Translation:Letter from the Timucua chiefs to the King of Spain - January 28, 1688 (Spanish version)
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To the King our Lord.
Always have we been vassals of Your Majesty, but now we are so with great reason and with a full heart, and thus we wish to speak.
Your Majesty has sent many governors, but we have not seen anyone like Don Diego. Others who have been governors are here, but like this we have not seen anyone, and for this reason we give Your Majesty thanks. We have been helped, the caciques and poor vassals of Your Majesty, with clothes, for which we are very grateful; may God bless Your Majesty. And if the lord governors who have come here had been like him, now we would have been greater Christians and there would be even more Christians. His Grace has labored much for our good during the very bad times, and by this has visited all the places of the Christians and the heathens, such as Basisa had been, and has given us much consolation; and in all this labor has never missed hearing Mass, and thus we say he is a holy man. He has charged us greatly that we give reverence to the priests that are to assist us, like His Grace has done in front of us. We beseech Your Majesty that he continue to serve for many years, this Lord Governor who is here, because he seeks goodness for us, counseling us like a good Christian that we hear Mass and listen well to what the religious teach us. We return to beseech Your Majesty to keep for us the Lord Don Diego our Governor for our consolation. May our Lord in all give Your Majesty all joy and health, as these poor vassals here desire. Written in San Mateo in the month of January, the twenty-eighth, of the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight. Written and signed by the caciques who find ourselves present.
Don Francisco, cacique of San Matheo.
Don Pedro, cacique of San Pedro.
Don Bentura, cacique of Asile.
Don Diego, cacique of Machaua.
Gregorio, cacique of San Juan de Guacara.
Francisco Martinez, resident minister in San Matheo.
I certify, as the friar Francisco de Rojas, religious father of the order of our seraphic father St. Francis, son of this holy Province of Santa Elena de la Florida, interpreter of the Timucuan language in this city of San Augustín, and minister of the residents that attend in the said language in the said city, that I translated this letter from the Timucuan language into our Spanish language, and have faithfully translated it per the petition of the Lord Governor and Captain-General Don Diego de Quiroga y Lozada. And in truth, I sign this in this Convent of San Augustín de la Florida, on the sixteenth of February of the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight.
Father Francisco de Rojas.
It agrees with the translated letter that remains in my power that was referred to me, and for the record of the order of His Grace the Lord Governor and Captain-General, I give the present in San Augustín de la Florida on the twenty-first day of the month of February of the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight. It is written on a sheet of plain paper as the stamped kind does not circulate here, and in witness thereof:
I place my signature ✕ in witness to the truth.
Alonsso Solana
Notary for the Public and Government