The French in Early Florida: In the Eye of the Hurricane

John McGrath offers a careful reconstruction of the dramatic fate of the expeditions that attempted to plant a permanent French presence on North America’s eastern seaboard during the 1560s–the first full treatment of these events from the French perspective. This campaign became one of the most stunning defeats in the history of European colonialism when Spanish commander Pedro Menendez de Aviles destroyed France’s Fort Caroline and its relief fleet during the late summer and fall of 1565.