Venerable Servants of God Pedro de Corpa and Companions

• The result of Governor Méndez’s investigation, the document "Report concerning the murders of the friars in Guale territory, and the execution of Lucas, an Indian who was present at one of the murders." St. Augustine, July 1598"/Proceso sobre Ia muerte de Ios religiosos en Ia provincia de Guale y sentencia pronunciada contra Lucas, indio, San Agustin, júlio de 1598 (AGI, Patronato, 19).

  Edited and integrally published in Missionalia Hispanica, 1955, Num. 35, pp. 327-40, it is part of the documentary appendix to the study "Mártires Franciscanos de Georgia," by Ignacio Omaechevarría, O.F.M., which appeared in the preceding number of the same review, Num. 34, pp. 5-93. The same proceso or información de oficio – with a number of variations, some significant but most merely orthographic – is also found in Vol. II of Óre's Relación Historica de La Florida, pp. 13-23, edited by Atanasio López, O.F.M. (Madrid, 1933). In that edition the depository of the document is indicated as AIS, Patronato, 1-1-1/19.

• An epic poem, La Florida, by Fray Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo.

  Not brought to modern attention until 1927, the poem “La Florida” was written just before the death of its author, Friar Alonso de Escobedo. Escobedo, a short-term Franciscan missionary and contemporary of the martyrs, was interested in the story of his order’s work in Spanish Florida. With that passion, he produced an astounding 20,000 lined Ottava Rima poem in iambic pentameter. The poem is split into three parts, beginning with the little-chronicled life of San Diego de Puerto (St. Didacus of Alcalá), then relating Fray Escobedo’s short missionary experience in Spanish Florida, and chronicling the history of the colony’s struggle, starting with the 1565 founding of St. Augustine, and the Christian evangelization of Spain’s holdings in the region (Mexico, Havana, etc.).

  Over forty-eight pages (twenty-four folios) in the poem’s middle section, Escobedo recounts the ministry and deaths of “Fr. Veráscola of Vizcaya…Fr. Añón of Aragón, and Fr. Corpa and Fr. Fray Antonio, both of Castile” (“…El primero fue el Padre Veráscola, vizcaíno, y el Padre Añón, aragonés, y el Padre de Corpa y el Padre Fray Antonio, castellanos”). Their accounts seem to be arranged in order of personal connection with Escobedo. Friars Miguel and Francisco may have been personally known and more recently acquainted with Escobedo, whereas Friars Pedro and Antonio had been in Spanish Florida since 1587 and were further removed from author’s sphere. Additionally, Friar Blas's death narrative is completely omitted from the story, causing historians to speculate that either Escobedo did not know him, or did not count him a martyr because he was not “resigned” to death like a “good saint” (he begged for his life). Details of the martyrdom may have been gathered from information “known” at the time (gossip), which is slightly romanticized. Interestingly enough, in his account of the conflict, blame is not attached to a specific party (neither Friar Pedro nor don Juanillo). It has been suggested that, as an historian, Escobedo writes in detail about aspects of the time (like Indian culture, the land, etc.), and while he tells a good story, he omits important context such as names or dates and inverts timelines, creating an incomplete history.

  For purposes of understanding (and telling) this story, we need to treat the poem as history with artistic license.

  Though never published in its entirety, considerable excerpts of the work may be found in various publications, of which the following are especially to be noted:

  a) the re-edition of Óre's Relación, published under the title Relación Historica de La Florida Escrita en el Siglo XVII, by Atanasio López, O.F.M. (Madrid, Vol. I, I 931, pp. 26-35).

  b) "Estado de la Orden Franciscana y sus Misiones," by José Pou y Martí, O.F.M. (AIA, tomo 27 (1927), pp. 38-92, passim).

  c) Experiencia Misionera en La Florida, by Gregory Joseph Keegan, M.M., and Leandro Torma Sanz (Madrid, 1957), passim throughout the volume.

  d) Sangre Vizcaína en los Pantanos de La Florida, by Ignacio Omaechevarría, O.F.M. (Vitoria, Spain, 1948), passim throughout the volume.

  A partial prose-translation of this work into English was published under the title: Pirates, Indians and Spaniards: Father Escobedo's La Florida, by James W. Covington and A F. Falcones (St. Petersburg, Fl., 1963). The section treating the martyrdom is to be found on pages 27 to 34.

• A third contemporary source shedding light on our Franciscan martyrs is Friar Luis Jerónimo de Oré’s Account of the Martyrs in the Provinces of La Florida (Relación de los mártires de ha habido de las Provincias de La Florida), which was published around 1619 and translated into English in 1936.

  Oré was a Peruvian-born Franciscan and active missionary in the Americas. It was during his 1614 and 1616 trips to Spanish Florida (as delegate of the Franciscan Minister-General) that he collected firsthand accounts of the martyrs’ story. A gifted linguist, he had already published works that included a translation of a manual on sacramental administration from Spanish to Quechua and Aymara (Native languages) and had written a full biography on the life and miracles of Spanish Franciscan missionary, Friar Francisco Solano (St. Francis Solano, OFM, 1549-1610) who was canonized in 1726.

  Oré combined accounts of the Franciscans ministering in Guale territory along with the lost narrative of Friar Francisco de Ávila’s kidnapping into his Relación. The work attempted to offer a comprehensive history of Spanish Florida, beginning with the arrival of Juan Ponce de León in 1513 and finishing with the 1616 General Chapter of the newly-established Franciscan province in Florida (which Oré was sent to oversee). Chapters 7 and 8 give an account of the Franciscan deaths at Tolomato, Tupiquí, Guale, the captivity narrative of Friar Francisco de Ávila, and an account of Friar Francisco de Veráscola’s death. Each of the Franciscans’ histories and personalities are described in some detail. Oré also offers a narrative with a linear timeline. Though he indicates that the Spanish-Guale confrontation was sparked by a Franciscan opposing native marriage practices, he neither names the Franciscan, nor the cacique involved in the conflict. The translator’s 20th century footnotes claim it was Friar Pedro de Corpa and don Juanillo of Tolomato who were engaged in the dispute. This narrative balances out our information on the events of 1597, but has to be read in conjunction with other sources to construct a more complete history.

  This work was published in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the date of the original edition assigned by authorities varying from 1604 to 1620. No copies of the first edition are known to exist. A modern re-edition, with an extensive prologue and notes was published by Atanasio López, O.F.M., under the title Relación Histórica de La Florida escrita en el Siglo XVII por el P. Fr. Jerónimo de Óre (Madrid, Vol. I, 1931; Vol. II, 1933).

  In the López edition, the account of the martyrdom of the five friars is found on pages 86 to 93 and page 103 of Vol. I, with one document illustrating the event in Vol. II, pp. 13-23. A partial translation into English, embodying only the section relating to the Revolt and Martyrdom, with extensive notes, a biographical study of the author and bibliographical comments referring to the work itself, was edited by Maynard Geiger, O.F.M., and published as No. 18 of the "Franciscan Studies" series under the title The Martyrs of Florida (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1936)."