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Pedro Menendez died just after baptizing the chief of Guale

Source: Situado and Sabana #82

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According to treasury official Bartolome Martinez, who many years later offered a written testimony about the early missions, Fray Diego Moreno, a famous preacher, Fray Juan Codero, and Fray Juan went to visit Guale and Tolomato in 1575. At the time, explained Martinez, the mica of Tolomato, who was the supreme ruler and who had his seat on the mainland, was old and feeble, and his son-in-law the cacique of Guale, "the next in importance," was the actual ruler (Martinez, 1610).

Indoctrination proceeded rapidly. The priests of Saint Francis found that by "just touching a little bell" they could draw "a great crowd of men, women and children." They converted the cacique of Guale and his wife and baptized them in Santa Elena, with Lieutenant Governor Diego de Velasco and his wife as benevolent sponsors. Martinez had no illusions about the Guales' motives.

The chief was named Don Diego de Valdez [sic] after the General, and his wife was named Dona Maria Menendez after the General's wife, Governor Pedro Menendez's daughter. These were their godparents and paid for the greater part if not all of the presents which the illustrious gentlemen gave the Indians that they might become Christians (Martinez, 1610).

Just days before the rejoicing that marked this occasion, Pedro Menendez died of a sudden illness at the shipyards of Santander (Velasco, 1575). The pious reader would not fail to connect the new conversions with the Adelantado's removal to heaven to plead in person for the souls in Florida.
(Bushnell SS)