Wednesday, April 30, 2025

It is the 30th of April 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

We’ve got some fun back in the days when the era of the Reformation and that of Exploration into the Americas collided.

In 1561, King Phillip of Spain had had enough with much of the Americas. Spain was in its Golden Age, but too many adventurers were losing their lives, and pirates were harassing those who managed to make it back with goods and gold.

This shortsighted decision was jumped on by the King of France- well, probably his mother. He was King Charles IX (about 11 at the time), and she was Catherine De Medici. They decided to take a shot at two birds with one stone-  take charge in North America AND figure out what to do with the Huguenots- those French people who adopted the Reformation.

The crown went to Gaspard de Coligny, a famous admiral who had himself become a Huguenot but had a relationship with Catherine de Medici. Through the admiral, the crown sought Jean Ribaut, a French naval officer who would command the expedition to settle Florida.

So, around 150 Huguenots (French Protestants) set sail with the blessing of the Catholic king under Jean Ribaut. They took off when Spring came in 1562, and it was on this, the 30th of April 1562, that Ribaut’s diary confirms that they had spotted land—what is today Parris Island off the coast of South Carolina. He would settle it as “Port Royal” in honor of the King and name the settlement after Charles as well—Charlesfort.

The stories surrounding almost all of what was to come were disasters. First was the story of Ribault. He helped them set the fort, left them with provisions, and set off back to France for more supplies and people (it was beautiful when they got there, until Hurricane season, a phenomenon they knew nothing about). Ribault got back to France only to see the country explode into the Wars of Religion- you couldn’t take all the Huguenots to the new world fast enough. With France in turmoil, Ribaut went to England, where he made a plan with Queen Elizabeth to repurpose the French fort for the English- he was following the cash. But he got cold feet, and before he could leave, he was found out having changed his mind and was arrested and held in the Tower of London for 2 years.

Meanwhile, back at Charlesfort, the people were running out of food. The relations with the natives that had been positive began to sour as there was a fight for resources. A fire further destroyed what little they did have. And then the story gets bonkers- there’s mutiny and madness. Eventually, and unlike those cowards on Gilligan’s Island, they tried making a boat- and apparently it convinced all but 1 of them to try to sail across the Atlantic. Unsurprisingly, it went terribly, and unfortunately, they resorted to cannibalism before they were spotted by an English ship that rescued them.

Ribaut, out of prison and home in France, is commissioned to help a settlement south of Charlesfort, this time at Fort Caroline in modern-day Jacksonville. But there would be trouble with a nearby settlement: St. Augustine, headed by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a Spanish Catholic, as was the settlement. The Spanish King requested that a settlement out of St. Augustine- which was both missionary and military (turns out that’s a bad combo) destroy the French Huguenots settlement and the massacre is brutal- and even more so when one report of huguenots being asked “are you Catholics or Lutherans” (here in 1565 Lutheran was sometimes to mean any variety of groups that rejected papal authority) and if they would confess Lutheran they would be executed as this made them heretics, who could be killed.  I don’t think that was the logic that primarily motivated the killings- they were called to do so by their crown, and once it starts, self-preservation is the rule, it’s them or you.

The military of Menendez de Aviles routed Ribaut’s group, with one report having 135 Huguenots dead to 0 of the Spanish. The missionary arm built the first chapel and celebrated the first catholic mass in North America, there in St. Augustine, which is the oldest continuous settlement in America today. And such a scandal… and it all began on this day, the 30th of April in 1562, when Jean Ribaut spotted land for the first time, and the Reformation wars of religion flared up in the Americas.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Luke 12.

4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth X more than many sparrows.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 30th of April 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who wonders how many sparrows? Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who has avoided a pun here- a tasteless one about cannibalism, I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.