The first muster of militia forces in what is today the United States took place on September 16, 1565, in the newly established Spanish military town of St. Augustine. The militia men were assigned to guard the expedition's supplies while their leader, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, took the regular troops north to attack the French settlement at Fort Caroline on the St. Johns River.[7] This Spanish militia tradition and the English tradition that would be established to the north would provide the basic nucleus for Colonial defense in the New World.