Ajacan

The Virginia was called "Land of Don Luis" by 16th century Spanish. The Chesapeake Bay was in the province of Axacan (Virginia). The Spanish 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", Gulf of Mexico. Brother Carrera and his St Augustine, Florida Jesuit half dozen priests were instructed to build a mission which would be a short distance from where Jamestown, Virginia would later be built by the English. It was due to what the Spanish viewed as tresspassing that had brought about the order for the Monks to support the Virginia mining 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.

Background

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 which became a great improvement, the Caravel. They began sailing beyond Cape Bojador on the African 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 Popes 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 in1500. 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, "The Spainish Settlements Within The Presant Limits Of The United States" (1905). Northern Europe vessels tended to be the Square-rigged Caravel as opposed to the southern Lateen rigged.

Visitors to Axacan

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. Later in the 16th century, many pilots, as the ship's master (today's Captain) was called at that time, held English Papers of Privateer to raid on Spanish Maine. English privateers had been sailing to the North American 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 Celtic Sea of Ireland and Bay of Biscay of norhthern Spain and Portugal. 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 the region of Axacan.

Citation: Chesapeake Bay - The Mariners' Museum, online.