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History is a human journey shaped by the diverse experiences of people. The People of the Past collection provides teachers with curated biographical essays leveled to elementary and secondary readers, educational videos and relevant primary sources. Bring the past to life in your classroom through the lens of those who lived it.
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Paquiquineo - The 16th-Century Boy from Ajacán
In 1561, a Spanish ship, the Santa Catalina, entered the Chesapeake Bay (which the Spanish called the Bahia de Santa Maria) while resupplying ports and exploring along the Atlantic coast. For nearly half a century, Spain had attempted to enforce its North American claims by settling the coast of the vast territory it called La Florida. Along the coastline of modern-day Virginia, the crew of the Santa Catalina encountered two young Virginia Indians and took them aboard. Whether they joined willingly or were seized remains uncertain and debated by historians.
Spanish officials quickly came to believe that one of the young men, Paquiquineo, was a person of importance and that his homeland, which they called Ajacán, might hold considerable wealth. Their hopes were shaped by the long circulating “Chicora” legend, a tale that had convinced explorers for decades that the Chesapeake region contained rich resources and possibly a northwest passage to the Pacific Ocean. Paquiquineo arrived in Seville, Spain in September 1561. Spanish records not only
documented his name but also revealed an expense report that authorized the purchase of fine clothing appropriate for someone of high status. He was presented to King Philip II in the new capital of Madrid and spent the winter in Spain while plans formed to send him back as a guide for a Dominican mission to Ajacán.
The plan collapsed almost immediately. During a stop in New Spain (the territory Spain claimed in the Americas) in 1562, Paquiquineo and his young companion fell gravely ill. While the companion disappeared from the historical record during this time, Paquiquineo was baptized and took the name Don Luis de Velasco, after the Viceroy of New Spain. The mission to Ajacán stalled, years passed, and when a new attempt was made in 1566, storms drove the expedition back to Spain where Don Luis remained for several more years.
In 1570, almost a decade after he was taken, Don Luis finally returned to the Chesapeake as the translator and intermediary for a small Jesuit mission led by Father Juan Bautista de Segura. Segura and the Jesuit priests intended to establish a peaceful, non-military outpost among the Algonquian-speaking peoples in Don Luis’ homeland as a means to convert them to their faith. The Jesuits built a modest settlement likely somewhere between the James and York Rivers.
Shortly after arriving, Don Luis abandoned the mission to rejoin his community, and relations with the missionaries deteriorated. In the winter of 1571, when three Jesuits traveled to trade for corn and speak with him, Don Luis and a group of warriors killed them and returned to put the remaining missionaries to death, sparing only a young boy, Alonso de Olmos.
When a Spanish relief ship returned to Ajacán bringing supplies, the crew found the Jesuit mission completely deserted. Fearing the priests had been killed, the Spanish governor of La Florida ordered a military expedition in August 1572. When soldiers arrived, they encountered Indigenous men wearing the missionaries’ clothing and items. The Spanish seized and hanged 20 Indigenous men and recovered the lone young survivor of the mission, Alonso de Olmos. They never found Don Luis and Spain ultimately abandoned the Chesapeake entirely.
The experience left its mark. Virginia Indians held memories, stories, and warnings about European intentions that would undoubtedly impact their view of the English colonists who arrived decades later to establish Jamestown in 1607. Had the Ajacán mission endured, Spain, not England, might have founded the first lasting European colony in the region decades earlier, dramatically reshaping the trajectory of early American history.
Classroom Resources
Paquiquineo_Don Luis_Secondary Reader & Questions
Paquiquineo_Don Luis_Elementary Reader & Questions
Primary Source_Letter from Quiros_1570
Primary Source_Letter from Rogel 1572
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This resource is funded in part by a grant from the
Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program.