Laudonnière, René Goulainé De

Laudonnière, René Goulainé De (fl.1562–82), French Huguenot navigator, with Jean Ribaut was sent to found an American colony, and settled the present Port Royal, S.C. After a revolt during the leaders' absence, another attempt was made at colonization on St. Johns River, Florida. Further dissension caused Laudonnière's purchase of a ship from Sir John Hawkins, to take his people home. When Ribaut arrived, shortly afterward, to bring supplies and an order for Laudonnière's return, the departure was forestalled by a fight with the Spanish, who massacred most of the colonists. Laudonnière managed to make his way to France, where he wrote L'Histoire notable de la Floride (1586), translated and published the following year in Hakluyt's A Notable Historie. Further information about the colony is found in a book by one of the colonists, Jacques Le Moyne, whose drawings of natives and animals are among the best of those made in early America, as well as in the account written by Ribaut. A modern account is in Parkman's Pioneers of France, and he figures as a character in Kirk Munroe's The Flamingo Feather.