Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (c.1533 – 1588) was an artist who accompanied the French expedition of Jean Ribault and René Laudonnière in 1562. He is mostly known for his artistic depictions of the landscape, flora, fauna, and, most importantly, the inhabitants of the New World encountered by the French and Spanish. His drawings of the cultures commonly referred to as the Timucua are largely regarded as some of the most accessible data about the cultures of the Southeastern Coastal United States.

Ribault explored the mouth of the St. Johns River in Florida and erected a stone monument there before leading the party north and establishing a settlement on Parris Island, South Carolina. He then sailed back to France for supplies while Laudonnière took charge of the colony. Finding conditions unfavorable on Parris Island Laudonnière and the others eventually moved back to Florida where they founded Fort Caroline on the St. Johns Bluff in what is now Jacksonville.

A year later, the settlers engaged in a conflict with the Spanish colony of St. Augustine thirty miles to the south. The Spanish, under the leadership of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, stormed the colony and killed most of the Huguenots, though Laudonnière and Le Moyne escaped and were eventually rescued to England.

All but one of Le Moyne's original drawings were reportedly destroyed in the Spanish attack on Fort Caroline; most the images that we now attribute to him are actually engravings created by a Dutch printer/publisher named Theodor DeBry, which are based on recreations Le Moyne produced from memory. These reproductions, distributed by Le Moyne in printed volumes, are some of the earliest images of European colonization in the "new world" to be circulated. Le Moyne died in London in 1588, and his detailed account of the voyage, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americai provincia Gallis acciderunt, was published in 1591.

References

• Jacques LeMoyne
• Images of the engravings

1533 births | 1588 deaths | French artists | French North America