“When Juan de Grijalva saw that staying [on the island] longer would be a waste of our time, he gave orders to board and sail. The Indian woman accompanied us. We continued our voyage, along the course we had followed under Francisco de Hernandez. In eight days we hove in sight of Champoton, the scene of our defeat at the hands of the Indians. The tide runs out far in that bay, so we anchored three miles out. Half of our soldiers went ashore in the boats near the town.

“Just as when they killed fifty-six or more of our men and wounded the rest of us, as I earlier related, the Indians of the town and countryside gathered. They were armed as usual: bows and arrows, lances great and small, shields, swords and two-handed swords, and slings and stones. They wore cotton armor, and beat drums and blared trumpets. Most of them had painted their faces black, but some had colored themselves red and white. Confident after their victory the previous year, they were drawn up on shore ready to oppose our landing. Experienced now, we brought with us small canon and a good many crossbows and muskets to fire from the boats.

“As we neared the shore they shot arrows and hurled lances* at us with such force, that although we hurt them terribly with our cannon, so many missiles rained down on us that half of our men were wounded before we got to shore. Once we formed up on land we beat them back with effective sword-work and a steady crossbow fire.** They continued to launch a steady flight of arrows. But, as we wore cotton armor this time we were not so badly hurt.***

“The skirmish took place in some fields inhabited by many small locusts that jumped up and flew into our faces as we fought. The Indian archers were so many that the arrows fell as thick as hail. Sometimes we mistook the arrows for a buzzing locust and neglected our shield work and were struck and hurt. What was worse, was when we mistook the locusts for arrows and guarded ourselves unnecessarily, hampering our deployment.

“The attack continued for a good while until we drove them back into a swamp beneath the town. We lost seven soldiers, among them Juan de Quiteria, an important man. Our Captain Juan de Grijalva took three arrow wounds and had two of his teeth broken. Over sixty of our number were wounded.

“Seeing our enemy flee, we entered the town on their heels, tended our wounded and buried our dead. The town was deserted and we found not a soul. Those who had fled to the swamp were likewise gone. In the skirmish we took three prisoners, one being a man of importance. Grijalva sent them off to summon the Cacique of the town, making it clear through our interpreters Julian and Melchior that we had pardoned them for their attack. As a peace offering he gave them green beads to take to their Cacique. They departed but never returned. After this we decided that our interpreters had told them the opposite of what we wished t convey. We stayed in the town for three days.”

*These would be atlatls, light javelins hurled with the aid of a throwing stick.

**Over 20 years later, while Sotos’ massive expedition was being outfitted at his own expense, the crossbow remained more highly regarded than the musket in a fight against Indians.

***Mail permitted minor wounding by primitive arrows and weighed more than the quilted cotton, which essentially acted like a Kevlar vest against primitively tipped arrows, and would be ideal against sling stones.