An Ill-Fated Fort

This true story from the 1560's adventures of the teen-age William Ruffin (Guillaume Ruffin/Guillermo Rufino) as recorded by the Spanish and French eyewitness chroniclers of the time.. William was 16 years old, the youngest of the group of French Huguenots, when he set sail for the New World. The Huguenots, severely persecuted in France, hoped to establish a fort in the New World and find gold to buy the King's favor. In order to avoid the Spanish who "owned" so much of the New World, they landed north of Florida, on the coast of South Carolina. They hastily built a fort and left 27 volunteers there, William among them. Outside the fort the country was beautiful and the Indians friendly, but inside the fort things went so badly that William would have to flee the fort to the Indian village where all went well until he had the bad luck to meet up with the Spaniards who insisted he come with them as "proof" that the French were indeed attempting to establish a colony in Spain's New World.