Northeast Florida was "discovered" by Ponce de Leon in 1513. He and his Spanish crew landed about 25 miles from today's Jacksonville, and named it Pascua Florida as a reminder that his landing occurred during the Feast of Flowers. He claimed the territory for the Spanish crown, then sailed off in search of a magic potion of eternal youth rumored to be a hidden treasure of this new land. The French arrived on Florida's east coast in 1562. Jean Ribault met the native Timuqua, exchanged gifts, and claimed possession in the name of the king of France by implanting a stone monument visible to subsequent ships. A colony was established in 1564, only to be eliminated by Spanish forces from nearby St. Augustine in 1565. Florida's northeast coast was under Spanish control. The French did not attempt another colonization. Nothing remains of the original Fort de la Caroline. And St. Augustine, not Jacksonville, is now known as the nation's oldest city. European Conflicts in 1702, James Moore, the interim governor of Carolina colony led a force of 500 English colonists and Yamasee Indians in an attack on Spanish Florida. When the colony of Georgia was established in 1733, its governor, James Oglethorpe, built a small fort on St. George Island to enforce his belief that the new English colony extended all the way to the St. Johns River. He later moved through the area on the way to attack St. Augustine during the 1740 conflict between the English and the Spanish known as the "War of Jenkins Ear." The first Africans in the area may have been escaped slaves from the Carolinas in the 1680s that sought refuge with the Spanish. The Spanish practice of slavery, influenced in part by the Catholic church, was less onerous than the slavery practiced by English settlers who considered slaves chattel property. As the area was settled, much of the back-breaking work building the area was done by slaves whose labor made prosperity possible for some.
