The Marshlandic Saga: First Family: Volume I

By Douglas V. Maurer

Find yourself riveted with an unabridged historical saga of the Marshlands and its most illustrious mythic family, the Ribaults. In The Marshlandic Saga: First Family. This richly detailed, fascinating novel chronicles the part-historical, part-fictional saga of the Ribaults as the First Family of the Marshlands of Northeast Florida and America. Impeccably researched, it depicts the consequences of the European invasion beginning with Ponce de Leon in 1513 and the founding of St. Augustine Americas oldest city by the Spanish in 1565. As the novel chronicles the Ribaults tumult, misfortunes and victories, it also portrays highly significant events that touched off Europes invasion of the Marshlandic Kingdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 30, 2009
• ISBN: 9781469102719

Douglas V. Maurer

Douglas V. Maurer lives in the heart of the Marshlandic Kingdom of Northeast Florida with his wife and ten cats. He is the author of South of Paradise and First Family, the first volume of the Marshlandic Saga.

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Copyright © 2009 by Douglas V. Maurer.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

PROLOGUE

PART I

1     

2     

3     

4     

5     

6     

7     

PART II

8     

9     

10     

11     

12     

PART III

13     

14     

15     

16     

17     

18     

19     

20     

A CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINE OF THE MARSHLANDIC KINGDOM

GLOSSARY OF TEXTS

GLOSSARY OF ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, (SHAMANS, TRIBES, AND MARSHLANDIC HIERARCHIES)

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Ribault’s Marshlandic Stone Column

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The True and Unexpurgated Tale of the Marshlandic Kingdom.

Home to America’s First Family,

and her oldest city . . .

San Agustin,

before Jamestown; before Plymouth Rock

came Captain Jean Ribault,

who discovered this Promised Land,

and the diversity of its natives,

laying the foundation for unlocking the sacred keys

to the magical world of the

Marshlands . . .

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Map of Marshlandic Coast

1563

PROLOGUE

The European Invasion of the Marshlandic Kingdom

In the beginning, before the virgin Marshlandic Kingdom had been exposed to the European heart with its dubious and unabated love of conquest, gold and rum, its life crushing diseases, political upheavals and finally its eternal conflict of religious expression, the reeds and hollows, beaches and oyster beds of the native environs had been inhabited by the saltwater Timucua, a gentle, shell-gathering people who had cohabitated in the Marshlands for over a thousand years.

In the French sector of the European map, a host of tormented souls reacted to internal crisis by arranging to flee the religious civil war that was ravaging their homeland. They wanted freedom from the fragmentation, brutality and disorder. Desiring to establish a homeland in New France for his followers, the head of the new National Protestant Party, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, proposed an expedition in 1562, and chose Captain Jean Ribault, the most esteemed pilot in the French Navy, as its commander. Permission was obtained from King Charles IX, to settle in the new territory, claimed by the queen-mother, Catherine de Medici by virtue of discoveries in 1524 of one Juan Verrazani, an Italian navigator in the French service. The king aided de Coligny and his fellow Huguenots in outfitting three large ships with two smaller vessels that were carried aboard for shore landings after crossing the ocean, a complement of one hundred and fifty men, including the second in command, Rene de Laudonniere, and a Huguenot preacher.

The expedition sailed from Havre-de-Grace on February 18, 1562 following a circuitous route to avoid encountering armed Spanish men-of-war, who dominated the Atlantic sea lanes.

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Map of Harve-de-Grace and harbor, France, 1562

Most of the men who signed on with Captain Ribault for this perilous voyage to the New World were Huguenots. They sought a haven of free speech to quench their patriotic and nationalistic impulses; others hoped for a new life, adventure and the discovery of gold and silver. There were a few catholics, anti-clerics and a handful of rebels against all religious formality: the zealots. Many of the colonists were from the nobility, as the aristocratic class had been the first to embrace the New Religion. Along with the sailors, who tended toward the agnostic—the sea having weathered their faith-—there were also a fair number of pardoned criminals.

Captain Jean Ribault sighted the mainland of La Floride on April 30, and entered the mouth of the Marshlands on May 1, 1562, christening the river, the Riviere de Mai, or the River of May. An excellent pilot, and lately . . . at his father’s insistence a staunch protestant Huguenot, Ribault had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in seventy-two days.

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Le Moyne sketch of Ribault’s Landing, 1562, Seloy

PART I

The Flourishing Land: The Discovery Cycle

"The major advances in civilization

are processes that all but

wreck the societies

in which they occur."

Alfred North Whitehead, 1922

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Library of Congress, 1560, Map of Marshlandic Coast

A Note on the New World #1

The Circumnavigation of Christopher Columbus

On the afternoon of October 12, 1492, a flock of colorful parrots were seen flying southwest as if seeking a place to roost for the night. One of the Pinzon brothers persuaded Admiral Columbus to change his course and follow the parrots towards the land. His men were fearful of falling into the Green Sea of Darkness, a name given to the western Atlantic by Arabian sailors who believed the distant ocean to be terrifying, destructive and rimmed in fire: a place of no return.

Had Columbus not changed his course slightly, the landfall would have been in Florida or the Carolinas, as he would have sailed into the gulfstream which flows Northwest at four knots an hour. That flock of tropical parrots determined the major distribution of foreign populations in the New World. The Latin countries settled amid the natural riches of Central and South America, Cuba and the other leeward islands, while the English, the Dutch, the German and the French laid claims to the coastal lands of North America.

1     

Ribault’s Landing

Upon his most auspicious arrival into the low waters of the Marshlandic Kingdom, which he called the "flourishing land," and following a day’s long journey, Captain Jean Ribault made this late-night entry into his journal:

"We entered the port on the First of May, in the morning, with two row barges and a boat well-trimmed. Finding little water at the entry (it being low tide) and many surges of the water which might have caused us to return to shipboard, if God had not speedily brought us in, we found five or six fathom of water, and entered into a goodly and great river, which we found to increase in depth and largesse. Around us the river barreled and roared with all sorts of fishes.

Thus entered, we perceived a good number of Indians, the native inhabitants there, coming along the sands and sea bank somewhat near unto us, without any sign of fear or doubt, showing us unto the easiest landing place. Thereupon we gave unto them also on our part gestures of assurance and friendliness. One of the best of appearance among them, a brother unto one of their chiefs, commanded one of the Indians to enter the water, approach our boats and guide us to the shore. Seeing this, and without any further doubt or difficulty, we landed. The native messenger, after we had rewarded him with some looking glass mirrors and other pretty things of small value, ran toward his Lord, who forthwith sent me his girdle—which was made of red leather, as well as being tapered and decorated with as many colors as possible—as a token of his esteem and friendship.

As I began to approach him, he set forth and received me in a gentle manner. He invited me to relax with a pipe, as was their native custom. All his men followed him with great silence and modesty—yea, more than our men did. The great deer-antler pipe of their ancestors was passed around as the natives all inhaled the smoke that inspired many dreams. After congratulating him with gentle usage on his warm reception, the men fell a little way from them on their knees to call upon the name of God . . . and to beseech him to continue his goodness towards us, and to bring to this poor people the knowledge of our savior Jesus Christ.

While we were praying, they, sitting upon the ground, which was dressed and strewn with baye leaves, beheld our actions and harkened unto us very attentively. As I made a sign unto their king, lifting my arm and stretching out one finger, to make them look heavenward, he likewise lifted his arm up to heaven, and put forth two fingers, whereby it seemed that he could make us understand that they worshipped the Sun and Moon . . . as afterwards we understood it so.

All the while their number increased and thither came the king’s brother that was first with us, their mothers, wives, sisters and children. Thus being assembled and with a great show of obedience to their king, one called Alimacani, and their many other chiefs and elders, they caused a great number of baye leaves to be cut for their nobility, who were set apart from the meaner sort.

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Chief Alimacani

They all were naked and of a godly stature. Mighty, fair, well-shaped and as proportioned of body as any people in the world, these natives of the Flourishing Land were gentle, courteous and of a good nature. Upon encountering their heathen world, I dwelt upon all the different cultures and characters Marco Polo had seen on his many unusual journeys, and felt, for the first time, truly part of that blessed circle of Newe Worlde travelers.

Desiring to imploy the rest of the day on the other, more southerly bank of the River of May, and to view and know those natives we saw there, we took leave and traversed thither. We landed among them without difficulty, and they received us gently, and with great humility put out fruits that they found readily by the wayside.

Soon after came their king, Chief Satouriona:

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Chief Satouriona, Andre Trevet, 1584

He was surrounded by his native brethren and warriors with their bows and arrows in hand, using therewithal a good and grave fashion and behavior, right shoulderlike with as warlike a boldness as might be advanced. They were naked and painted in the colors of flowers, their hair was likewise long and trussed up with a lace made of herbs to the top of their heads, but they had neither wives nor children in their company.

After we had a good while lovingly entertained them with little gifts of haberdashery wares, cutting hooks and steel hatchets, and clothed the king and his chiefs with robes like we had given on the other side, we set to our mission of returning to the ships."

The following day, Captain Ribault, having courted the Timucuan natives and chiefs of both the north and south banks of the River of May, which was located near the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean, set out to explore and map the river’s expansive valley and scout its forested banks, which he again summarized in his journal:

"We entered and viewed the countryside thereabouts, which is the fairest and most pleasant in the world. Abounding in honey, venison, wild fowl, fishes and forests of palm trees, cypress, cedar, baye and the highest, fairest vines with grapes accordingly, which grew naturally . . . without man’s help, growing to the tops of oaks and other trees of a wonderful greatness and height. And the sight of so many fair meadows is a pleasure not able to be expressed with tongue—full of herons, corleux, bitters, mallards, egrets, woodcocks, and all other kinds of small birds, with hares, hounds and bucks, wild swine and sundry other wild beasts, which we perceived in other places by their crying and baying as the night approached. Also there be cunys, hares, guinea cocks in marvelous numbers, a great deal fairer than ours, silk worms, and to be short . . . it is a thing unspeakable! The commodities that can be seen there and shall be found more and more in this Flourishing Land—never as yet broken with plow irons—bring forth all things according to its first nature, whereof the eternal God endowed it.

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Native’s cultivating the Soil, Stefan Lorant, The New World

About their houses the natives labor and till their ground, sowing their fields with a grain called Mahis, whereof they make their meal, and in their gardens they plant beans, gourds, cucumbers, peas and many other simples and roots unknown to us.

Their spades and hoes are of wood, so well and finely made as is possible, which they take from certain stones, oyster shells and mussels, wherewith they also make their bows and small lances, and cut and polish all sorts of woods that they employ about their buildings. They grow many walnut trees, hazel trees and small cherry trees very fair and great, and generally we have seen the same samples and herbs that we have in France, and of a like goodness, savor and taste. The natives are very good archers, and of great strength. Their bow strings are made of leather and their arrows of reeds which they hold with the teeth of certain fishes.

As we departed, the natives pointed out for us a certain town called Sevolla,[1] whereof some have written is not far to the north, and be situated within the land and towards the south sea. They showed us signs which we could understand well enough. Those that have written of the Kingdom of Sevolla say there is a great abundance of gold, silver, precious stones and other great riches, and that the people make their arrows with sharp pointed turquoises, instead of iron.

Thus with the night approaching, it was convenient for us to retire shipboard, and we took leave of them much to their grief and more to ours without comparison, for we had no means to enter the river with our ships, as it was not their custom to eat and drink from sunrise to sunset. And so making them understand that we would see them again the next day, we retired to our ships, which lay about six leagues from the haven to the seaward."

The next day Captain Jean Ribault returned to land again, accompanied by the captains, gentlemen, soldiers and others of their small troop, carrying with them a pillar or column of hard stone. King Charles IX had given the expedition the column to plant at the entrance of some high place that might be easily seen. To them it was not an ingress . . . not an invasion, but a business and exploratory adventure. The journal bears Ribault’s official record.

"Having come thither before the natives were assembled, we spied on the southern side of the river a place very fit for that purpose upon a high hill filled with cedars, bayes, palms and other trees. In the middle of some sweet-smelling shrubs we planted the first bounty of His Majesty, a finely chiseled stone column that would forever mark the French landing and the consequent discovery of the New World.

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Ribault’s Stone Column, La Moyne, 1564

Thus done, and perceiving our first natives assembled and looking for us, we went with them according to our promise, not without mistaking those on the south bank, the Satouriona tribe, where we had set the said column, who tarried for us in the same place we had met the day before. There seemed unto us that there were some enemy ties between Satouriona’s tribe and Alimacani’s. When they perceived our long tarrying on the other side, they ran to see what we had done in that place where we had placed our stone column, which they viewed a great while without touching it in any way or speaking unto us at any time after.

We could scant depart without grief of mind from these our first allies. They ran after us with some hare skins, painted and unpainted, cornmeal, little cakes, fresh water, roots like rhubarb—which they have in great estimation, and make thereof a kind of beverage or potion of medicine. They also brought unto us little bags of red collars and some small pieces like unto ore, perceiving also that they possessed gold and silver and copper which they gave signs to us that these things were found within the land. They showed us turquoises, and a great abundance of pearls, which as they declared to us, were taken out of the oysters every day along the riverside and among the reeds in the marshes, and in so marvelous abundance as is scant credible.

We have perceived that there be as many fair pearls found here as in any country in the world, for we saw a man of theirs, as we entered our boats, and our men perceiving the large pearl hanging around his neck as great as an acorn at least. This man, as he had taken many fish in one of their fishing parks thereby, brought the same to our boats, and our men perceiving his great pearl, and wondering at it for the greatness thereof, one of them putting his fingers toward it, the man drew back and would no more come near the boat: not for fear he had that they would have taken his collar and pearl from him; for he would have given it to them for a looking glass or a knife, but he doubted that they would have pulled him into the boat and so by force carried him away. He was one of the goodliest men of all his company. I wondered if Marco Polo had ever seen such natural pearls, having observed just about everything else in his amazing travels.

But for that we had no leisure to tarry any longer with them, the morning being well passed, which grieved us for the commodities and great riches which as we understood and saw might be gotten there. Desiring to spend the rest of the day among our second allies, the natives on King Satouriona’s south bank, as we had promised the day before, we passed back over the River of May to their shore where we found them tarrying for us quietly and in good order, trimmed with new pictures upon their faces and feathers upon their heads. King Satouriona carried bows and arrows in a painted leather sling, and sat between two brethren which were goodly men and well-shaped, having about their heads and hair, which was trussed up of a height, a kind of head of some wild beast dyed red, gathered and wrought together with great cunning, and wreathed and fashioned after the form of a diadem. They showed unto us a great storehouse of metals they had mined within the country, about five or six leagues hence, that they went thither in their boats, which they make but of one piece of tree, working it hollow so cunningly and finely, that they put in one of these boats or rather great troughs, fifteen or twenty-six persons, and go forthwith very swiftly. They row standing upright, their oars short, made after the fashion of a peat shovel.

Once upon shore, and walking along the banks among them, we passed one of their devices for drying fish, wild animals and other provisions.

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Illustration of a Timucuan Drying Rack, Stefan Lorant,

The New World

Finally sitting, they presented us with their meal, dressed and baked, very fine-tasting and full of good nourishment. They served beans, fish, crabs, lobsters, crayfish and many other kinds of good fishes. They showed us signs that their dwellings were far off, and that if their provisions had been near at hand, they would have presented us with many other refreshments.

After the meal the natives had a colorful ceremony, where the new queen-elect is brought to the king."

One of the nobles who accompanied Captain Ribault on his voyage to the New World described the ceremony as follows:

"When a Timucuan king chooses to take a wife, he directs the tallest and handsomest of the daughters of the chief’s