probably would have been no La Florida. But there were too few men like him in Spanish leadership, particularly in the New World. As the brave and remarkable victors left the brilliant strategic planning sessions and fields of battle, it appears they were replaced by a mostly uninvolved cadre of administrators to manage the forts, ports and outposts Menendez and others had placed along the East Coast to protect the Spanish shipping lanes. It would result in a very long season of downright shocking and selfinflicted disasters. It is hard to understand, hard to observe in the records and hard to describe, there being no end to the harshness of the words that could be used to accurately
impart what occurred. Next Installment We will start with this bizarre “entitlement problem” development and the Escamacu War of 1576-1579 it helped create, in the next part of this series. Largely thanks to another Menendez, La Florida and Santa Elena recovered to enjoy better times, but the lines of Spain’s American empire would be redrawn. As part of our look at the remarkable and highly effective Indian uprising that started at Santa Elena, we will examine a largely unrecognized problem in all of this, Indian slavery and other abuses by European settlers. These idyllic Lowcountry shores are hard to beat, but they do come with some baggage!