BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

The following persons were killed in odium fidei, uti fertur within La Florida, a vast region
claimed by the Spanish that included the entire southeastern portion of the present-day United
States. Spanish missionary activity in La Florida began in the early part of the sixteenth century
and extended until the early nineteenth century. These persons are to be regarded as the
choicest fruits of Spanish evangelization in this region.
 

:June 20, 1549:
1) Fr. Diego de Tolosa, O.P.
2) Br. Fuentes, O.P. June 26, 1549
3) Fr. Luis de Cáncer, O.P.

     The exact date and location of Fr. Luis Cáncer’s birth are uncertain, but circumstantial evidence suggests it was sometime around the year 1500 in the town of Barbastro, in the Kingdom of Aragón. He likely entered the Dominican Order in Huesca. The early Dominican chronicler Agustín Dávila Padilla (1562 1604) has left a glowing account of Cáncer’s religious and intellectual formation, which indicated a promising academic career. But Cáncer longed to be a missionary.
     Arriving in Hispaniola, Fr. Cáncer found few opportunities for work because the native population had already been decimated. After a few years he relocated to Puerto Rico along with Fray Antonio de Montesinos (d. 1545), who had already gained notoriety and enmity for his pointed sermon in Advent 1511 denouncing the mistreatment of Native Americans. Their purpose was to found a new priory; Fr. Cáncer served as the first prior.
     A decisive moment in Fr. Cáncer’s life was the 1534 consecration of his former provincial, Tomás de Berlanga (1486–1551), as Bishop of Tierra Firme, and Berlanga’s subsequent commission from Emperor Charles V to arbitrate a conflict between the conquistadors Francisco Pizarro (d. 1541) and Diego de Almagro (d. 1538) in Peru. To accompany him on this mission, Bishop Berlanga selected four of the best friars in Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, one of whom was Cáncer, another of whom was Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566). They departed Santo Domingo in late December 1534. Cáncer was to spend the next fifteen years ministering in various locations in Central America, first in Nicaragua and then, notably, in northern Guatemala in a region known as Tuzulutlán (Land of War), which due to the violent resistance of the natives had essentially been off limits to the Spanish. Fr. Cáncer not only took efforts to learn native dialects but he also employed music to inculcate the Gospel among native peoples.
     Fr. Cáncer most likely heard of Spanish activity in Florida while at an ecclesiastical synod in Mexico City in mid-1546, but it is also certain that while in Central America in the 1540s he had encountered native Floridians who had been dispossessed as a result of this activity.
     During the winter of 1546/1547 Cáncer and his fellow Dominican Fr. Gregorio de Beteta resolved to “plant the Gospel in the land of Florida.” The next two years were devoted to preparations for this mission. One aim of Cáncer’s mission, in fact, was the repatriation of Florida natives.
     In the late spring of 1549 Fr. Cáncer left Veracruz on the Santa María de la Encina
bound for Havana and then Florida. With him were Fr. Gregorio de Beteta, O.P., Fr. Juan Garcia, O.P., Fr. Diego de Tolosa, O.P., and a “familiaris” named Fuentes. Once in Havana the missionaries received further supplies, and they were also joined by a Christian Indian named Magdalena who was to serve as their translator. Magdalena (or Madalena) was a member of the Tocobaga tribe; she had been captured by the Spanish in 1539 during the Soto expedition.
     On the Vigil of the Ascension (Wednesday, May 5, 1549), Fr. Cáncer’s expedition sighted the Florida coast at approximately 27º latitude, somewhere near present-day Bradenton. Initial contacts with native peoples were amiable and peaceful—on one occasion Fr. Cáncer knelt in prayer with his fellow missionaries and with Magdalena, and they were joined by many Native Americans—but seven weeks later Fr. Tolosa, Fuentes, and Fr. Cáncer were killed. The first two were apprehended and killed shortly after they opted, against Fr. Cáncer’s judgment, to separate themselves from the rest of the missionary party and travel on foot to their destined port. Their deaths were later confirmed by a Spaniard named Muñoz, who had come to Florida with the Soto expedition and who now sought refuge with the Dominicans. Some days later Fr. Cáncer went ashore, but he was clubbed to death after he had fallen to his knees in prayer. The location of these killings was most likely present-day Safety Harbor, Florida.
     These Dominican missionaries have enjoyed a continuous fama from an early date. A
remarkable relic is the diary that Fr. Cáncer kept in his own hand, which had to be completed by
Fr. Gergorio de Beteta, an eyewitness to his death.
 

:September 28–October 6, 1566:
4) Fr. Pedro Martínez, S.J.

     Fr. Pedro Martínez was born on October 26, 1533 in Teruel of Aragon. After studies in Darocas, Saragosa, and Teruel, he earned an M.A. at the University of Valencia, where he developed a reputation for swordsmanship, and he entered the Jesuits on October 2, 1553. His novitiate was abbreviated to five years due to his extraordinary talents. He was ordained in 1558 and then appointed chaplain to an expedition setting out against the Moors. His labors spent in preaching, hearing confessions, teaching, and hospital ministry earned him accolades, but Fr. Martínez regretted his lack of theological education, which prompted him to aver to the Father General, St. Francis Borgia. “If I go to hell,” he claimed, “the Society will not get me out.”
     Eventually, after spending two months doing kitchen duty in Alcalá, he was sent to complete his studies at the University of Salamanca. After posts as rector in Valladolid and then in Monterey, he was granted permission to go to the Florida missions.
     Fr. Martínez was appointed superior of the first troop of Jesuits bound for Florida. With him were Fr. Juan Rogel, S.J. (1529–1619) and Br. Francisco Villareal, S.J. (b. c. 1529). Their ship, with a largely Flemish crew, departed Spain in June 1566. After spending several days searching in vain for their destination, Fr. Martínez volunteered to go ashore in a smaller boat to seek directions and supplies. On September 14, 1566, they made landfall near Cumberland Island, Georgia. To avoid an impending storm the main ship retreated all the way to Hispaniola.
     Fr. Martínez spent several days traveling south through Native American villages in search of directions, and he was well received until he reached a region under the control of Saturiba, who was partial to the Huguenots. Near Mount Cornelia he waited for his crew (who had gone ashore) but was surrounded by about thirty Native Americans who pulled him from the boat, dragged him ashore, and beat him to death.
     His death is recounted in three early narratives. He has long been regarded as the proto- Jesuit martyr of the Americas.

:February 4, 1571:
5) Father Luis Francisco de Quirós, S.J. (Jérez de la Frontera, Andalucia)
6) Brother Gabriel de Solís, S.J.
7) Brother Juan Bautista Méndez, S.J. (February 5, 1571, acc. to Cabrera)
:February 9 or 10, 1571:
8) Father Juan Bautista de Segura, S.J. (Toledo)
9) Brother Pedro de Linares, S.J. (Valencia)
10) Brother Sancho Cevallos (Zeballos), S.J. (Granada)
11) Brother Gabriel Gómez, S.J. (Granada)
12) Brother Cristóbal Redondo, S.J.

     These eight Jesuit missionaries were killed in February 1571 in present-day Virginia, which at the time was claimed by the Spanish and was part of La Florida. The site of their killings is approximated to be in the wilderness of the lower Virginia peninsula, in the vicinity of Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown, an area that was the scene of numerous foundational events in United States history. Yet more than four decades prior to the establishment of English settlements in this region, Pedro Menéndez Avilés, the founder of the city of St. Augustine, had hoped to make this area the center of Spanish activity in La Florida.
     Fr. Juan Bautista de Segura was born in 1529 in Toledo. He entered the Jesuits in Madrid on April 19, 1556, after having completed studies in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew at Alcalá (for which he was awarded an M.A.) as well as theology. He was ordained a priest in Valladolid in 1557. He held numerous posts in Spain, culminating in Vice-Rector at Salamanca and Rector at Valladolid, before he was chosen in June 1567 to serve as superior of the second band of Jesuits departing for Florida.
     Fr. Luis de Quirós was born in Jerez de la Frontera. The date of his entry into the Society of Jesus is not certain, but in 1562 he was serving in the newly-opened Jesuit College in Trigueros (Huelva), in 1567 he was serving as the Rector of the Jesuit community in their newly opened College of Marchena (Seville), and the following year he was superior of a college in Albaicín (Granada).
Few details are known about the remaining six Jesuits. Gabriel Gómez was born in
Granada and entered the Jesuits in 1568. He was known as a skilled teacher, and he taught grammar in Seville after his entrance into the Jesuits. Sancho Cevallos was a teacher, and he taught in Cadiz after his entrance into the Jesuit order. Pedro Mingot Linares was a native of Valencia, but he entered the Jesuits in Rome on May 31, 1564; once in Florida, he taught catechism for a time in Santa Elena. Cristóbal Redondo, Gabriel de Solís (a relative of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés), and Juan Baptista Méndez were lay catechists who apparently were received into the Jesuit order as novices by Fr. Segura during their final mission to Virginia.
     Frustrated by the slow progress of evangelization in and around the Spanish forts that ringed the peninsula of Florida, in the summer of 1570 Fr. Segura opted to undertake a mission far to the north to a region known as Ajacán. Apart from the long-standing Spanish interest in this region, Fr. Segura was attracted to this location by an Indian named Paquiquineo, a native of Ajacán, who had received baptism while in Mexico City and had taken the name (Don) Luis and was now offering to assist the Spanish in the conversion of his tribe. The eight Jesuits, accompanied by a young altar-server named Alonso Olmos, the son of settlers of Santa Elena, arrived in Ajacán in early September 1570. Paquiquineo/Don Luis only remained with the Jesuits for a few days; he soon returned to live with his former tribe. He rejected more than one entreaty by the Jesuits, and five months later he and some companions attacked the Jesuits on
two separate occasions, killing them all. Only Alonso survived.
     The best account of their murders comes from an August 28, 1572 letter written by Fr. Juan Rogel, S.J. on board a ship in Ajacán, after Alonso, the lone survivor, had been rescued. But several other early narratives survive. These eight Jesuits have enjoyed a continuous reputation for martyrdom from an early date.
 

:February 14, 1647:
13, 14, 15) three Franciscan friars
16) Lt. Gov. Claudio Luis de Florencia (b. 1597)
17) Juana de Leiva y Arteaga (wife of Lt. Gov., b. 1598)
18) Antonia (teen daughter of Florencias, b. 1632)
19) Maria (married daughter of Florencias, b. 1628)
20) unborn child of Maria
21) young son of Maria

     At least as early as 1607 it was reported that several villages in Apalachee were requesting friars, but it was not until 1633 that the Spanish established a permanent missionary presence there. Initial reports indicated widespread conversions to Christianity. By 1647 eight native chiefs (out of more than forty) had converted to Christianity and had permitted the establishment of doctrinas in their villages. At this time, eight friars were living in Apalachee. But in early 1647 this region was the scene of a brutal uprising.
     The planned revolt instigated by non-Christian natives began on the evening of February 14 in the newly-established mission of San Antonio de Bacuqua, where a large crowd, including the Florencia family who had come from San Luis, had assembled in order to celebrate the following day’s feast of the translation of the relics of St. Anthony (Feb. 15). Five friars managed to escape with the help of Christian natives; six Spanish soldiers also survived because they were at Governor Ruíz’s wheat farm at the time. But three friars were killed, as were the Lieutenant Governor and several members of his family. Seven of the eight churches in the region were burned.
     Regrettably, the names of the friars killed have not survived. The members of the Florencia family that were killed were Ensign Claudio Luís de Florencia (b. 1597), who had been appointed Lieutenant Governor of Apalachee in April 1645, his wife Juana de Leiva y Arteaga (baptized January 7, 1598), their daughters Antonia (b. 1632) and Maria (b. 1628), and Maria’s young son and unborn child. Maria’s young son died in the arms of a friar, and her unborn child was brutally cut from her womb and killed.
     Antonia was particularly courageous and demonstrative in her testimony of faith: in retaliation for her proclamation of the “Law of God,” she was tied to a pillar of the bell tower of the church and her breasts and tongue were cut off. The bodies of the slain were tossed into a lake; they were found and removed once the rebellion had been put down.

:October 29, 1696:
22) Fray Luis Sánchez, O.F.M. (Havana, born in 1668)
23) sacristan (native of Jororo Province)
24) young Indian cacique (altar server, from Aypaja)

     Fr. Luis Sánchez, a native of Havana, was killed on October 29, 1696 in Jororo Province, which is located in central Florida, south of Orlando. Also killed with him were a sacristan and a young Indian chief from Aypaja. Evidence of this event comes not only from Spanish sources but also from the journal of Jonathan Dickinson, a Quaker merchant who was shipwrecked off Jupiter Inlet on September 23, 1696. As Dickinson reports: “The Cassekey of that town they gained on to embrace the Romish faith, but his people were much incensed against the friars, and therefore would have their Cassekey renounce his faith, and put the friars to death, but he would assent to neither; therefore they killed him and one friar, the other two escaped.”
     The fama of Fr. Sanchez is particularly strong among those of Cuban heritage. Notably, he is venerated at the Santuario Nacional de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad in Miami, Florida, where his image is found on a large mural which, painted by the Cuban artist Teok Carrasco, dates from 1977.

:January 26, 1704:
25) Antonio Inija (Apalachee)
26) Cui Domingo (Apalachee)
27) Cuipa Feliciano (Apalachee)
28) Fray Juan de Parga Araujo, O.F.M. (Province of Santiago, Galicia)

     Antonio Inija, Cuipa Feliciano, Cui Domingo, and Fray Juan Parga Araujo were martyred in the aftermath of the English and Creek attack on the Ayubale mission in January 1704. Antonio was Inija of the mission of San Luis de Talimali, the largest Apalachee mission in La Florida. As such, he was second only to the cacique in authority over the village of many Christian natives, including Cuipa Feliciano, a principal at the mission, and Cui Domingo.
     On January 25, 1704, the English from the Carolinas led an attack on the mission village of La Concepcion de Ayubale. San Luis was located in modern-day Tallahassee; Ayubale was approximately 30 miles east in modern-day Jefferson County.
     A group of Spanish soldiers and Apalachee natives, including Antonio Inija, Cuipa Feliciano, and Cui Domingo, left the larger mission of San Luis to aid the embattled villagers of Ayubale. The San Luis men rested off El Camino Real at the mission of San Pedro y Pablo de Patale, located about halfway between the missions of San Luis and Ayubale.
     Fray Juan Parga Araujo was the priest and teacher at the Patale mission. He was a Franciscan, from the Province of Santiago in Galicia, and had served in the Florida missions for ten years. Fr. Parga was known as a preacher of great zeal. Fluent in the Apalachee language, he was remembered for his fruitful sermons.
     The Galician friar encouraged the San Luis men, administering the sacraments and preaching in the Apalachee tongue in a sermon that was over an hour long. Fr. Parga anticipated the martyrdom that was to come, telling them “today will be a day of great glory” and that they would be offering their lives “defending the law of God in their land.”
     Despite multiple attempts to dissuade him, Fr. Parga insisted on accompanying the force to Ayubale for their encouragement, saying, “I must go and die with my children.”
     On January 26, the expedition met the larger English and Creek force at Ayubale and were defeated. On the road near Ayubale, Fr. Parga was killed, his severed head brought to the council house. His body was found in a canebrake and was later buried at the nearby mission of Ivitachuco at the request of Fray Juan de Villalva, the priest there.
     Antonio Inija, Cuipa Feliciano, and Cui Domingo were among those captured. Their English and Creek captors tied them to stakes and lit fires at their feet. Despite the torture, these Catholic natives encouraged each other in the faith and evangelized to their tormentors until their deaths.
     Cuipa Feliciano preached throughout, telling his captors that while his body would die his soul would go to enjoy God eternally. Cui Domingo was slashed with knives and had burning splinters poked into his wounds, “but nothing of this could prevent him from preaching until he died.” After suffering torture from dawn until dusk, Antonio Inija received a great gift: the Blessed Mother appeared to him. Antonio declared that it was the Most Holy Virgin who was helping him to courageously endure the martyrdom.
     Antonio Inija’s and his native companion’s extraordinary faith and holy death on a poor Florida mission caught the attention and admiration of the Pope and the Spanish King.
     “The cruelty and inhumanity inflicted on those Indians is deeply moving, and it is
distressing to my Royal Clemency, but I am greatly comforted to learn that some natives who
had so recently converted persevered to such a degree that they died and sacrificed their lives
for our holy religion.” -King Philip V 
     “…as to the report the commission requested an account be given of everything…so it
serves as testimony and this deed, so commendable and worthy of eternal memory, doesn’t slip
into oblivion.” – Duke of Uzeda (for Pope Clement XI) August 22, 1704

:June 23, 1704:
29) Fray Manuel de Mendoza, O.F.M. (Medina de Rioseco)
30) Sacristan
31-32) native two-year old child and native woman of Patale

     Fray Manuel de Mendoza was born the youngest of eight children in the Castilian town Medina de Rioseco and was baptized in Iglesia de Santa Maria. In 1678, the 32-year-old Franciscan left Spain, where he had been a soldier and a teacher, and sailed to Florida with Fray Alonso de Moral.
     Fr. Mendoza went on to serve 26 years in the Florida missions. He was known for his generosity to the poor, and he gave the stipend provided by the crown for his own maintenance to the poor native and Spanish people.
     After the martyrdom of Fr. Parga, Fr. Mendoza stepped in to serve the people of the Patale mission. The time following the January assault on Ayubale saw more English and Creek raids on the Apalachee missions, which killed or enslaved thousands.
     After celebrating the vigil Mass for the feast of St. John the Baptist on June 23, 1704, Fr. Mendoza was lured out of his convent at Patale, shot, and burned. Fr. Mendoza’s sacristan was also killed, and the convent was burned.
     The Spanish deputy Governor of Apalachee, Manuel Solana, was unable to find Fr. Mendoza among the devastation at Patale and assumed he had been taken captive. Solana led a group of Spanish and Apalachee in a pursuit of the assailants in hopes of rescuing Fr. Mendoza.
     They returned, unable to catch up to the fleeing marauders. While in pursuit they found the body of a native two-year old child, slashed and cut into pieces, and, separately, an Apalachee woman, dying beside a pond with holes in her head. She informed them that since she could not walk, she had been wounded and left for dead. She lived to be carried to San Luis, where she received absolution.
     As the Apalachee woman had informed them Fr. Mendoza was not with the captives, Manuel Solana subsequently ordered digging under the convent of Patale. There they uncovered the burnt body of Fr. Mendoza, which was identified by the crucifix he always wore, then half-melted.
 

:July 4, 1704:
33) Baltasar Francisco (Los Silos, Island of Teneriffe, Canary Islands)
34) Don Pedro Marmolejo (soldier of Presidio Santa María de Galve),
35–49) 15 Apalachee Indians

     On July 4, 1704, Manuel Solana led the Spanish and Apalachee from Mission San Luis in an attempt to reclaim Mission Patale. A half league west of the mission, a skirmish triggered the last battle, a decisive defeat that forced the Catholic Apalachee and Spanish from their lands.
     During the battle, most of the Apalachee from San Luis, demoralized by the months of raids and the imminent threat of torture and death from the English and Creek force, fled or joined the Creek. There were those who nevertheless remained faithful to the cause of the faith until the end.
     After the battle, the Creek and their English allies tied fifteen of these faithful Apalachee men, along with two Spanish soldiers, to the Via Cruces that surrounded the plaza at Patale. They set fires at the foot of the crosses, slashed their captives, and put burning splinters in their wounds. They hung from the crosses until they died.
     The two soldiers thus martyred were Pedro Marmolejo, who was stationed in Pensacola, and Baltasar Francisco, a soldier who was with the Apalachee garrison.
     Baltasar Francisco was born in Los Silos on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. He was an old soldier who had served in Apalachee for 14 years. While the fire burned at the foot of his cross and his captors slashed him, burned him, and even cut off his ears and gouged out his eyes, Baltasar Francisco preached from the cross. As his tormentors mocked and insulted him, Baltasar “called on the Most Holy Virgin to help him, for she would carry him to God with much pleasure from knowing that he would go to enjoy his holy glory.” The native people honored bravery, even in their enemies, by placing a crown made of
bird beaks and animal hair on their heads. On July 6, when the Spanish returned to Patale to
bury the dead, they found Baltasar Francisco, hanging on a cross, with a crown upon his head.

:August of 1704:
50) Timucuan Cacique of San Pedro
51) Timucuan Cacique of San Mateo

     English-allied Indians continued to attack missions following the desolation of Apalachee. In August of 1704, the Timucuan villages of San Pedro and San Mateo were destroyed and their caciques burned.

:September 3, 1705:
52) Fray Agustín Ponce de León, O.F.M. (St. Augustine)

     Fray Agustín Ponce de León was born in St. Augustine, Florida and baptized on Sept. 6, 1669. He would become the first priest born in the land that is currently the United States to be martyred.
     At the beginning of September 1705 Fray Agustín Ponce de León, O.F.M., a native of St. Augustine, had gone with Capt. Joseph Begambre in pursuit of some Indians who had taken numerous prisoners—women and children—from the town over which Fr. Agustín had care.
     During a battle at dawn on September 3, Fray Agustín distinguished himself by encouraging the Spanish and Indians and administering the sacrament of penance to the wounded. Like a “good pastor he gave up his soul in defense of his sheep and the children of his doctrina” and managed to bring about the release of the majority of the prisoners.

:1705:
53) Fray Domingo Criado, O.F.M. (Province of Santiago)

     Fray Domingo Criado was a Franciscan of the Province of Santiago (Spain). In 1705, he was serving a group of Christian Indians who, to avoid the frequent attacks of the English-allied Indians, wandered from place to place through the woods. Despite the hardship and danger of this life, he remained with his people, rather than leaving for the relative safety and comfort of nearby St. Augustine. He was finally captured some ten or twelve leagues from the city. Reduced to slavery, he died after some months, according to reports from Christian Indians who escaped.

:April 1706:
54-55) Don Patricio and wife

     Don Patricio Hinachuba was the cacique of Ivitachuco and regarded during his time as the greatest of the Apalachee chiefs. In 1699, he wrote a letter in Spanish to the king on behalf of his people, detailing wrongs done to them by the Spanish, including the difficulty attending Mass and receiving absolution. The Spanish monarch was receptive and issued a reminder that natives should be treated with respect.
     Don Patricio and the people of Ivitachuco left their homelands in July of 1704, after the last battle for the Apalachee missions. He led them eastwards into Timucua, where they settled at Abosaya.
     In August and September of 1705, the Creek, with the encouragement of the Carolina English, resumed their raids. Don Patricio and the Apalachee were driven east again towards the Spanish settlements. The Creek continued to seek them, and ultimately, in April of 1706, killed Don Patricio, his wife, and their beloved children, just south of St. Augustine.

:August 26, 1712:
56) Fr. Phelipe Orbalaes y Abreo (order of San Juan de Dios)

     Fr. Orbalaes, a barber-surgeon of the Order of San Juan de Dios, was killed on August 26, 1712 when three hundred Creek Indians ambushed a force of forty Spanish soldiers commanded by Capt. Pedro de Bilbao within sight of the fort at Santa María de Galve. Three other soldiers were killed along with Fr. Orbalaes, and several Spaniards were captured, including Fr. Tiburcio de Osorio. Presidio Santa María de Galve was founded in 1698. It was located on the site of the present-day Naval Air Station. The hospital, known as Nuesta Señora de las Angustias (or San Juan de Dios or Santa María de Galve), was founded in 1701 by Governor Andrés de Arriola. It was located near the fort. In 1708 the hospital was relocated within the fort, and it was staffed by two priest-surgeons, Fr. Juan de Chavarria and Fr. Phelipe Orbalaes.

:August 26, 1712—July 1715:
57) Fray Tiburcio de Osorio, O.F.M. (San Cristobal de Havana)

     Tiburcio de Osorio, O.F.M., a native of Havana, was captured by the Creeks on August 26, 1712. Evidence suggests that he was taken in custody to the homeland of the (lower) Creeks, which was near the present-day town of Columbus, Georgia. He was murdered while in captivity. The date of his murder must have been before the outbreak of hostilities between the Creeks and the English (known as the Yamasee War) on April 15, 1715. About six weeks after this date, on May 28, 1715, a group of Yamasee and Creek chiefs offered their “obedience” to the Spanish in St. Augustine.
     The fama of Fr. Tiburcio, like that of Fr. Luis Sanchez, is particularly strong among those of Cuban heritage. He too is venerated at the Santuario Nacional de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad in Miami, Florida, and his image is on the 1977 mural by Cuban artist Teok Carrasco.