Continuing Archaeology

On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Aviles came ashore at the Timucua town of Seloy, an easily defensible peninsula that became the base of operations for his expedition. After spotting the inlet and beach on the Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo while searching for the French, he named the outpost San Agustín. That day, the tiny settlement hosted a Thanksgiving celebration between Europeans and Native Americans 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth and 42 years before the British established Jamestown. The settlement served as the logistical base for the overland attack on Fort Caroline and for the twin slaughters of shipwrecked Frenchmen at the inlet later named Matanzas Inlet. It lasted roughly nine months before worsening relations with the Timucua forced the Spanish to relocate to Anastasia Island, whose settlement site has probably been lost to development and erosion along the island's eastern shoreline. Soon after the move, a nighttime fire destroyed the largest structure at the original settlement, believed to have been the Casa de Municiónes, which had contained gunpowder and weapons stores. The Spanish remained on Anastasia Island for roughly six years before relocating to what is now the area of St. Augustine southwest of the Bridge of Lions. Archaeological excavation has been underway here since 1934, yet only an estimated 35% of the grounds has been excavated and catalogued, and the painstaking process can miss structures by less than a foot while exposing soil a centimeter at a time through schnitting.

St. Augustine, Florida · United States