18 The Colonial and Revolutionary Periodsfaith of Catholicism. What is more, it threatened his power and dominion in the
New World, and so he ordered its elimination. Pedro Menendez de Aviles (1519–
1574), who became captain-general under Phillip II, carried out the order with
ruthless efficiency, in the process founding St. Augustine, the oldest permanent city
of European origin in the United States. While carrying out the royal command,
however, Menendez de Aviles was also pursuing his own dream, which was to settle
as large an area of the conquered territory as possible. Menendez de Aviles
overstretched himself; and, in a series of increasingly desperate letters, he wrote back
to those with the resources, including Phillip II himself, begging for help. The letters
show how very closely the narratives, and the rhetoric, of conversion and conquest
were intertwined, and how, in fact, the projects of spiritual dominion and material
gain were seen as mutually dependent. The elimination of the French would “leave
us more free to implant the Gospel in these parts,” Menendez de Aviles explained in
a letter to Phillip II written in 1565. It would enable him “to enlighten the natives,
and bring them to allegiance to Your Majesty.” “Forasmuch as this land is very large,”
he went on, “there will be much to do these fifty years”; with the proper support and
supplies, though, “I hope in Our Lord that He will give me success in everything,
that I and my descendants may give these Kingdoms to Your Majesty free and unob-
structed, and that the people thereof may become Christians.” “Being master of
Florida,” Menendez de Aviles reminded his king, “you will secure the Indies and the
navigation thereto.” “I assure Your Majesty that henceforth you can sustain Florida
at very little cost,” he added, and “it will yield Your Majesty much money, and will be
worth more to Spain than New Spain or even Peru.” All he asked or rather prayed for
at this juncture was “to be provided with great diligence,” since he and his fellow
settlers were enduring “very great hunger” and, without immediate help, many
would “pass away from this world from starvation.”
Writing to “a Jesuit friend” in 1565 in a very similar vein, Menendez de Aviles told
terrible tales of Native American idolatry. “The ceremonies of these people consist in
great measure in adoring the sun and moon,” he tells his correspondent, “and the
dead deer and other animals they hold as idols.” Many of the natives had, however,
“begged” him “to let them become Christians”; “and I have replied,” he said, “that
I am expecting your worships.” “It has done the greatest harm,” he warned, “that
none of your worships, nor any other learned religious” had “come to instruct these
people” since they were “great traitors and liars” and desperately needed “the preach-
ing of the Holy Gospel.” And to press his point home, Menendez de Aviles even
resorted to prayer. “May Our Lord inspire the Good Society of Jesus to send to these
parts as many as six of its members,” he implored, “ – may they be such – for they
will certainly reap the greatest reward.” Menendez de Aviles was clearly hoping that
an investment of priests by the Society of Jesus would be the first investment in a
series that would allow his settlement to prosper. To encourage this, he was not
averse to suggesting that the return on such an investment would not just be a
spiritual one: the Jesuits, he intimated, would reap souls if they came over as mis-
sionaries, but also a more tangible harvest. It was the same readiness to associate
spiritual and material conquest that had led Fray Marcos de Niza to use the sign ofGGray_c01.indd 18ray_c 01 .indd 18 8 8/1/2011 7:54:54 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 54 AM