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(Redirected from Ajacan Mission) Jump to: navigation, search This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (June 2007) It has been suggested that Ajacan be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) The Ajacn Mission (Spanish pronunciation: [axakan]) was a failed attempt in the 16th century by Spanish Jesuit priests to Christianize the Native Americans on the Virginia Peninsula in the New World. The mission, which would have been known as "St. Mary's Mission," predated the establishment of the English settlement at Jamestown by about 36 years.
Contents
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1 Spanish exploration 2 Mission sited 3 Exact location 4 Abandonment 5 Aftermath 6 Opechancanough 7 Modern times 8 Sources 9 Further reading 10 See also
the right place - he may not have been in his homeland, but may rather have sensed the captain's frustration and claimed the land as his homeland so that he would not lose the opportunity to ever get home. Some writers speculate that Don Luis, an Indian captive, was taken with Jesuits and planted near the York or James River in the Chesapeake Bay. This is speculation without any proof. Some writers write with authority that Don Luis was actually Powhatan or Powhatan's brother Opechancanough. This is pure speculation and is very unlikely. Captain John Smith was captured by Powhatan's brother Opechancanough. He presented Opechancanough with a compass, with which Opechancanough was fascinated. If Opechancanough were Don Luis, he would have seen many compasses and would not have been so fascinated with it or with Captain John Smith's stories of the sun and stars.
[edit] Abandonment
As time went byfirst days, and then monthsthe small band of Jesuits realized that they had been abandoned by Don Luis. To their added misfortune, it was a time when the mid-Atlantic region was enduring a long period of famine due to drought conditions. The food they brought with them was in short supply. Immediately there was a dependence on the Indians for food. They successfully traded with some natives for food, but it was increasingly in short supply as the winter months set in. Around February of 1571, Don Luis returned with other natives and
stole all their clothing and supplies. The natives killed both of the priests and all six brothers. Only Alonso, the young servant boy, was spared, perhaps because he was not a Jesuit. Escaping the carnage, the young boy made his way to a rival native chief who lived close to the main coast on the Chesapeake Bay. There he waited until the relief expedition arrived in 1572.
[edit] Aftermath
More than a year after the massacre, a Spanish supply ship found and rescued Alonso, upon which he gave the only survivor's account. Subsequently, Florida's Governor, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, traveled to Ajacn to punish the culprits. The native-convert Don Luis proved ever elusive and was never discovered. However, eight other Indians accused of murdering the missionaries were promptly hanged by the Spaniards. The disastrous attempt at establishing a mission in Virginia spelled the end of Spanish ventures to colonize the area. Following the death of Father Segura and his companions in the Ajacn Mission venture, the Jesuits were recalled from St. Augustine and sent on to Mexico.
[edit] Opechancanough
At the time of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown in 1607, a fierce Native American warrior named Opechancanough was the half-brother of Wahunsonacock, the Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, The name Opechancanough meant "He whose Soul is White" in the Algonquin language. It is speculated by some historians that Opechancanough was the same individual who had also been known as "Don Luis". This is very unlikely since Opechancanough was so interested in Captain John Smith's stories of the earth, sun and stars. What is known with certainty is that Opechancanough was violently opposed to the European settlers who arrived at Jamestown beginning in 1607. It was he who led the party that captured Captain John Smith in late 1607 and brought him before Chief Powhatan at Werowocomoco. (This was the same incident later recounted by Smith in one of his books when the Chief's daughter Pocahontas allegedly intervened on Smith's behalf, saving his life). A period of relative peace between the Powhatans and the settlers ended not long after the death of Wahunsonacock in 1618, when Opechancanough became the new chief. Beginning with the Indian massacre of 1622, Chief Opechancanough gave up on diplomacy with the English settlers of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia and tried to force them to abandon the region both then and again in 1644, when he was captured. Opechancanough was later killed by a soldier assigned to guard him. At the time he was killed in 1644, Opechancanough was estimated to be between 90 and 100 years old. The timing makes the possibility that he and the Don Luis who sabotaged the Jesuit Ajacn Mission in 1571 were one and the same at least feasible.
[edit] Sources
Virginia's Jesuit Martyrs, Seattle Catholic. Rountree, Helen C. Powhatan Foreign Relations: 15001722. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. 1993. Taylor, Alan. American Colonies. New York: Viking, 2001. Anger, Matthew, "Spanish martyrs for Virginia" Tuesday, June 6, 2006. Jamestown 2007 Ajacan, The Spanish Jesuit Mision The Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia 2002 Letter of Juan Rogel to Francis Borgia, 1572. Describes the rescue of a young boy, the sole survivor of the Indian massacre at Ajacn, as related by the boy. Also, the revenge taken by the Spanish forces.
Lewis, Clifford M. and Albert J. Loomie (1953). The Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia 1570-1572. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC.
History of Virginia