There were Jesuits from Cuba that faced Marterdom by an Interpeter from a Indian Tribe. The Interpreter was trained and sent to England to learn the X'itans way of life. After returning to the Jamestown Colony and returning to an unwholesome life, he was admonished and it was the primary reason he turned the Indian Tribe against the Jesuits who the perished.
There are a lot of examples like that. For me, it's hard to make judgments from 300 years in the future. So I looked it up. LOVE the internet for this.
The massacre you're referring to took place in the 1570s, well before the founding of Jamestown. It was yet another example of Europeans and Indians interacting in coercive ways and it leading to violence.
Paquiquineo (or Don Luis de Velasco) was an indigenous leader about a generation before Powhatan. He was originally an interpreter and accompanied the Spanish to Spain and Cuba. While ill in Mexico, he submitted to baptism. King Philip ordered him returned to Virginia, but the expedition leaders didn't obey. Dominicans refused to allow him passage home, so he remained in Mexico until 1566, when King Philip commanded he depart to Cuba and take part in an expedition to Virginia. Alonso de Olmos accompanied the priests and Paquiquineo.
Apparently, they were going back to his home territory. Did Paquiquineo suggest they go there? I think maybe he had an agenda. It had been 10 years since he "volunteered" for this arrangment and several since he'd not been allowed to return home. Soon after their transport ship departed, he left the Jesuits, supposedly to seek his uncle and supplies.
The Jesuits waited for months, in the middle of a famine, before admitting they'd been abandoned. They were able to trade with local tribes, but food supplies grew tight. One part of the history I'm drawing this from suggests the Jesuits pursued Paquiquineo and demanded he return. He did, eventually. Around February (called the "starving time" by tribes generally), Paquiquineo returned with other natives, stole the Jesuits' clothing and supplies, and killed the party. Only Alonso de Olmos, the young servant boy, was spared.
In the spring of 1571, a Spanish supply ship arrived and found natives wearing the missionaries' garments and ornaments and learned of the massacre. In August 1572, about 30 soldiers from Florida arrived to take revenge for the massacre. The captain held several natives as hostages to secure Alonso de Olmos' return. After gaining a fuller picture of the massacre from Olmos, the Spanish continued to hold hostages to bargain for the return of Paquiquineo, but he didn't turn himself over to the Spanish. He left them voluntarily, then came back to steal their stuff and kill them. Why would he return? And if he'd returned, it seems likely he would have been executed.
Before leaving the bay, the captain had the remaining native hostages baptized then hanged from the ships' rigging, which I find as barbaric as the Indians killing the Jesuits.
The failed attempt at establishing a mission in Virginia was the end of Spanish ventures to colonize the area. Paquinquineo subsequently disappears from the historical record, but some historians believe he was Powhatan's father. There's also a theory he was Powhatan's brother Opechancanough (which supposedly meant "He whose soul is white" in Algonquin). If Opechancanough and Paquiquineo were one in the same, it might explain Opechancanough's clear hatred of whites and refusal to engage in negotiations with them.
Neither side was right in what they did, in 1561 or in later Indian wars. Human beings being cruel to human beings seems to be integral to human nature, going back to Cain killing Abel. The Jesuits probably started out with a great idea -- bringing Indian tribes to salvation in Christ -- but forced conversions aren't true salvation and you can't expect harmless behavior from someone who has been forced to abandon his people for a decade. Ten years is a long time for resentment to brew. Nor can you expect a peaceful response from the Spanish after hearing of the massacre. Both sides acted in ways we who live 300 years in the future consider deplorable, but they acted in very similar ways because that was the world in which they lived.
There were Jesuits from Cuba that faced Marterdom by an Interpeter from a Indian Tribe. The Interpreter was trained and sent to England to learn the X'itans way of life. After returning to the Jamestown Colony and returning to an unwholesome life, he was admonished and it was the primary reason he turned the Indian Tribe against the Jesuits who the perished.
There are a lot of examples like that. For me, it's hard to make judgments from 300 years in the future. So I looked it up. LOVE the internet for this.
The massacre you're referring to took place in the 1570s, well before the founding of Jamestown. It was yet another example of Europeans and Indians interacting in coercive ways and it leading to violence.
Paquiquineo (or Don Luis de Velasco) was an indigenous leader about a generation before Powhatan. He was originally an interpreter and accompanied the Spanish to Spain and Cuba. While ill in Mexico, he submitted to baptism. King Philip ordered him returned to Virginia, but the expedition leaders didn't obey. Dominicans refused to allow him passage home, so he remained in Mexico until 1566, when King Philip commanded he depart to Cuba and take part in an expedition to Virginia. Alonso de Olmos accompanied the priests and Paquiquineo.
Apparently, they were going back to his home territory. Did Paquiquineo suggest they go there? I think maybe he had an agenda. It had been 10 years since he "volunteered" for this arrangment and several since he'd not been allowed to return home. Soon after their transport ship departed, he left the Jesuits, supposedly to seek his uncle and supplies.
The Jesuits waited for months, in the middle of a famine, before admitting they'd been abandoned. They were able to trade with local tribes, but food supplies grew tight. One part of the history I'm drawing this from suggests the Jesuits pursued Paquiquineo and demanded he return. He did, eventually. Around February (called the "starving time" by tribes generally), Paquiquineo returned with other natives, stole the Jesuits' clothing and supplies, and killed the party. Only Alonso de Olmos, the young servant boy, was spared.
In the spring of 1571, a Spanish supply ship arrived and found natives wearing the missionaries' garments and ornaments and learned of the massacre. In August 1572, about 30 soldiers from Florida arrived to take revenge for the massacre. The captain held several natives as hostages to secure Alonso de Olmos' return. After gaining a fuller picture of the massacre from Olmos, the Spanish continued to hold hostages to bargain for the return of Paquiquineo, but he didn't turn himself over to the Spanish. He left them voluntarily, then came back to steal their stuff and kill them. Why would he return? And if he'd returned, it seems likely he would have been executed.
Before leaving the bay, the captain had the remaining native hostages baptized then hanged from the ships' rigging, which I find as barbaric as the Indians killing the Jesuits.
The failed attempt at establishing a mission in Virginia was the end of Spanish ventures to colonize the area. Paquinquineo subsequently disappears from the historical record, but some historians believe he was Powhatan's father. There's also a theory he was Powhatan's brother Opechancanough (which supposedly meant "He whose soul is white" in Algonquin). If Opechancanough and Paquiquineo were one in the same, it might explain Opechancanough's clear hatred of whites and refusal to engage in negotiations with them.
Neither side was right in what they did, in 1561 or in later Indian wars. Human beings being cruel to human beings seems to be integral to human nature, going back to Cain killing Abel. The Jesuits probably started out with a great idea -- bringing Indian tribes to salvation in Christ -- but forced conversions aren't true salvation and you can't expect harmless behavior from someone who has been forced to abandon his people for a decade. Ten years is a long time for resentment to brew. Nor can you expect a peaceful response from the Spanish after hearing of the massacre. Both sides acted in ways we who live 300 years in the future consider deplorable, but they acted in very similar ways because that was the world in which they lived.