Posted on 12/14/2016 6:27:49 AM PST by Red Badger
Treasure hunters have apparently found the 500-year-old remains of a naval expedition led by a colonizer who could have changed Florida's history, making it French-speaking at least for a while.
The big question is if the shipwreck is that of "La Trinite," the 32-gun flagship of a fleet led by Jean Ribault, a French navigator who tried to establish a Protestant colony in the southeast US under orders from King Charles IX.
They probably are, say authorities in Florida, the French government and independent archeologists.
And if they in fact are, this is an unparalleled find, said John de Bry, director of the Center for Historical Archeology, a not-for-profit organization.
"If it turns out to be 'La Trinite,' it is the most important, historically and archaeologically, the most important shipwreck ever found in North America," he told AFP.
All indications are that the shipwreck found is the real thing.
The artefacts found at the site off Cape Canaveral include three bronze cannons with markings from the reign of King Henri II, who ruled right before Charles IX; and a stone monument with the French coat of arms that was to be used to claim the new territory.
The remains are "consistent with material associated with the lost French Fleet of 1565," said Meredith Beatrice, director of communications with the Florida Department of State.
In 1565, Ribault set sail from Fort Caroline, today Jacksonville, to attack his arch-enemy, the Spaniard Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who had been sent to Florida by King Philip of Spain to thwart French plans to set up a colony.
[SNIP]
The find was finally made in May of this year by a treasure hunting firm called Global Marine Exploration.
Precisely where has not been disclosed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Freaking French illegal immigrants lol.
BTTT
Pretty exciting find...
wow... they may take it from the treasure hunters and give it to France!
unbelievable.
Having lived on the first coast (northeast Fla.) since 1969 I have observed discoveries like this many times appear after a big storm shifts the ocean floor. Since Matthew just passed our area that may be why.
Ping
My family moved to Jacksonville in 1969 and I went to Jean Ribault Senior High School..............
Probably not a lot of ‘treasure’, just cannons, and the like..................
Doubtful that the expedition would have made Florida “French-speaking.” The French managed to establish a few outposts often on, and the Spanish were usually pretty brutal and efficient in excising them from the landscape, as it were.
Kind of ironic that eventually Spain decided that Florida was not worth the effort to maintain it and ceded it to the new country called the USA just to piss off the British.................
You got little warning about the approach of big storms or hurricanes in those days. Perhaps that explains why there are so many wrecks found there.
Here in West Florida, the French influence from New Orleans, just down the beach a ways, is still being felt..................
Yep, many a treasure ship was lost ion the big storms.
Damn that Globull Warming!....................
Wow French Protestants in Fla would of drove the Most Catholic Spanish king nuts. It also would been seen as a French threat to the trade routes to Mexico and Panama. Considering Spain and France spent most of the 1500s fighting each other over Iraly, I guess there would of been a lot passing the FLA colony back and forth between Spain and France
Peter Throckmorton would have loved this!
If you haven’t been here in a while, it’s changed....to say the least.
True, but the French didn’t begin to settle what would be what we know as Louisiana until, IIRC, 1699. At the time of Jean Ribault the Spaniards were the clear masters of “jungle warfare,” and maintained control over the Florida as a result. The French pretty much had to go around the Spanish to find a place to settle in southern North America.
We moved from Jacksonville in 1967, a few months before I would have attended Nathan B. Forrest HS...
You got little warning about the approach of big storms or hurricanes in those days. Perhaps that explains why there are so many wrecks found there.
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That and they hugged the coast... any sizable storm forced them to lower most of their sail and ride the anchor or go aground.
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