Gerónimo de Aguilar

Jerónimo de Aguilar O.F.M. (1489–1531) was a Franciscan friar born in Écija, Spain. Aguilar was later involved with the 1519 Spanish conquest of Mexico, and with La Malinche he assisted Hernán Cortés in translating the indigenous language to Spanish.

Aguilar wound up at the colony of Santa María la Antigua del Darién, founded in Panama in 1510. Due to ongoing disputes and divisions among the leaders of the colony, in 1511 Aguilar left Panama on a caravel sailing to Santo Domingo. He took with him legal documents for a case against the other faction of the colony, as well as a large sum of gold for the proceedings. The ship sailed with a complement of sixteen men and two women. They were shipwrecked near the Yucatán Peninsula due to hitting a sand bar. The crew and passengers got into a small boat, hoping to reach Cuba or Jamaica, but strong currents brought them in their ship's boat to the coast of the modern-day Mexican state of Quintana Roo.

Aguilar and 11-12 other survivors were captured by the local Maya and scheduled to be sacrificed to Maya gods. Valdivia and four others met this fate. Others died of disease and, in the case of the women, overwork as slaves. Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero (a sailor from Palos de la Frontera in Spain) managed to escape, later to be taken as slaves by another Mayan chief named Xamanzana who was hostile to the first tribe. Here he and Guerrero were able to learn the language of their captors. Aguilar lived as a slave during his eight years with the Maya. His continued fidelity to his religious vows led him to refuse the offers of women made to him by the chief. Guerrero became a war chief for Nachan Kaan, Lord of Chektumal, married a rich Maya woman and fathered the first mestizo children of Mexico.

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