<P> In 1564, René Goulaine de Laudonnière arrived to build Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St. Johns River; they called the river Rivière de Mai because they settled it on May 1 . An artist named Jacques LeMoyne documented what he saw among the Timucuan people in 1564, portraying them as physically powerful and not lacking for provisions . Fort Caroline did not last long, though relations with the local Timucua and Mocamas were friendly . The colony was unable to support itself; some of the French deserted . Those who remained were killed in 1565 by the Spanish, led by Pedro Menéndez, when they marched north from St. Augustine and captured Fort Caroline . The river was renamed San Mateo by the Spanish in honor of the Apostle Matthew, whose feast was the following day . Capturing Fort Caroline allowed the Spanish to maintain control of the river . </P> <P> The French and Spanish continued to spar over who would control the natural resources and native peoples of the territory . The Timucua, who had initially befriended the French, were not encouraged to make the Spanish allies because of colonial governor Pedro Menéndez de Avilés' abhorrence of French Protestantism and his view that the Timucuan beliefs were "Satanic". By 1573, the Timucua were in outright rebellion, testing the governor's patience and forcing Spanish settlers to abandon farms and garrisons in more interior parts of Florida; the Spanish could not persuade the Timucua to keep from attacking them . </P> <P> Over a hundred years later, missionaries had more success, setting up posts along the river . Spanish Franciscan missionaries gave the river its current name based on San Juan del Puerto (St. John of the Harbor), the mission established at the river's mouth following the demise of the French fort . The name first appeared on a Spanish map created between 1680 and 1700 . </P> <P> The Timucua, as other groups of indigenous people in Florida, began to lose cohesion and numbers by the 18th century . A tribe located in modern - day Georgia and Alabama called the Creeks assisted with this; in 1702, they joined with the Yamasee and attacked some of the Timucua, forcing them to seek protection from the Spanish who forced them into slavery . The Creeks began assimilating other people and spread farther south until they were known by 1765 as Seminoles by the British, a term adapted from cimarrones that meant "runaways" or "wild ones". The Seminoles employed a variety of languages from the peoples the Creeks had assimilated: Hitchiti, Muskogee, as well as Timucua . Between 1716 and 1767, the Seminoles gradually moved into Florida and began to break ties with the Creeks to become a cohesive tribe of their own . The St. Johns provided a natural boundary to separate European colonies on the east bank and indigenous lands west of the river . </P>

Who is the st johns river named after