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{{See also|Ajacán Mission}}
'''Ajacán''' – variants include Xacan, Jacan, Iacan, Axaca and Axacam – was a short-lived [[Spain|Spanish]] settlement, between 1570 and 1571, near the [[Chesapeake Bay]], in what would later become [[Virginia]].


The settlement was intended to be the capital of a larger Spanish [[colony]], named the '''Province of Axacan''', straddling the future [[Mid-Atlantic states|Mid-Atlantic]] region of the United States. In his 1842 ''[https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=vgQOAAAAIAAJ&rdid=book-vgQOAAAAIAAJ&rdot=1 Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en Nueva España]'', Alegre said Father Juan Bautista de Segura and his companions called the province Axacan.<ref>W. Lowery, 1905</ref><ref>''La Florida: Spanish Exploration and Settlement in North America, 1500 To 1600'' by Aleck Loker</ref> The term Ajacán was coined by the crew of the ''Santa Catalina'', seemingly overhearing it being named as such by two indigenous Algonquians onboard the vessel.<ref>Brickhouse, Anna, The Unsettlement of America: Translation, Interpretation, and the Story of Don Luis de Velasco, 1560-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 48.</ref> Ajacán was later named ''La Tierre de Don Luis'', or 'the homeland of Don Luis.'.<ref>Brickhouse, Anna, ''The Unsettlement of America: Translation, Interpretation, and the Story of Don Luis de Velasco, 1560-1945'' (Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 48.</ref>


The Virginia was called "Land of Don Luis" by 16th century Spanish. The [[Chesapeake Bay]] was in the province of Axacan (Virginia). This Spainish considered this land to be in their domain. [[Menendez de Aviles]] apparently thought the Portuguese were in the vicinity of the mountains eighty leagues (~240 miles) to the north of the Chesapeake Bay and not a great distance from the channel connecting the bay from the South Sea.<ref>March, 28 1568 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS.,33,983,fol.324</ref> Brother Carrera and his [[St Augustine, Florida]] [[Jesuit]] priests were instructed to build a mission a short distance from where [[Jamestown, Virginia]] would later be built by the English. Spanish exploration had ordered the [[Monks]] from [[St Augastine]] in Florida to support the [[Virginia]] efforts. The explorers had discovered the curiosity of interior oil springs, copper outcrops, iron ore and coal for forging. All of which were located towards the [[Allegheny Mountains]] also in the province of Axacan.
Some early 20th-century historians promoted the idea that the early [[Conquistador|Spanish explorers]] who made voyages into the Chesapeake Bay between 1565 and 1570 sailed up the [[Potomac River]] as far as [[Occoquan, Virginia]], based on the similarity between "Axacan" of the Spanish missionary chronicles and the name of the Indian town and creek on the Potomac. The chronicles describe the failed Axacan mission in 1570, which included abandonment by their guide, and massacre of the party.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/potomaclandings00wilsgoog/page/n37 <!-- pg=13 quote=axacan. --> Paul Wilstach, ''Potomac Landings'', New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1921, p. 13]</ref>
[[Image:1562-Diego Gutiérrez.jpg|right|thumb|Detail from the Gutiérrez map of Spanish North America, 1562.]]


===Background===
==Spanish explorers==
Ship pilots of Portugal in the [[15th century]] centered around [[Henry the Navigator]]'s methods of seamanship. These shipwrights devolped a vessel of two masts that could better cut, [[tac]] the wind. Naval architect, engineers, devloped a [[bow kneel]] for the [[keel line]] that was a great improvement improvedThey began sailing beyond [[Cape Bojador]] on the [[Africa]]n coast to [[India]]. [[Pope Eugenius IV]] declared Portuguese discoveries had a right to claim on this spice route of the [[Atlantic]] and [[Indian Ocean]] which the following [[Pope]]s in [[Rome]] continued to support. [[Spain]], the other exploring seapower of the century, agreed to the Treaty of [[1479]] not to interfere with [[Portugal]]'s long standing right to discoveries on the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. [[King John of Portugal]] became alarmed by [[Columbus]]' claim for Spainish dominion of what these sailors thought were islands of Cathey, otherwise called [[Cipango]] of the Far East Asia coast. [[Pope Alexander VI]] brokered a Treaty of right of discovery between Spain and Portugal on May, 4th, [[1493]]. A demarkation between Spain and Portugal was agreed to as Columbus prepared his second expedition. By the Pope's efforts to avoid conflict of tresspassing, a second Treaty of Tordasillas was agreed to. It extended the line of dominion beyond the [[Cape de Vird Islands]] in the Atlantic by 370 leagues. It was this treaty that allowed Portugal's claim to [[Brazil]] which was discovered in[[1500]]. <ref>"The Spainish Settlements Within The Presant Limits Of The United States" by Woodbury Lowery, chapter "The Treasure Fleets and Florida", Pp 17.</ref> Meanwhile, Henry the Navigator's fishing pilots had been going to and from New Foundland's fisheries. Of these are the old sailor's stories which are rather difficult for scholars to document. Scholars suspect even Columbus had ventured along on one of these Portuguese fishing trips to the [[North Atlantic]]'s western fisheries prior to his acquiring his first exploration fleet. Stories of sea monsters and places such as the "[[Land of The Saints]]" were common pilot's and fishermen's "Inn talk", stories, at the western [[Europe]] [[seaport]] villages during the 15th century. "For many years after, the ships and adventurers of France and England drew an unfailing supply of skillful pilots from the little kingdom, sometimes by emlisting them by cunning, sometimes by force, and not infrequently finding them ready and willing survants to conduct their most hazardous interprises," quaoting historian Woodbury Lowery in his book, <U>"The Spainish Settlements Within The Presant Limits Of The United States"</u> (1905).
[[Francisco Fernández de Écija]], chief pilot of Spaniards searching the Chesapeake Bay for English activities in 1609,<ref name="Mancall2007">{{cite book|author=Peter Cooper Mancall|title=The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vrj4gApIJz4C|accessdate=March 3, 2013|year=2007|publisher=UNC Press Books|isbn=978-0-8078-3159-5|pages=534–540}}</ref> asserted that [[Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón]]'s failed colony of 1526–27, [[San Miguel de Gualdape]], had been located on the [[James River]] somewhere near [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]].<ref>Magri, F.J. (1912), "Diocese of Richmond", in ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'', New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved July 20, 2008 from New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13050a.htm (July 20, 2008)</ref> While some historians accepted Écija's claim, more recent scholars believe Ayllón instead went southwest, and that the "River Guandalpe" was in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]].<ref>Swanton, 1922, ''Early History of the Creek Indians and their Neighbors'' pp. 32-48</ref>


===Visitors to Axacan===
[[Esteban Gómez]] named what may have been the Chesapeake Bay, "Immaculate Conception Bay", on his 1525 expedition.  No record of the Spanish reaching a place called ''Axacan'' was made until 1559–60, the year Sacchini <ref>(''Hist.Sec.Fesa. Pars tertia, Romae'', 1650, p. 323)</ref> says [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] missionaries took the Indian they named [[Don Luis]] from there.  Don Luis was recorded in [[Viceroyalty of New Spain]]-''Mexico'' in 1565.<ref>according to Aviles' letter to the King, dated October 15, 1565 (Ruidiaz, ''La Florida,'' tomo ii., p. 94) "and it seems probable that from him the existence of the Bay of Santa Maria of Axacan (Xacan, Jacan, Iacan, Axaca, Axacam) was learned. (Lowery, 1905, Appendix DD p. 459)...Lowery states, "There can be of little doubt as to its identity with Chesapeake Bay. Velasco in his "Deografio de las Indiaa" 1571-1574 (p. 172) says| Babo de Santiago: [esra] al norte del cabo de Arenas [the Cabo de Arenas was in 37* 30'], cera del. Bahia de San Cristobal; mas al norte. Bahia ce Santa Maria: mas al norte. Rio de San Anton: en 42 grados y 1/2 como ochenta leguas al norte del cabo de las Arenas." ''[[The Spanish Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United States]]'', Woodbury Lowery, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1905</ref>
The [[Florida]] priests built the mission Ajacan across the peninsula to the [[York River (Virginia)]]. In 1571, the Spanish Monks at the new mission were massacred. Historians attribute it to either the [[Powhatan]] Confederacy or [[privateers]].  Poorly documented seafaring nationals were known to fish and trade at Norfolk Anchorage.  Many held [[England|English]] Papers of Privateer to raid on Spanish Maine. English privateers had been sailing to the [[North America]]n coast since 1562, preying on Spanish shipping loaded with royal loot from the Spanish Maine, [[Gulf of Mexico]]. Their provision and repair anchorage was often at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay where the easterly North Atlantic current, just north of the "Sargasas Sea" (the [[seaweed]] "beds" and drift circling in the central North Atlantic), moves towards the Irish Sea and Bay of Biscay.  The Ajacan settlement monks were destroyed by the Native American Don Luis and his relatives, Virginia Indians. It remains unclear as to whom removed the Spanish presence at Chesapeake Bay, region of Axacan.


Citation: Chesapeake Bay - The Mariners' Museum, online.
In 1561, [[Pedro Menéndez de Avilés]] also believed he could find the [[Northwest Passage]] by way of the tributaries flowing east from the [[Allegheny Mountains]]' gaps and the rivers flowing west on the other side to the Pacific, as told them by the [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] at the range of Axacan.<ref>[http://www.virginiaplaces.org/settleland/spanish.html "The Spanish in the Chesapeake Bay"], Charles A. Grymes</ref>
[[Category:Indigenous peoples of North America]]
 
[[Vicente González (governor)|Vincente Gonzalez]] described a bay he visited in 1588 where natives told him of an English settlement to the ''north'' on a river flowing into it, but did not give a name to the bay. However,  [[Governor of Florida]] [[Juan Menéndez Márquez]] in 1606 asserted that this expedition had been to the Bay of Jacan, and Lowery (1905) also thought the Chesapeake was meant.<ref>("Relacion qye dio el Capitan Vizente Gonzales", 1588, MS. Dirc. de Hidrog., Madrid, Col. Nararrete, tomo xiv., Doc. 54, fol. 8.) Juan Menendez Marques in his "Relacion esxrita en el fuerte de San Agustin . . . al P. Comesario General de Indias Fr. Miguel Avengocar", June 7, 1606 (Ruidiaz, too ii., p. 498) in ''[[The Spanish Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United States]]'' by Woodbury Lowery,  G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, The Knickerbocker Press, 1905.</ref>
 
==Province of Axacan==
The Chesapeake Bay was in the Province of Axacan which included the [[Allegheny Mountains]]. ''Virginia'' was not called thus at this time, before Sir [[Walter Raleigh]] and the "[[Elizabeth I of England|Virgin Queen]]".
 
[[Image:Map of America-Ribero (1529).jpeg|thumb|200px|right|Detail of the American Coast Map by [[Diogo Ribeiro (cartographer)|Diego Ribero]] (1529), where the southern half of the east coast of the current United States is named as '''Tierra de Ayllón''']]
The Chesapeake Bay was called "Bahia de Santa Maria" after the time of Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón. Axacan had been called "Land of The Saints" earlier. The Spanish considered this land to be in their domain. Later, Avilés apparently thought the Portuguese were in the vicinity of the mountains eighty leagues (~240 miles) to the north of the Chesapeake Bay and not a great distance from the channel connecting the bay from the "South Sea", [[Gulf of Mexico]].<ref>March 28, 1568; British Library Add MS 33983, fol.324</ref>
 
Greater Axacan and adjoining Allegheny Mountains' western slopes, Mocosa, to Ajacal (Avacal) was thought to have rivers connecting to the south and west seas at that time. It was due to what the Spanish viewed as trespassing that had brought about the order for the monks to support the Virginia mining efforts. [[Hernando Moyano]] and [[Juan Pardo (explorer)|Juan Pardo]] prospected through the [[Cherokee]] range in 1566-67 and barely sufficient reports suggest mining continued into the 1690s along the [[Appalachian Mountain]] range. These had routed by land. The explorers had discovered the curiosity of interior oil springs, copper outcrops, iron ore and coal for forging. All of which were located towards the [[Allegheny Mountains]] and [[Unaka Range]] also in the province of Axacan and the northern areas of "La Floridia" as spelled on 16th-century Spanish maps. North of "The Florida" at today's Virginia was called "Land of Don Luis" by later half 16th-century Spanish.
 
===Paquiquineo/ Don Luis and Dominican Friars===
{{main article|Dominican Order}} {{main article|Don Luis}}
[[Don Luis|Paquiquineo, or later Don Luis]], was an indigenous Algonquian/[[Powhatan]] man who was the son to an [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] chief.<ref>Mallios, Seth, ''The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke, and Jamestown'' (University of Alabama Press, 2006),p. 39; Sakas, Karliana, ‘The Indigenous Authorship of the Narratives of the Spanish Jesuit Mission of Ajacan’, ''EHumanista'', 19 (2011), pp. 511-24 (p. 511) - Please note that accounts diverge surrounding the identity and tribal affiliation of Paquiquineo. </ref> The Spanish first encountered Paquiquineo in 1561 with the sailing of the ''Santa Catalina'' into the Chesapeake Bay region or ''Bahia de Santa María''.<ref>Brickhouse, Anna, ''The Unsettlement of America: Translation, Interpretation, and the Story of Don Luis de Velasco, 1560-1945'' (Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 47.</ref> He was part of a secondary gift exchange that took place between the Spanish and the indigenous Algonquians of the [[Chesapeake Bay]] region.<ref> Mallios, Seth, ''The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke and Jamestown '' (University of Alabama Press, 2006), pp. 38-39.</ref> The first recorded interactions of the Spanish with the indigenous population in the Chesapeake region were gift-exchanges, exchanging food and raw materials.<ref>Mallios, Seth, ''The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke and Jamestown '' (University of Alabama Press, 2006), p. 39.</ref> The second exchange focussed on the giving of Paquiquineo to the Spanish, to aid them in further [[exploration of the Americas]] and around the world.<ref>Mallios, Seth, ''The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke and Jamestown '' (University of Alabama Press, 2006), p. 39; Beck, Lauren, ‘Beads and Ceremony: The Collision of Pan-America, European, African, and Asian Bead Networks in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish Empire’, ''Religions'', 14.10 (2023), pp. 1-19 (p. 15).</ref> Accounts diverge on the exact conditions which Paquiquineo joined the Spanish, with missionary accounts suggesting the exchange was voluntary and most recent scholarship finding this grounds for debate.<ref>Mallios, Seth, ''The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke, and Jamestown'' (University of Alabama Press, 2006), p. 39.</ref>
 
In 1559 or 1560, a Spanish vessel, perhaps, with some Dominican friars caused Paquiquineo to go with them to Mexico as a guide where Aviles meets Paquiquineo and thought to have learnt of the Axacan passage.<ref>Hist. Soc. Fesu. Pars tertia, Romae, 1650, p.323, Appendix DD, "[[The Spanish Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United States]]" by Woodbury Lowery</ref> Historians generally believe it was [[Juan Menendez Marquez]] who picked up Don Luis and left another Spanish boy with one of Luis' brothers the chief, a hostage in exchange. The [[Viceroy]] of New Spain had Paquiquineo baptised with the name Don Luis de Velasco (Lowery 1905). [[Ángel de Villafañe]] had been in the Chesapeake Bay area in 1561. He reported the chief of the Chesapeake area Indians was called Regulus according to [[Francisco Sacchini]].<ref>Historia Societatis Fesu, Pars tertia, Romae, MDCIL., p.323, "[[The Spanish Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United States]]" by Woodbury Lowery</ref> At [[San Mateo Atenco|San Mateo]], Avilés sent a Captain with 32 soldiers and two Dominican friars to settle the believed route to the mountain pass and rivers that was thought to lead to the Pacific Ocean. This was supposed to have returned Luis to his Chesapeake home and develop a colony at Ajacán landing. But the two friars who had already worked in South America and the military Captain convinced the pilot to navigate back to Europe claiming bad weather for the deviation. Some accounts declare they actually made land-fall, but, were blown off point as they tried to enter the bay. This is how Luis had arrived at [[Seville]], Spain instead of returning to the "Bay of Santa Maria". Gone for about eleven years, Don Luis had spent the past six years with Aviles. They had returned to winter at Havana by 1570. But, now the concern was about trespassers on his Pacific Ocean passage theory to the China [[Spice trade|Spice Trade]]. Meanwhile, it would seem that Luis harboured resentment through the years, although, the reports declare he was eager to help evangelize his kindred.
 
=== Segura Mission (1570) ===
Ajacán landing included Father Segura, vice provincial of the Jesuits with seven companions, Father Luis de Quiros, Brothers Gabriel Gomez, Sancho Cevallos, Juan Bautista Mendez, Pedro de Limares, Gabriel de Solis (related to Aviles), and Cristobal Relondo, a boy named Alonso, and Indian Don Luis departed Santa Elena, just north of St. Augustine (now [[Parris Island, South Carolina|Parris Island]]<ref>Part 11: The New World, 11.2 The Spanish and the French (1492-1540), ''Spanish Conquest of the New World'', by George Parris © Copyright 1998</ref>), for the Chesapeake Bay on August 5, 1570.<ref>Buckingham Smith, "Florida MSS., 1526, 1743, p.255, MS. New York Historical Society.</ref> They had arrived  at Ajacán landing on September 10, 1570. They found the local people had removed themselves from the Ajacán landing area villages due to extended drought of six years. It was reported that only a few old men remained so "that they might die where their fathers had died."<ref>A quotation cited in Woodbury Lowery in his book ''The Spanish Settlements Within The Presant Limits Of The United States'' (1905).  Lowery on page 471 lists the "scant evidence" as to the precise location of the 1570 mission, declaring that it could have been on any of the southern Chesapeake tributaries.</ref> Indian crops there at that time was scarce and corn was brought to them. In a brief letter before the ship left the missionaries, Father Quiros wrote of the Allegheny Mountains as told him by the native, of "the entrance through the mountains and China...Three or four days journey from yonder, were the mountains, and two of these days' journey were by a river, and one or two days' travel beyond the mountains another sea is observed."  Aviles of Spain maintain his theory that the passage to the Pacific was by way of the Chesapeake Bay.
 
The mission called Segura Mission consisted of a hut and small chapel about two leagues, two hours canoe trip up the river of their landing, to Don Luis's brother's village. Don Luis remained with the priests as an interpreter. An expected supply vessel had not returned before winter after which Luis deserted the monks. Within four months, Luis left the missionaries to forage on their own through the winter. Father Rogal wrote of Avales' vengeance on Luis' party who committed the murders on February 8, 1571.<ref>Tanner, "Societas Militans" Pp.449-451</ref> Don Luis's brother saved the boy named Alonso from the betrayal, the only survivor. Avales' is reported not to have punished Luis' brother's village. Father Carrera wrote of the punitive action in 1572 as he had witnessed the Ajacán landing of the delayed supply vessel.
 
==Other visitors==
[[Image:Martin-Waldseemüller-1507-North-America.JPG|thumb|[[Waldseemüller map]] showing North America, originally published in April 1507.]]
[[Giovanni da Verrazzano]] sailed along the Atlantic coast in 1524 in the vicinity of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and was likely the first European to sight it.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Giovanni da Verrazzano {{!}} Biography, Accomplishments, Exploration, Facts, & Route {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-da-Verrazzano |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250930050354/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-da-Verrazzano |archive-date=2025-09-30 |access-date=2025-11-27 |work=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref>  Captain Vicente Gonzalez sailed around the shores of the Chesapeake in 1588 to the 39th latitude ([[Annapolis, Maryland]]).  He found and returned  evidence to St. Augustine of English at Roanoke.  The governor of Florida, Menendez Marques, sailed to the 38th latitude near today's Virginia and Maryland border in 1589. He found Vicente the Indian who claimed he was evangelized at the Segura Mission of Ajacán.{{Citation needed|date=November 2011}} Marques allowed him to return to the Florida capital with him. This was after the forming of the [[Iberian Union]].
 
==Ajacán Mission==
The Ajacán mission's exact location is unknown but is estimated to be around five miles from what would become [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]].<ref> Elliot, John H, ''Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830'' (Yale University Press, 2006),p. 10.</ref> Historians attribute Spanish abandonment of the Chesapeake Bay to either the [[Powhatan]] Confederacy or [[privateer]]s. Poorly documented seafaring nationals were known to fish and trade at Norfolk Anchorage.  Later in the 16th century, many pilots, as the ship's master (today's Captain) was called at that time, held English and French [[Letter of marque|letters of marque]] to raid the [[Spanish treasure fleet]]. English privateers had been sailing to the North American coast since 1562, preying on Spanish shipping loaded with royal loot from the [[Spanish Main]]. Their provision and repair anchorage was often at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. This is where the easterly [[North Atlantic Current|North Atlantic current]], just north of the [[Sargasso Sea]] moves towards the [[Celtic Sea]] of Ireland and [[Bay of Biscay]] of northern Spain.
 
==Failed expedition to Ajacán in 1566==
To erase a debt from the gift-exchange between the Spaniards and the indigenous population of the Chesapeake region, Don Luis proposed to travel back and create a settlement at Ajacán and mission in 1566.<ref>Mallios, Seth, ''The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke, and Jamestown'' (University of Alabama Press, 2006), p. 41.</ref> Luis was accompanied by the religious order who had educated him previously and Christianised him as there were fears that upon his return to the region he would renounce his newly acquired religion and name, preferring instead to live as he had done pre-Spanish arrival.<ref>Brickhouse, Anna, ''The Unsettlement of America: Translation, Interpretation, and the Story of Don Luis de Velasco'', 1560-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 52.</ref> The expedition was a failure due to the Spaniards inability to relocate the province and Don Luis' seeming reluctance to Christianize the indigenous community there.<ref>Brickhouse, Anna, ''The Unsettlement of America: Translation, Interpretation, and the Story of Don Luis de Velasco'', 1560-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 55-6.</ref> This did not deter efforts in 1570, partly instigated again by Luis due to his debt accumulated by the gift-exchange, to return to the region with [[Jesuits|Jesuit]] missionaries and fulfil their previous aims.<ref>Mallios, Seth, ''The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke, and Jamestown'' (University of Alabama Press, 2006), p. 43.</ref>
 
 
 
==Ajacán Mission/Settlement in 1570-2==
{{main article|Ajacán Mission}}
Don Luis alongside 'two Jesuit priests, nine Jesuit brothers, and an adolescent servant,' returned back to Ajacán in 1570, in the area which is now known as [[Virginia]].<ref>[https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume19/24%20ehumanista19.sakas.pdf Sakas, Karliana, ‘The Indigenous Authorship of the Narratives of the Spanish Jesuit Mission of Ajacan’, ''EHumanista'', 19 (2011), pp. 511-24 (p. 511.)]</ref> This mission was headed by Jesuit Father Juan Baptista de Segura who had previously been affiliated with Spanish colonial efforts in La Florida and Menéndez.<ref>Elliot, John H, ‘The Iberian Atlantic and Virginia’, in ''The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624'', ed. by Mancall, Peter C (Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, 2007), pp. 548-64 (p. 552.).</ref> Don Luis abandoned the mission at Ajacán in this period to return to living with his Powhatan community.<ref>[https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume19/24%20ehumanista19.sakas.pdf Sakas, Karliana, ‘The Indigenous Authorship of the Narratives of the Spanish Jesuit Mission of Ajacan’, ''EHumanista'', 19 (2011), pp. 511-24 (p. 511.)]</ref>
 
The reason why the indigenous community chose to kill the Spanish missionaries at Ajacán is largely contested. One version suggests that efforts to regain Luis and especially his expertise as a translator by the Jesuits of the Ajacán mission led to the killings of the Spanish missionaries aside from one non-Jesuit Alonsico.<ref>[https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume19/24%20ehumanista19.sakas.pdf Sakas, Karliana, ‘The Indigenous Authorship of the Narratives of the Spanish Jesuit Mission of Ajacan’, ''EHumanista'', 19 (2011), pp. 511-24 (p. 511.)]</ref> Another version cites the breakdown of communications between the two population groups over gift giving practices; gifts that the Indigenous community had given to the Spanish (food as the land was suggested to be arid), were not reimbursed.<ref>[https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14101335 Beck, Lauren, ‘Beads and Ceremony: The Collision of Pan-America, European, African, and Asian Bead Networks in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish Empire’, ''Religions'', 14.10 (2023), pp. 1-19 (pp. 15-16.)]</ref> This version contends that the Powhatans asked for tools to build a church with in the settlement, but instead used the tools against the Spanish who had brought disease to the area.<ref> [https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14101335 Beck, Lauren, ‘Beads and Ceremony: The Collision of Pan-America, European, African, and Asian Bead Networks in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish Empire’, ''Religions'', 14.10 (2023), pp. 1-19 (p. 16.)]</ref>
 
The Ajacán area was visited by Spanish ships after the massacre of the missionaries there, with scholarship suggesting that after murdering the Jesuits, the indigenous community wore their robes, as a way of posing as missionaries to ward off any Spanish ships who thought there was something afoot.<ref>[https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume19/24%20ehumanista19.sakas.pdf Sakas, Karliana, ‘The Indigenous Authorship of the Narratives of the Spanish Jesuit Mission of Ajacan’, ''EHumanista'', 19 (2011), pp. 511-24 (p.511.).]</ref> Relief ships came across the area again, in search of the sole survivor Alonsico, who was promptly brought back to La Florida and retold the story of the killings there.<ref> Fellner, Astrid M, ‘Performing Cultural Memory: Scenarios of Colonial Encounter in the Writings of John Smith, Cabeza de Vaca, and Jacques Cartier’, in ''Transnational American Memories'', ed. by Hebel, Udo J (Walter de Gruyter, 2009), pp. 33-58 (p. 43.).</ref> There was a show trial in 1572 with the Spanish coming back to the area briefly before abandoning the idea of settlement in the area of Ajacán altogether; due to sustained hostilities with the indigenous population there.<ref>[https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume19/24%20ehumanista19.sakas.pdf Sakas, Karliana, ‘The Indigenous Authorship of the Narratives of the Spanish Jesuit Mission of Ajacan’, ''EHumanista'', 19 (2011), pp. 511-24 (p. 511).]</ref>
 
Memory of the failed settlement lived on with the 1592 and 94 publication of the ‘''Life of Father Francis Borgia''’ by [[Pedro de Ribadeneira|Pedro de Ribadenyra]], seeking to document why the killings had occurred and what life had been like 20 years prior at the settlement.<ref>Fellner, Astrid M, ‘Performing Cultural Memory: Scenarios of Colonial Encounter in the Writings of John Smith, Cabeza de Vaca, and Jacques Cartier’, in ''Transnational American Memories'', ed. by Hebel, Udo J (Walter de Gruyter, 2009), pp. 33-58 (p. 44).</ref> While the Spanish had left the area, finding it of no further value, the [[British colonization of the Americas|English colonial project across the Chesapeake Bay]] took place with the founding of the [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown colony]]. Scholarship has noted that memory of the failed Ajacán settlement by the Spanish and subsequent massacre of the Jesuit missionaries was still very active amongst the colonists of Jamestown, with stories being relayed over forty years later.<ref>[https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume19/24%20ehumanista19.sakas.pdf Sakas, Karliana, ‘The Indigenous Authorship of the Narratives of the Spanish Jesuit Mission of Ajacan’, ''EHumanista'', 19 (2011), pp. 511-24 (p. 511).]</ref>
 
England's [[Jamestown Settlement]] became known to the Spanish at St. Augustine in 1610. These English took the Spanish captive, who were sent by [[caravel]] to investigate, in 1611. Although many nationals came to repair or clean their ships' hauls, reprovision and trade or prospect for many decades before, it remains unclear as to who removed the Spanish presence across the mining region of Axacan before the English first permanent colony at [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]].
 
==See also==
*[[Ajacán Mission]]
*[[Don Luis]]
*[[Juan Pardo (explorer)]]
*[[Spanish colonization of the Americas]]
*[[European colonization of the Americas]]
*[[Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery]]
*[[Maritime history]]
 
==References==
{{reflist}}
 
==Further reading==
*Brickhouse, Anna, ''The Unsettlement of America: Translation, Interpretation, and the Story of Don Luis de Velasco, 1560-1945'' (Oxford University Press, 2014) -  NB: One of the more recent works on this subject that is targeted specifically on Ajacán and its broader scope.
*Mallios, Seth, ''The Deadly Politics of Giving: Exchange and Violence at Ajacan, Roanoke, and Jamestown'' (University of Alabama Press, 2006) - NB: A comprehensive overview of interactions between both indigenous and European peoples, focussing in on violence and the politics of early colonial history.
*Mallios, Seth, ‘The Apotheosis of Ajacan’s Jesuit Missionaries’, Ethnohistory, 54.2 (2007), pp. 223-44, doi:10.1215/00141801-2006-061.
*Elliot, John H, ''Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830'' (Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 3-29. - NB: This is a good overview of both the Spanish and British colonial ambitions and actions in America, please see further work by Elliot surrounding this subject.
*[https://www.ehumanista.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.span.d7_eh/files/sitefiles/ehumanista/volume19/24%20ehumanista19.sakas.pdf Sakas, Karliana, "The Indigenous Authorship of the Narratives of the Spanish Jesuit Mission of Ajacan", ''EHumanista'', 19 (2011), pp. 511-24.]
 
==External links==
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=lqqAAAAAIAAJ "The Spanish Mission Colony on the Rappahannock; the First European Settlement in Virginia"] by John Gilmary Shea, 1872.  Reprinted in ''The Indian Miscellany'', edited by William Wallace Beach, 1877, pp.&nbsp;333–343.
 
[[Category:Exploration of North America]]
[[Category:Chesapeake Bay]]
[[Category:Native American history of Virginia]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Virginia]]
[[Category:Colonial United States (Spanish)]]
[[Category:1566 in New Spain]]
[[Category:1570 in New Spain]]
[[Category:1571 in New Spain]]
[[Category:Historical regions of North America]]
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