Photo Survey of Fort Caroline Florida

[anton ryzbak]

A while back I visited Fort Caroline, France's entry in the Florida Colony Gambit circa 1560.
Photos of a complete walkaround, inside and out.  https://antonswargame.blogspot.com/2022/10/fortified-places-fort-caroline.html

[DivisMal]

Cool! Thanks for sharing. That would make for some cool games including natives and early pirates!

[anton ryzbak]

There are several others under the "Fortified Places" tag ( I have already built 28mm models of the Castillio de San Marcos and the Mantanzas Fort) plus check out Starforts.com for a world-wide selection  http://www.starforts.com/index.html

[zippyfusenet]

Thanks for the photo essay. Makes me want to visit. Maybe on my next trip to Florida.

Miles Harvey Painter In A Savage Land is a very good account of the Huguenot painter Jaques Le Moyne and of the Fort Caroline colony. It makes an interesting compare and contrast with the English painter John White and the Roanoke colony, about the same time.

https://www.amazon.com/Painter-Savage-Land-Strange-European/dp/1400061202/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZKBRKZHI1D6T&keywords=painter+in+a+savage+land&qid=1667307452&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjczIiwicXNhIjoiMC42MiIsInFzcCI6IjAuNjUifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=Painter+in+a+sava%2Cstripbooks%2C81&sr=1-1

[fred]

Thanks for sharing the photos

It’s an interesting site - makes me wonder about how accurate the reconstruction is - but that is always the case with a reconstruction.

The pictures of the contemporary drawings are interesting and good to see. What I find most intriguing about this, is that the settlers choose to build a star fort, which I’ve always associated with protection from artillery. So where they most worried about attacks from other Europeans rather than natives?

[Codsticker]

Thanks for sharing the photos

It’s an interesting site - makes me wonder about how accurate the reconstruction is - but that is always the case with a reconstruction.

The pictures of the contemporary drawings are interesting and good to see. What I find most intriguing about this, is that the settlers choose to build a star fort, which I’ve always associated with protection from artillery. So where they most worried about attacks from other Europeans rather than natives?

That makes sense- it's right on the water as most North American starforts are I believe..

[anton ryzbak]

They were deliberately placing the colony on land claimed by the Spanish (who had explored up into the North Carolina highlands by then) and should have been expecting some sort of effort to be made to expel them. Also, if you have a fort made with a significant amount of wood  it makes sense to build so that you can sweep the face of your walls with gunfire to stop the enemy from hacking through or setting fires. Star fort patterns were pretty much the default setting for any European constructing fixed defenses between 1500 and 1850.