René Goulaine de Laudonnière
Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, a Huguenot, sent Jean Ribault and Laudonnière to explore potential sites in Florida suitable for settlement by the French Protestants.
Leaving in February 1562, the expedition returned home in July after establishing the small settlement of Charlesfort in present-day South Carolina.
He made contact with the Saturiwa, a Timucua chiefdom who were friendly to the colonists and showed them a shrine they had built around a monument left behind by Ribault.
Events interrupted Laudonnière's departure when a Spanish fleet commanded by Adelantado Pedro Menéndez de Avilés appeared.
Spain based her long-standing claim to Florida on the voyage of discovery of Juan Ponce de León in 1513, as well as four other expeditions of exploration.
Menéndez, one of the foremost naval officers of his day, had been sent out by King Philip II of Spain with a fleet and 800 Spanish settlers with specific instructions to remove the French Protestants from Florida.
Menéndez's fleet attempted to grapple and board Ribault's ships just off the mouth of the St. Johns River, but sea conditions denied success to both combatants.
Spanish troops disembarked on 28 August 1565 near the Timucua Indian village of Seloy and hastily threw up some field fortifications, anticipating a French attack.
Ribault set sail southward on 10 September 1565, taking most of the soldiers with him to attack the newly established Spanish earthworks-and-palm-log camp at St Augustine.
His memoirs, L'histoire notable de la Floride, contenant les trois voyages faits en icelles par des capitaines et pilotes français, were published in 1586.
