RICHMOND, Virginia - Eight Spanish Jesuits who sailed up the Virginia's James River in 1570 to convert American Indians to Catholicism and were killed by Indians are being promoted for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond.
Bishop Walter Sullivan on Friday announced the formation of a tribunal that will campaign the Vatican to recognize the Jesuits as martyrs and saints.
In 1570, Father Baptista de Segura was determined to evangelize Virginia's Indians not by the sword, but by proselytizing and teaching them to farm, according to the diocese, the Virginia Historical Society and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
The Rev. Gerald P. Fogarty, a Jesuit who teaches U.S. Catholic history at the University of Virginia, said Segura's expedition started from the Florida coast in August 1570. Unlike most missionary expeditions, Segura's group refused a military escort.
Accompanying Segura were another Jesuit priest, Father Luis de Quiros, and three Jesuit monks — Brother Gabriel Gomez, Brother Sancho Zeballos and Brother Pedro Linares. There were also three novices: Gabriel de Solis, Juan Bautista Mendez and Cristobal Redondo.
The group was guided by Don Luis de Velasco, a Virginia Indian captured by Europeans about 10 years earlier who had been baptized and was taught Spanish so he could serve as an interpreter.
The Jesuits arrived at the Chesapeake Bay in September 1570, then continued about 40 miles (64 kilometers) up the James River to what is now College Creek. The missionaries then traveled by land to a settlement off the York River, which was more accessible to supply ships.
De Velasco soon quit the Jesuits' mission to live with the Indians. The estrangement grew deeper as the Jesuits reprimanded him twice. Finally, in two separate attacks in February 1571, de Velasco led the killing of the missionaries, according to the accounts.
The only person spared from the group was Alonso de Olmos, a young boy and non-Jesuit whose father was a Spanish settler in Florida. Friendly Indians sheltered him until a Spanish ship picked him up in 1572.
The fact that the Indians didn't kill the only non-Jesuit in the group indicates the Jesuits were slain because of their religion, according to Catholic scholars.