First Protestant Colony in America

It wasn't Jamestown, Virginia or Plymouth, Massachusetts. While the first Protestant colony in the Western Hemisphere was the 1555-1567 French Huguenot settlement at France Antarctique at what is now modern-day Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the first Protestant colony in North America was another (1562-1563) French Huguenot settlement, Charlesfort, located on Parris Island, South Carolina.

The first European flag to fly over South Carolina shores was the French flag of Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, who landed at Cape Fear, North Carolina, in 1524, and sailed south before turning north again towards New York and Newfoundland. South Carolina was visited by Spanish explorers Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526 and Hernando de Soto in 1540.

But it was not until 1562 that French Huguenot explorer Jean Ribault, sent by Gaspard de Coligny (who organized the France Antarctque expedition), arrived first near Jacksonville, Florida, and then sailed north to discover christen Port Royal Sound, established the first Protestant colony in America on what is now Parris Island. He not only named the colony after his king, Charles IX of France, but also the territory (the Carolinas take their name from Charles IX of France as well as Charles I and Charles II of England). He left 30 men there before returning to France. After troubles with Indians and starvation, the surviving colonists abandoned the settlement in 1563 and sailed home, finally being rescued off the coast of England, surviving after a notable case of cannibalism. Spanish explorer Hernando Manrique de Rojas arrived at the site in the spring of 1564 and supposedly wiped out any trace of the French settlement. Ribault, meanwhile, had been imprisoned in England, and was unable to attempt a resupply of Charlesfort, but his lieutenant, René Goulaine de Laudonnière, lead a new expedition at nearly the same time that de Rojas was returning to Cuba, that settled Fort Caroline, near Jacksonville, whereupon he learned about the events at Charlesfort.

Fort Caroline was destroyed by the Spanish in 1565, led by Adelantado Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, founder of St. Augustine, Florida. Menéndez then established a new colony at the site of Charlesfort, which he called Santa Elena. From this fort, the settlements in North Carolina (Fort San Juan, near Morganton, NC, 1566-1568, which preceded the Roanoke Island settlements of Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Walter Raleigh by several years) and Virginia (the Jesuit Ajacán Mission thought to be located near the York River, 1570-1572) were established. Indians destroyed Santa Elena in 1576. A French ship, Le Prince, sank at near Charlesfort/Santa Elena in 1577, and later that year, the Spanish returned to occupy the site again until 1587, at which time it was completely abandoned, although French Huguenots returned to nearby Beaufort, South Carolina in the 17th century.

In the 1990s, French artifacts found on Parris Island confirmed the location of Charlesfort. Scientists continue to learn more about the first Protestant colony in America, an important chapter in our history of which much more needs to be told.