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PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILES spared the lives of French musicians during his massacre of the Huguenots at Fort Caroline in 1565.
Contributed Photo The theme for this year's Florida Archaeology Month is fire, so a play about the 1565 massacre of French Huguenots near St. Augustine by Spanish commander Pedro Menendez de Aviles is rather appropriate, said Paul Geiser of the St. Augustine Archaeological Association.
The one-man play, "A Mantanzas Survivor," will be presented at 7:30 p.m. March 18 at the Visitor Information Center on Castillo Drive. This is the first time the association has added drama to its observance of the holiday and Geiser said he hopes the presentation will bring out "more than just the archaeology crowd."The slaughter that occurred over control of La Florida between the French and the Spanish is historically important because it marks the founding of St. Augustine and the first time two European superpowers clashed in North America. And the story has plenty of action and intrigue -- from gun battles to executions, hurricanes to wild animals, Native American informants to Menendez's betrayal.
But what drove Orlando-based playwright Minda Stephens to do the research and write "A Mantanzas Survivor" was a detail -- little more than a footnote in accounts of the event -- that struck her as a great mystery.
The play is told from the perspective of Nicholas Bourguignon, a fife player and a French settler at Fort Caroline, situated on the St. Johns River near Jacksonville, who survived the massacre only because of Menendez's decision to spare the lives of the settlement's musicians.
After a series of bad decisions by French commander Jean Ribault, French settlers were slaughtered during Menendez's attack on the fort. Some 200 French escaped into the woods, but were later captured by Menendez's men, who had been tipped off by the Timucua.
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JEAN RIBAULT was the French commander defeated by Menendez.
The Timucua figure prominently into the whole event, said Stephens.
"They were playing each side against the other, as well they should," she said.
The French who were captured were asked to surrender and have their hands tied in exchange for being spared. But, the following day, Menendez ordered them all killed, all except the musicians.
That detail was an enigma for Stephens.
"As a musician myself, I thought 'Why would he spare the lives of musicians?' " she said. "Weren't there any musicians among the Spanish?"
In conducting her research, Stephens said she has answered the question to her satisfaction.
"He was a lover of music and from a Latin tradition that values music," she said.
But there were practical reasons for it, too. Uncivilized Florida was "a grim place" without something to take people's minds off their troubles. In founding St. Augustine, she said, "Menendez was trying to establish a secure framework so a colony could survive.""It was also military tradition to spare musicians who were considered politically neutral and were usually young boys, not combatants," she said.
However, as Stephens' play points out in an ironic twist, music can also be used as a weapon.
The 15-year-old fife player Nicholas Bourguignon eventually made it to England, where he gave a deposition of the massacre. Twenty years later, a song called "Prince of the Orange March," that heralded the perdition of Menendez and his men, became a theme song for the Protestants.
Archeology Month activities
James Dunbar will present "The First Floridians and the Last Mastodons," a talk on the archaeology of Florida's earliest human sites, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Main Branch Library, 1960 N. Ponce de Leon Blvd. Call 471-7272.
"A Mantanzas Survivor," a one-man play from the perspective of a young musician who survived the Spanish massacre of French Huguenots in 1565, will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 18, at the St. Augustine Visitors Information Center, 10 S. Castillo Dr. There is no admission fee, but reservations are required. Call 471-7272.
The St. Augustine Archaeology will hold an exhibit of artifacts from downtown St. Augustine and from the 1764 British shipwreck "Industry" during the Lighthouse Festival at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum, 81 Lighthouse Ave.
Back in St. Augustine in 1586, English commander Sir Francis Drake and his men were searching for St. Augustine and overhead a fife player in a boat playing the anti-Spanish song. Nicholas Bourguignon, who had recently escaped from the Spanish, was asked by Drake to lead them to the settlement. Once they were there, Drake's men conducted the "sack of St. Augustine," looting and setting fire to the Spanish town and the fort.
Stephens, who conducted much of her research at the St. Augustine Historical Society, said that the more she learned, the more she felt the French, who were betrayed by Menendez, deserved a voice.
"This story needed to be written," she said, "to bring those people back from obscurity."
The part of Nicholas Bourguignon will be played by Florida actor/director Scott Isert, who also played the part at the premiere of "A Mantanzas Survivor" in Orlando last year.
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