Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

by Camilla Townsend

So it was that the young Algonkian-speaking Indian from the Chesapeake was privy to all the protests that the Nahuas of Mexico City launched in 1564, as well as to all the agonies they suffered. He saw the violence and heard all the plans to try to get the Spanish overlords to change their minds, but it all came to nothing. In early 1566, a direct order arrived from the king to send Paquiquineo to Cuba where he was needed to help launch an expedition to his homeland, and he finally left Mexico. It would end up taking four more years before he at last made landfall in the Chesapeake region near his home village, in the company of a Jesuit mission.56 There, above the James River in Virginia, he was welcomed by his people. Not long after the ships that had brought the settlers left, he arranged to have all the Spaniards present killed, except for one young boy, who later told the story. The Spaniards concluded that if even a beloved protégé could do such a thing, then the northern Indians must be inherently barbaric; they steered clear of the northern lands for a long time afterward and allowed the English to gain a foothold at the place they called Jamestown. But perhaps Paquiquineo had simply learned something very important from his years among the Mexica: namely, the futility of rebellion once Europeans had gained a secure foothold.