Fort Caroline Fort Caroline was the first French colony in the present - day United States . Established in what is now Jacksonville , Florida , on June 22 , 1564 , under the leadership of René Goulaine de Laudonnière , it was intended as a refuge for the Huguenots . It lasted one year before being obliterated in 1565 by Pedro Menendez , commander of a Spanish fleet that surprised the French at La Caroline who built their own fort at the site , later abandoned in 1569 . The site is now operated as Fort Caroline National Memorial , a unit of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve . For related events , see : Timeline of the colonization of North America . History . Charlesfort ( 1562 ) . A French expedition , organized by Protestant leader Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and led by the French Explorer Jean Ribault , had landed at the site on the May River ( now the St . Johns River ) in February 1562 , before moving north to Port Royal Sound . There , on present - day Parris Island , South Carolina , Ribault encountered the Timucua ns who were led by Chief Saturiwaleft . From this point , Ribault had twenty - eight men to build a settlement known as Charlesfort . Ribault then returned to Europe to arrange supplies for the new colony , but was arrested in England due to complications arising from the French Wars of Religion , which prevented his return . Without supplies or leadership , and beset by hostility from the native populations , all but one of the colonists sailed back to Europe after only a year . During their voyage in an open boat , they were reduced to cannibalism before the survivors were rescued in English waters . Fort Caroline ( 1564 ) . Meanwhile , René Goulaine de Laudonnière , who had been Ribault ' s second - in - command on the 1562 expedition , led a contingent of around 200 new settlers back to Florida , where they founded Fort Caroline ( or " Fort de la Caroline " ) atop St . Johns Bluff on June 22 , 1564 . The fort was named for King Charles IX of France . For just over a year , this colony was beset by hunger , Indian attacks , and mutiny , and attracted the attention of Spanish authorities who considered it a challenge to their control over the area . In June 1565 , Ribault had been released from English custody , and Coligny sent him back to Florida . In late August , Ribault arrived at Fort Caroline , with a large fleet and hundreds of soldiers and settlers , and took command of the settlement . However , the recently appointed Spanish Governor of Florida , Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés , had simultaneously been dispatched from Spain with orders to remove the French outpost , and arrived within days of Ribault ' s landing . After a brief skirmish between Ribault ' s ships and Menéndez ' s ships , the latter retreated southward , where they established the settlement of St . Augustine . Ribault pursued the Spanish with several of his ships and most of his troops , but he was surprised at sea by a violent storm lasting several days . Menéndez marched his forces overland , launching a surprise dawn attack on the Fort Caroline garrison which contained 200 to 250 people . The only survivors were about 50 women and children who were taken prisoner and a few defenders , including Laudonnière , who managed to escape ; the rest were massacred . As for Ribault ' s fleet , all of the ships either sank or ran aground south of St . Augustine during the storm , and many of the Frenchmen onboard were lost at sea . Ribault and his marooned sailors were located by Menéndez with his troops and summoned to surrender . Apparently believing that his men would be well treated , Ribault capitulated . Menéndez then executed Ribault and several hundred Huguenots ( French Protestants ) as heretics at what is now known as the Matanzas Inlet . The atrocity shocked Europeans even in that bloody era of religious strife . A fort built much later , Fort Matanzas , is in the vicinity of the site . This massacre put an end to France ' s attempts at colonization of the southeastern Atlantic coast of North America . The Spanish destroyed Fort Caroline , but built their own fort on the same site . In April 1568 , Dominique de Gourgues led a French force which attacked , captured and burned the fort . He then slaughtered the Spanish prisoners in revenge for the 1565 massacre . The Spanish rebuilt , but permanently abandoned the fort the following year . The exact location of the settlement is not known . Fort Caroline ( 20th Century reproductions ) . The original site of Fort de la Caroline has never been determined , but it is believed to have been located near the present day Fort Caroline National Memorial . The National Park Service constructed an outdoor exhibit of the original fort in 1964 , but it was destroyed by Hurricane Dora in the same year . Today , the second replica , a near full - scale " interpretive model " of the original Fort de la Caroline , also constructed and maintained by the National Park Service , illustrates the modest defenses upon which the 16th - century French colonists depended .