Jean Ribault, who took possession of Florida in 1565, no longer has a coastline across the Atlantic. The Jacksonville County Rectorate wants to strike his name off the pediments of its schools, reports Le Figaro. Accused of “systemic marginalization and the massacre of indigenous peoples”, Jean Ribault could well see his name disappear in the name of “cancel culture”.
This ideological movement, which is growing in the United States, wants to make controversial personalities of history invisible. Jean Ribault was a 16th century French explorer. When he arrived in the Americas, he proclaimed Florida French in the name of King Charles IX.
“Discrimination” against Native Americans
It was Ashley Smith-Juarez who is at the origin of this request to rename the two schools. The school board member believes that Jean Ribault played a role in the “discrimination” to which the Amerindians in the region were and still are.
For her, claiming the lands of indigenous peoples on behalf of France is not something the County should want to honor. However, the descendants of the French explorer have already reacted. They wrote an op-ed in a local Florida newspaper contesting the claim.
A “historical misunderstanding”
Yves de Montcheuil, one of his descendants, told the Figaro that he saw this request as “a smear of the memory of [leur] ancestor ”. Because according to them, and the historian specializing in New France, Laurent Veyssière, it is a “historical misunderstanding”. According to the historian, he would even have made an alliance with “three Amerindian tribes” against a last and it is not “proven” that he fought it.
The general secretary of the association of descendants and memory of Jean Ribault told the Figaro that the French historical figure always spoke “in a very positive way” of the natives “in his writings”. Still, whoever made history for taking possession of Florida could disappear from the walls of state schools.
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