The Spaniards thought they explored an island, and did not know that they were exploring a peninsula of greater mass than the larger islands upon which they were based. Over the following series of engagements note that the natives use interior lines—much as Lee and Jackson did to quickly concentrate forces against invading armies in the American Civil War—which, while not a surprise to men who have conquered islands, was accomplished with much larger forces than would be expected of islanders.
“A little beyond the place where they attacked us was a small square with three houses built of masonry, which served as cues or prayer-houses.* These contained many idols of baked clay, some with demons’ faces, some with women’s, and others equally ugly which seemed to represent Indians committing sodomy with one another. Inside the houses were some small wooden chests containing other idols and some disks made partly of gold but manly of copper, also some pendants, three diadems, and other small objects in the shape of fishes and of the local ducks, all made of poor-quality gold. When we saw the gold and the masonry houses we were very pleased to have found such a country. For Peru had not yet been discovered, nor was it to be discovered for another twenty years.
“Whilst we were fighting the Indians, the priest Gonzalez** took possession of the chests, the idols, and the gold, and carried them to the ship. In this skirmish we captured two Indians, who when they were afterwards baptized received the names of Julian and Melchior. Both were cross-eyed.*** Once this surprise attack was over we returned to our ships and after attending to the wounded set sail along the coast in a westerly direction.”
"Believing this to be an island, as our pilot assured us it was, we went forward very cautiously, sailing by day and anchoring at night. And after fifteen days we sighted what appeared to be a large town beside a great inlet or bay. Here we thought there might be a river or stream at which we could take water, of which we were very short, since the casks and other vessels we had bought were not watertight.**** The reason for this was that we were too poor to buy good ones. The day of our landing was St. Lazarus' Sunday, and so we called the place Lazaro, by which name it is still marked on charts. The proper Indian name for it is Campeche."
*It was a common strategy of Native Americans who resisted alien invaders to offer combat near a sacred precinct.
**Consider the nature of the priest’s raid; is he seeking to eradicate native beliefs by seizing sacred relics? In any case, Gonzales seems to have had some balls. Also, it is very unlikely that he did this by himself. If soldiers had been assigned to help this would have been noted. Therefore this reader suspects the good padre was attended by one or more slaves. There does remain the possibility that, being the only free hand not involved in combat, he made himself useful as a pillager.
***What are the odds that two cross-eyed Mayans happened to be the only captives of this brief skirmish? This fight took place deliberately next to a holy precinct. The Mayan upper class of an earlier period are known to have deformed the foreheads of children in infancy by strapping boards to the head. Perhaps these men were either selected for holy duties due to their cross-eyed nature, or were optically deformed through the use of a focus bead in infancy for some sacred purpose?
****Governor Velazquez sounds more like the Don King of Colonial Cuba with every mention of the expedition's logistics. They basically bought everything from him, or borrowed money from him to buy it from one of his cronies.
