The Root Cellar

This is a root cellar at the Thomas Lincoln Log Cabin in Illinois. Dug into a hillside, this cellar has some carrots, cabbages and dried spices. It doesn't look very appetizing, does it? In pioneer days, preserving foods was an important job. In the past, there were no refrigerators or freezers (except the weather), tin cans, freeze-dried foods or neighborhood supermarkets. People ate what they could grow, hunt or gather. Some surplus foods needed to be protected from both weather too hot or too cold. Fresh peas were strung on threads and hung inside until they dried rock-hard. These dried peas were a Quebecois staple, used in pea soup as well as stews. Cabbage was preserved by cutting it into slaw and pickling it in vinegar. Some cuts of meat and fish were salted, pickled, sun dried, cured, or smoked. Some fruits and vegetables (like apples, carrots and turnips) could be stored in cold cellars. Fruits could be made into preserves. Wheat and other grains would be ground into flour at the local mill. Surplus milk could be made into cheese. Preserving foods was a big job in pioneer days. . . but necessary to survival!

Charlesfort and Fort Caroline

We recently visited St Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously inhabited European city in North America. This Spanish town was founded by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles in August of 1565. St Augustine was over 40 years old when the English colonies of Jamestown, Virginia (1607), Bermuda (1608) and Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620) were started.
But Spain was not the first European country to attempt colonization in North America. A French expedition of a few ships was organized by Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and led by navigator Jean Ribault. This small fleet landed on the Florida coast on a river they named River of May (now the St. Johns River) in February 1562. They erected a monument and claimed the territory for their king, Charles IX, then sailed on to present-day Parris Island, South Carolina.
Here, Ribault erected a second monument establishing a northern border of a land they called New France. Ribault’s men built a fort called Charlesfort. Twenty-eight Frenchmen where left to defend the fort. Ribault and the remainder of his men sailed back to Europe to gather more supplies and settlers for the new colony. However, Ribault was arrested and imprisoned in England due to complications arising from the French Wars of Religion. Here, he languished for a year.
As the months went by, the French manning Charlesfort were growing desperate. Their supplies were dwindling, forcing the French to rely on trade with the native populations to obtain corn and other food crops. The native populations did not grow large surpluses of food and were growing hostile when the French demanded the very food from their mouth.
After a year of no relief ships, the men of Charlesfort decided it was time to sail back to Europe. They built an open boat and shoved off. During their voyage, starvation and thirst reduced them to cannibalism before the survivors were finally rescued in English waters.
Meanwhile, René Goulaine de Laudonnière, Ribault's second-in-command on the 1562 expedition, commanded a fleet of ships carrying some 200 new settlers back to Florida, where they founded Fort de la Caroline atop St. Johns Bluff on June 22, 1564. For a year, the men and women of this new colony suffered from hunger, Indian attacks, and mutiny.
The colonist did not clear land, plant crops nor care for livestock. They were promised that France would provide all the settlers, craftsmen, tools, food, livestock, arms and munitions the colony needed. The colonists only task was to search for sources of gold, silver and other precious minerals. These precious minerals must exist in Florida as they did in the Spanish colonies of Peru and Mexico! Well they did not!
Unfortunately, while the French settlers were searching for Florida gold, the Spanish court learned of Fort de la Caroline, a foreign colony lying so close to the route of the annual Spanish treasure fleet. This threat must be eliminated!