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EIGHT THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA DECEMBER 11, 1954. C^atlio lies +3n Cji eorcjici By RICHARD REID, K. S. G. (Copyright 1954) Like other expeditions and colonists, the Spanish were seek ing wealth in the New World. But the missionary, who went side by side with the explorer, was at least as zealous in his quest for souls as the soldier was for riches. Pope Leo X es tablished the Diocese of Cuba in 1518, giving it ecclesiastical jurisdiction also over the North American continent. Baracoa was the first See City; Pope Adrian VI made Santiago de Cunba the center of the Diocese. St. Francis Borgia, companion of St. Ignat ius, as was General of the Soci ety of Jesus when Menendez went to Florida. Menendez, with the support of King Philip, asked St. Francis Borgia for missionaries; he hop ed for as many as twenty-four. Only three could be spared, Fath er Pedro Martinez, nephew of a regent of the king, Father Juan Rogel, a former physician, and Brother Francisco de Villareal, formerly clerk in the Royal Court at Granada who, out of humility, insisted on being a lay Brother instead of a candidate for the priesthood. The missionaries sailed on a Flemish ship July 28, 1566. They ran into one of the dreaded Sep tember hurricailes in the South Atlantic. Their ship and others in the flotilla were in danger of j being wrecked; the captain lost j his bearings. Finally on Septem- j ber 14 land was sighted; it was ; the coast of Georgia. Father Mar-i tinez, two Spanish soldiers and I six Flemings landed in a small; boat. The Roll of Martyrs Grows A storm blew the ship out to j sea; the little group waited j twelve days, but it did not re-! turn. They started south in the ! hope of reaching St. Augustine; friendly Indians gave them food and directions. On September 28 they reached what some authori ties believe was Cumberland, Is land, off the Georgia coast, but which others maintain was Northern Florida. A band of 40 Indians attacked them; while Father Martinez knelt in prayer, an Indian crushed his skull, giv ing the territory of the thirteen original colonies its first martyr. Three Flemings were also killed; the others escaped, and were eventually rescued by a searching party from St. Augustine. When Menendez returned to j Spain, he renewed his plea to; St. Francis Borgia, who was then ] able to assign three Jesuit! preists and seven Brothers as! missionaries; they sailed on Palm j Sunday, 1568. Father Juan Bau-j tista Segura, former rector at ] Valladolid, was superior. Accom panying them as interpreter was an Indian, Don Luis de Velasco, j brought to Spain from the Vir ginia region in 1561. The Span ish -settlements were growing; St. Augustine had a civilian population of over 600. St. Elena in South Carolina was about to j receive 273 new settlers and San | Felipe nearby 193. But the Jesuits ] wished to push on and to preach; to the Indians in Luis’s tribe, j Father Sogura, Father Luis de Quiros and six Brother. Cabriel de Solis, Juan Bautista Mondez | #nd Sancho Zeballos, Pedro La- nares, Gabriel Gonez and Cristo bal Redondo, sailed out of Santa Elena August 5, 1570. They ap pear to have reached Chesapeake Bay; they then made their way to the Potomac. Virginia's Martyrs The Indians gave Luis a hear ty welcome and received the Jesuits kindly. But the glowing description Luis has given of the country proved not to be found ed on fact. There was no corn; the missionaries had to live on ber ries "and herbs. Father Segura on September 12 sent a boat to Santa Elena for provisions; when it did not return, he prepared to sepnd the winter on the Rappahanock. As winter went on, Father Segu ra sent Luis on a tour of recon naissance. When he did not re turn in a fortnight, Father Quires and Brothers Soils and Mondez were sent to locate him. When they found him he gave plausible reasons for his delay. Then he suddenly turned on them, led the Indians in an attack, and struck them down with barbarous ferocity. Virginia had its first martyrs. The date was February 14, 1571. Four days later Luis and his murderous band sought out Fath er Segura and his companions. He was wearing Father Quiros’ cassock, which gave the Jesuits the first intimation of the fate of their brother . missionaries. They knelt before the altar to await the coming of their executioners. In a matter of minutes they were added to the growing list of American martyrs. They were Father Segura and Brothers Cris tobal Redondo, Sancho Zeballos, Gebriel Gomez: and Pedro Linares. The Indians spared only Alonso Olmos, altar boy for the priests; from him a rescue party learned the details of the tragedy. Shortly after, the Jesuits withdrew for work in Mexico and Cuba, where their flourishing schools were undermanned. But three hudred years later, a brief period in the life of the Church, they returned to the Southeast, establishing a parish in Augusta, Ga. Long _be- fore that they were laboring a- gain in Louisiana and Alabama. The Coming of the Franciscans The Jesuits were succeeded by the Franciscans, the first of whom came in 1573, supplemented in 1577 by the renowned Father Alonso de Reynosa. These were troubled times, the restrictions the Spanish military imposed on the Indians, and the discontent of the natives accentuated by agi tation by the French stirred three uprisings between 1573 and 1577; fifty-seven Spanish and a greater number of Indians lost their lives. Franciscans persisted; w h e.n Father Reynosa went to Spain in 1583, he returned with eight more friars. When Francis Drake bat tered St. Augustine and threat ened the entire coast in 1586, the Santa Elena garrison withdrew to Georgia, but the setback was tem porary. Eleven more Franciscans came to the Southeast in 1593, under the leadership of Father Juan de Silva. On Georgia’s Cumberland Island alone there were 500 con vents; the Indiana asked for more missionaries. There were flour ishing missions on Jekyl Island, St. Simon’s Island and at several other points. In Florida twelve leagues north of St. Augustine, at Nombre de Dios, there were 1,500 Christian Indians. They learned their prayers in Latin as well as in their own tongue. The Indian Revolt Then came stark tragedy. Fath er Pedro Corpa reproved a young j chief at Tolomato, near today’s | Darien, because although pro- j fessing to be a Christian he re fused to have but one wife. He ! killed and beheaded Father Corps ! and three days later, on Steptem- | ber 16, 1597, he and his inflamed j followers murdered Father Bias i Rodriguez at Turpique on Sapelo | Island. Father Miguel de Aunon | and Brother Antonio de Badajoz j were their victims the day follow- | ing. At Jekyl Island they tried to kill Father Francisco Davila with arrows: finding that he still lived, they sold him to infidel Indians as a slave. They then went in ninety canoes to San Pedro on Cumberland Island, where they urged the local chief to join them. Instead he repelled them and smashed the rebellion. The guilty Indians sullenly awaited their punishment. Some Spanish officials advocated the exb’fme penalty. But Father Da vila. rescued from slavery, would not. testify against the culprits. The-surviving missionaries plead- . ed for leniency for them. Finally one Indian, guilty of the most barbarous cruelty, was condemn- ; ed to die. All the chiefs but the one who had led the murderes : sent delegations to St. Augustine ! to the Governor to beg forgive ness Supported by the pleas of the missionaries, clemency was extended to them. Missionary Effort Renewed The Franciscan^ renewed their efforts with even greater zeal. : Governor Conzalo Mondez Canzo ! in 1602 and Governor Pedro Ibar- | ra in 1604 toured the Georgia and South Carolina settlements and ; strengthened the friendship of | the Indians. So flourishing were | the Georgia missions that it was I even sugested that the St. Au gustine settlement be transferred to Sapelo, near Brunswick, or St. Catherine’s Island, near Sav annah. The missionaries wished their converts confirmed and made a request for the administration of the Sacrament as early as 1597. The petition had to be approved by the Crown; this took five years. It took three more years for the leisurely colonial ad ministration to convey the re quest to Bishop Juan de las Ca- bezas Altamirano of Santiago de Cuba, whose jurisdiction extend ed over Cuba, Jamaica and Flo rida — which meant the North American continent. The Bishop and his party nego tiated the pirate-ridden Carib bean without incident and arrived in St. Augustine for the Holy Week of 1606. Here Holy Orders were conferred on 20 candidates, some of whom had come with him from Cuba; the others had made their studies in the Fran ciscan monastery at St. August ine. On Easter Sunday 350 men, women and chldren were con firmed. The Sunday folowing at Nombre de Dios, the sacrament was administered to Donna Ma ria, said to be the ruler of 3,000 Indians; also confirmed were her two chilldren, 20 Spanish who lived in the settlement, and 193 Indians. The Firsl Bishop In Georgia On April 11, Bishop Altamirano started the first episcopal visi tation ever made'within the con fines of the present territory of the Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta, and indeed the first in North A- merica. On April 13 and 14 he confirmed 308 persons, including four chiefs, on Cumberland Is land, at San Pedro, where Father Juan Bautista Capilla was pastor. He was delayed by the weather; on April 22 he reached Talaxe, on the mainland, just beyond the forks of the Altamaha and the South Altamaha, the mission of Father Diego Delgado. There were 262 Indians in this confir mation class. At Tolmato, where Father Copra had been killed nine years beforb, the chief and 207 of his braves became Soldiers of Christ; this also was a mission of Father Dolgado. At St. Catherine’s Island, the northern limit of the Bishop’s visit, 286 confirmed on April 30. On his way back he administered the sacrament to a number of Indians who had missed the op portunity when he was on his way up. There were similar cere monies at San Juan del Puerto, at the mouth of the St. John’s in Florida, and its several missions. Bishop Altamirano reached St. Augustine May 12 and remained there over a month. Dr. John Tate Lanning of the University of North Carolina in his “Spanish Missions of Georgia” states that the Bishop confirmed 2,074 In dians and 370 whites on this trip, of whom 1,652 received the sacrament in what is now Geor gia and the Dioeosc of Savannah- j Atlanta, li: addition, some of the j 482 confirmed on the St. Jpan | missions fn Northern Florida j were Georgia Indians. Golden Age of the Missions This was the golden age of the j Spanish missions of the South- ! east: The! church a> San Pedro | was as large as tnat at St. Au- | gustine. It: cost about a thousand dollars to equip and send a priest ; to the mission, but twenty-three more Franciscans arrived in 1613, ! twelve -in 1615.. sixteen in 1630 | and twenty-nine in. 1658. In ad dition, the secular clergy render- | ed heroic service, especially in ! the St. Augustine area. But there were grave difficul ties: The priests labored in pov erty. Horses which would have tended t^eir efforts immeasurab ly were Scarce. The missionaries battled Jteease;; an epidemic, in 1617 is jielieved to have killed half the jhdians, Yet the Francis cans not; only labored along the coast fcpt penetrated inland, working t among , the Appalache around Tallahassee and in South Georgia, sifn 1647 three missiona ries werf; killed in this area, and in 1655 there was; an uprising of the Appalache and the Timucuan tribes against an exacting gov ernor. But in 1656 .there were six Franciscans serving nine missions in the Apalache territory, with 5.000 Christians among the 16,000 Indians. It is estimated that at this time,there were in the South east, mdst of them in Georgia, 26.000 Christian Indians, served by 70 friars and five clerics. New Danger In The Spanish .No loiiger were the French a threat to the Spanish in this re gion, but a greater danger loom ed. The English settled James town in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620; by: 1670 they had establish ed themselves in Charleston. From Charleston they made ex cursions into the Spanish terri tory, as far as the Chattahoochee on the -Alabama border, sup plying weapons to the Indians and stirring them up against the Spanish. JEn 1703 Governor James Moore invaded the area, attack ed and burned St. Augustine, but failed in an assault on the fort. Later in the year, at the head of 50 English soldiers and a thou sand Indians, he launched a war against the Apalache, who were loyal to the Spanish. He destroy-, ed 13 of their villages with their missions, and carried hundreds of natives back to Carolina; es timates run as high as 1,400. Many were sold as slaves. Beginning of the End This was the beginning of the end of the Spanish in Georgia. If the missions were paralyzed by the invasion, so were the In dians. The English determined on a buffer colony between Caro lina and the Atamaha River; General James Oglethorpe was assigned the territory in that lat itude from the Atlantic to the ing a considerable area of Califor nia in the new colony of Georgia. Savannah was settled in 1733 and Augusta in 1735. London for bade the settlers to go south of the Altamaha, but the orders were ignored. There were numer ous skirmishes between the English and the Spanish; the most important was the Battle of Bloods' Marsh, near Brunswick, in June, 1742. The peace of Aix- la-Chapelle left the position of the Spanish and the English un changed; London again warned her colonists to respect the Alta maha as the boundary of the Spanish holdings. Spain still was recognized as the ruler of half of today’s Georgia. The fate of those holdings, however, were being determined —not in Georgia but in the chan ceries of Europe. France and England soon became involved in another of their interminable wars. The French offered King Ferdinand VI of Spain the island of Minorca if he would join in the battle against the English; the English promised him Gibraltar if he would war on the French. He maintained a policy of neut rality. His brother, Charles III, King of Naples, ' who succeeded to the Spanish throne when Fer dinand died in 1759, ended that neutrality by an alliance with France. Victorious England dic tated the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1763; by then Spain was deprived of the last of her posses sions in the Southeast. It was the finale of. the Spanish phase of Georgia "history, and of all Spanish connection with the. Southeast except for her return to Florida from 1783 to 1821. If Charles III had supported Eng land instead of France in 1759, the subsequent history of that region from the Altamaha to Key West might have been as Span ish as that of New Mexico and the Rio Grande area of Texas. (Chapter three entitled “Colonial And Revolutionary Georgia” will appear in our Dec. 25th issue). MONASTERY FOR ATLANTA ATLANTA, Ga. — A $2,500,000 Catholic Monastery and parochial school for the training of Negro children is in the planning stage for Atlanta. The monastery will be built by the Passionist Fathers of St. Michael’s Monastery, Union City, N. J., with the proposed sight a '40 acre tract at Collier drive and Harwell road, Southwest. Current plans are to have the parochial school complete in time for it to open next September.