That missionary had become discouraged and disheartened. All his labors and those of his associate missionaries among the Calos Indians, on the southern coast of Florida, had proved utterly unavailing. No impression could be made on the flinty hearts of those treacherous and cruel tribes, which, indeed, to the end resisted the calls of divine grace. The labors of the Jesuit missionaries on the coast of South Carolina were scarcely more encouraging. The attempts to civilize and convert found hearers only as long as food and presents were given.
Father Segura resolved for a time to abandon the unpromising field, and turn all their energies to an Indian school at Havana, where children from the Florida tribes could be carefully instructed, so as to form a nucleus for future Christian bands in their native tribes. But the voice of S. Francis recalled him to sterner labors, and he resolved to go in person to the new field opened to them in Axacan, where the influence of Don Luis and the character of the tribes seemed to promise more consoling results. He accordingly directed the experienced Father Rogel to remain at Santa Elena in charge of the missions there, and selected eight associates for his new mission. These were Father Luis de Quiros, Brothers Gabriel Gomez and Sancho Zevallos, already mentioned, with Brother Peter de Linares and John Baptist Mendez, Christopher Redondo, and Gabriel de Solis, who with Alphonsus, destined to be the sole survivor, seem to have been four Indian boys from their school at Havana, and regarded as novices, trained already to mission work as catechists. Such was the missionary party that was to plant the cross in Axacan and open the way for Christianity to China by a new route.
With the influence and support of Don Luis they would need no Spanish aid; and as experience had shown them that soldiers were sometimes a detriment to the mission they were intended to protect, these devoted missionaries determined to trust themselves entirely, alone and unprotected, in the hands of the Indians.
On his side Don Luis made every promise as to the security of the persons of the missionaries confided to his care by the adelantado of Florida. “They shall lack nothing,” he declared. “I will always be at hand to aid them.”
On the 5th of August, 1570, this little mission colony sailed from Santa Elena, and in that enervating heat must have crept slowly enough along the coast and up the Chesapeake; [pg 851] for it was not till the 10th of September that they reached the country of Don Luis, which is styled in Spanish accounts Axacan or Jacan.
Where was the spot termed “La Madre de Dios de Jacan”?—Our Lady of Axacan (or, as we should write it, Ahacan or Hacan). Precisely where no map or document has yet been found to show. It was evidently near the Susquehanna (Salado) or the Potomac (Espiritu Santo), the two rivers at the head of the bay known to Melendez, and by which he hoped to reach China. That it could not have been the Susquehanna seems clear from the fact that, being to the eastward, it would not naturally be the shortest route; and, moreover, that river was in those days, and till far in the ensuing century, held by a warlike tribe of Huron origin, living in palisaded towns, while the tribe of Don Luis, who dwelt at Axacan, were evidently nomads of the Algonquin race.
We are therefore led to look for it on the Potomac, the Espiritu Santo of the early Spanish navigators. The vessel that bore the devoted Vice-Provincial Father Segura and two other Spanish vessels some time afterwards ascended this river for a considerable distance to a point whence they proceeded to the country of Don Luis, which, as letters show, lay on a river six miles off, and which they might have reached directly by ascending that river, though it was always passed by the pilots, being regarded, apparently, as less navigable and safe. The Rappahannock at once suggests itself as answering the conditions required to explain the Spanish accounts.
On the Potomac there is to this day a spot called Occoquan, which is near enough to the Spanish Axacan to raise a suspicion of their identity. Not far below it the Potomac and Rappahannock, in their sinuous windings, approach so closely as to increase the resemblance to the country described.
The land that met the eyes of the missionary pioneers in the wilderness of Virginia was not one to raise fond hopes or sustain delusions. A long sterility had visited Florida and extended even to the Chesapeake. Its effects were even more striking. Of all that the descriptions of Don Luis had prepared them to find in Axacan there was absolutely nothing to be seen. Just come from Florida and its vicinity, with its rich, luxuriant vegetation, with fruits of spontaneous growth, they beheld a less favored land, bare and parched with a six years' sterility, with the starving remnants of decimated and thrice decimated tribes. The wretched inhabitants looked upon Don Luis, their countryman, as if sent from heaven, and, seeing him treated with honor, they received the Spaniards with every demonstration of goodwill, though they were so destitute that they could not offer the newcomers any fruit or maize.
With the winter fast approaching, it seemed almost madness for Father Segura and his companions to attempt to establish themselves in this unpromising land; but the previous failure of the Dominican Fathers, the almost chiding words of S. Francis Borgia, and the deep interest manifested by Melendez in the success of the attempt, apparently decided the question against all ideas of expediency or mere worldly prudence.