America’s Earliest Martyrs for Marriage to be Beatified

In the late sixteenth century, indigenous Guale Indians murdered five Franciscan friars in missions along the Georgia coast. It’s fair to call them the first martyrs for marriage on American soil, yet very few Catholics have ever heard of them. That changed yesterday morning, when the Vatican announced approval of the decree of martyrdom. Henceforth, they are to be called “Venerables.” The rite of beatification will be celebrated by Bishop Stephen Parkes in the Diocese of Savannah, with details to be announced. These martyrs died defending the sanctity of marriage, which makes their stories even more prescient for our own time.

Centuries before the familiar adobe missions formed along California’s coast, Catholic missionaries sailed to La Florida, a Spanish colony that included present-day Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. Beginning in 1595, Franciscan friars were stationed in the Guale people’s territory, an area of marshland between the Ogeechee and Altamaha Rivers.

Friar Pedro de Corpa, known for his fluency in the local language, was assigned to Guale headquarters in Tolomato, near present-day Darien, Georgia. Two friars journeyed to a barrier island called St. Catherines—Friar Miguel de Añon, known for his captivating singing voice, and Friar Antonio de Badajoz, a lay brother. Friar Blas Rodríguez headed up the mission in Tupiqui, and Friar Francisco de Veráscola, a young athletic friar from a prominent Spanish family, built a primitive chapel on Asao.

For nearly three years, priests and natives lived in harmony. Archaeology professor John Worth likens the Franciscans to Peace Corps volunteers rather than conquerors. Indeed, archeological evidence unearthed by anthropologist David Hurst Thomas, who led three decades of research on St. Catherines for the American Museum of Natural History, paints a rich, nuanced portrait of symbiosis. Friars learned the Guale language, and the Guale studied Spanish. The Guale engaged in rigorous trade, exporting maize for international luxury goods. Priests embraced local dietary preferences. Indeed, they may have adapted their lives more to Guale traditions than the other way around. Guale culture and Christian practices intermingled. Guale masks adorned the mission, and Guale council houses bore a cross.

But the friars drew the line at compromising the doctrines of the Catholic faith, specifically teachings on marriage and monogamy. This led to an uprising known as “Juanillo’s Revolt” in September 1597. According to The Martyrs of Florida, the 1619 primary account adopted by most scholars, Juanillo, a baptized convert and heir apparent to the Guale chief, approached Fr. Corpa for permission to take a second wife. In Guale culture, wives held most of the wealth, thereby influencing succession. Angry at the friar’s refusal, Juanillo ordered his recruits to strike Fr. Corpa with a wooden club called a macana and display his head on a stake. Fr. Añon and Badajoz refused to abandon their mission even as the news of their brother’s death spread. A few days later, after celebrating Mass and praying for four hours, they too were clubbed to death. The war party proceeded to Tupiqui where they murdered Fr. Rodríguez after he said Mass. Fr. Veráscola, last to die, was killed as he exited his canoe upon returning from St. Augustine with supplies. 

These five friars became known as the Georgia Martyrs. Their cause for beatification opened in 1984, with the Diocese of Savannah, which encompasses Guale territory, submitting the application to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in 2007. After the Vatican’s historical and theological committees approved the cause, it made its way to the cardinals, culminating in the Holy Father’s formal declaration of martyrdom this week. 

In 2011, Professor J. Michael Francis of the University of South Florida posed a different rendering of history, suggesting the friars may have been caught up a power struggle between Juanillo and a rival, Don Domingo. He claimed that this explained several odd details, like why the Guale’s own council house in Tolomato been burned along with missions and friaries, and why a sixth friar, Francisco de Ávila, who had been captured and tortured, refused to testify. In the aftermath, Domingo emerged as the new Guale leader, having made a deal with the governor of La Florida, Gonzalo Mendez de Canco. He apologized for the Guale and obtained permission to kill Juanillo. Trade resumed and the missions were reestablished. Francis concedes, however, that nothing in his research contradicts the claim that the friars died defending holy matrimony. Indeed, his evidence shows that five Guale boys, one an eyewitness, testified that the priests had attempted to limit polygamy.  

Last year, on September 14, I joined a pilgrimage to Guale territory. On that day, 427 years before, Fr. Corpa had given his life defending the sanctity of marriage. This resonated with me because over two decades ago, I spent years in court defending my own marriage vows after my husband filed for divorce. “Nobody does that anymore,” my attorney said. But over time, I learned of others in a similar position, many of them Catholics. The cause of the Georgia Martyrs had lived on. 

After Mass, we drove to the Nativity of Our Lady Church, near what is believed to have been Guale headquarters and one of the mission sites. Inside, we watched the premiere of Dr. Thomas’s documentary about St. Catherines, where twelve palms line the perimeter of the buried mission, believed to be the oldest church in the U.S. (It’s currently inaccessible due to erosion.) Outside the chapel, the martyrs are honored with a bronze sculpture of the friars set against a large palm frond. During our final stop at Fort King George State Park, rangers taught us about Guale culture. I held a replica of a macana, the weapon used to kill Fr. Corpa. It was deceptively light. The pain must have been enormous. I thought of Isaiah 53:7: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”

Fr. Corpa and his companions laid themselves down as lambs before the sanctity of marriage. May they intercede for us now.

Image in the public domain.