Travelling Cosmographical Knowledge between Elizabethan England and Valois France

In 1562, the Huguenot pilot Jean Ribault (1520-1565) departed from France to Florida. He was ordered by the French admiral Gaspard de Coligny to explore the area. Shortly after mapping the region, Ribault laid a French claim to Florida by placing landmarks with the Valois coat-of-arms.

Later, when the explorer René de Laudonniére arrived, Ribault returned to France to purchase more reinforcements. Returning to his hometown, Dieppe, Ribault found it besieged. As a consequence, he fled to England, where he petitioned Elisabeth I for an expedition to the Americas.

In the meantime, since Anglo-French relations were complicated due to the English takeover of French Le Havre, Ribault was jailed under suspicion of being a French spy. As soon as admiral Coligny heard of Ribault’s entering English service, he immediately started negotiations to release him. Ribault’s first attempt at escaping failed, but a second one proved successful. Coligny then sent Ribault back to Florida in 1565. However, Ribault was caught and executed by the Spanish Pedro Menéndez de Aviléz. Aviléz even wrote to Philip II a self-praising letter mentioning that he had executed the “famous” Ribault. But what did really motivate Ribault’s death?

During his time in the tower of London, Ribault wrote a report on his 1562 expedition to Florida, which is today held at the British Museum. This account had an enormous impact on the English plans for colonizing North America from the 1560s onwards. But it also impacted Spain, as Ribault became known as a dangerous pilot that knew all the secrets of the Atlantic routes and could easily use his knowledge to attack Spanish interests. Aware of this and of Ribault’s Protestantism, Spain considered him a dangerous threat that needed to be eliminated, as it happened in 1565.

Still, Ribault's story is a good example of how it was impossible for cosmographical knowledge to be kept hidden or in secrecy, even between open maritime rivals. Despite Coligny’s, Elisabeth I’s and Philip II’s attempts, they were unable to prevent Ribault from circulating with his rutters, maps and accounts, and to influence directly English, French and Spanish plans for maritime expansion. Although Ribault’s story fades against a backdrop of similar 16th-century cases, it also suggests the historiographical importance of studying the circulation of cosmographical knowledge between open rivals. [Nuno Vila-Santa]