March 13, 1519: Saving Stranded Priest

In the long list of instructions that Hernán Cortés had received from the governor or Fernandina (Cuba) Velázquez, under whose orders he had sailed to Yucatan, was a mandate to find several Christians believed to be stranded on the coast.

That document deserves study. It instructed Cortés to treat the locals with “much kindness”, find more about Amazons and dog-faced people living in the forests, and, above all, to serve God.

The six lost Christians were mentioned several times, showing just how important it was to find them.

However, there was no trace of them on Cozumel; but the local Mayas did say that two Spaniards were living in the nearby mainland town of Chaktemal.

After an argument with the local chiefs who didn’t want to send their own men to Chaktemal for fear of their death, Cortés dispatched three ships caring over fifty Spaniards and some natives of Cozumel to fetch the lost men.

A week passed with no news, then, after a few more days, the small expedition returned empty-handed.

Cortés, restless after a long stint of inaction, ordered his fleet to depart. They sailed to Isla de Mujeres, and there began an interesting chain of delays that helped one of the stranded Christians reunite with the people of his faith.

First, one of the important ships sprung a leak. Cortés decided to return to the friendly Cozumel, where the damaged ship took a few days to get repaired.

Second, when all was ready, the wind changed, causing another day of delay.

Third, Cortés decided to hear mass before sailing off, because March 13 was a Sunday and his most important dictate was to serve God.

Just after that mass, a canoe arrived from the mainland. One of the three men in it addressed the Spaniards in their native tongue, thanking God for his miraculous salvation.

The man was Gerónimo de Aguilar, a Franciscan friar shipwrecked at the Yucatan coast some eight years earlier.

Aguilar claimed that another surviving Spaniard, Gonzalo Guerrero, had decided to remain among the Maya, for he was ashamed of his tattoos and wanted to stay with his Maya wife and three children.

Whether Guerrero ever existed is unclear, although other Conquistadors later claimed to have corresponded with him and reportedly saw his body after he got killed in a skirmish with a Spanish force. There could’ve been more than one Spaniard who had decided to go native; alternatively, Aguilar may have invented a man with a conveniently common name to emphasize his own return.

In any case, Cortés got his reward for almost two weeks of waiting. Having spent that many years among the Mayas, Aguilar spoke their language. Although he had lost complete fluency in Spanish, he became a perfect interpreter for Cortés.

March 13, 1519: Saving Stranded Priest is a post from: Aztec Books