French
farm-laborers were mainly serfs on Catholic estates, and landowners did
not wish to come to the New World. Thus the people of the settlement
were city folk with little experience or inclination for cultivating the
soil. The Indians grew tired of supplying the wants of so large a number
of strangers. Quarrels arose among the French. A discontented group of
adventurers mutinied and went off on a wild attempt at piracy. They
plundered two ships in the Spanish Indies and were caught by the Spanish
governor. The twenty-six who escaped his clutches fled back to the fort,
which Laudonniere had built and named Carolina. His faithful lieutenant
La Caille arrested them and dragged them to judgment. "Say what you
will," said one of the culprits ruefully, "if Laudonniere does not hang
us I will never call him an honest man." The four leaders were promptly
sentenced to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted to shooting. After
that order reigned, for a time.
Some of the tradesmen ranged the wilderness, bringing back feather
mantles, arrows tipped with gold, curiously wrought quivers of beautiful
fur, wedges of a green stone like beryl. There were reports of a gold
mine somewhere in the northern mountains. Ribault did not return with
the expected supplies, the Indians had mostly left the neighborhood, and
misery and starvation followed, for the game, like the Indians fled the
presence of the white men.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243