Was Jamestown almost Spanish?

In 1561, the Spanish ship Santa Catalina captained by Antonio Velázquez, was blown off course near the South Carolina coast.  The winds then drove the vessel several hundred miles north.  The ship entered Chesapeake Bay.  The captain convinced, or more likely, seized two native Americans for display back in Spain, and potentially future translators.

One of the captured Virginia natives was Paquiquino, the 17-year old son of the local native leader.  He was brought to Spain and appeared before King Philip II.  He impressed the King and obtained permission to accompany a Catholic mission back to the Chesapeake region of Virginia.

Paquiquino had been converted to Christianity and claimed to want to spread the faith in America. He was baptised "Don Luís de Velasco".

Soon after the ship that brought them from Havana departed, Don Luís left the Jesuits, supposedly to locate his uncle and seek supplies for the mission. He didn’t return, and the Jesuits eventually realize that they had probably been abandoned.   The Jesuits struggled to survive.

Five months later the Indians wiped out the friars’ outpost except for a boy who escaped to tell the story. The Jesuits never returned to Ajacan; they moved their mission to Mexico.

Plymouth First Native Contact - a Request for a Glass of Beer

In the early days of spring, on March 1621, the Pilgrim men were gathered in the common house when the cry went up, "Indian coming!"  An Indian walked toward them, asking for a glass of beer! In English!  His name was Samoset, a Maine Indian visiting Massachusetts.  He had previous contact with English fisherman and had learned English.

You can imagine the shock of the Pilgrims.  Governor Bradford describes the event:

“But about the 16th of March a certain Indian came boldly amongst them and spoke to them in broken English, which they could well understand but marveled at it. 

“He was a tall straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind, only short before, none on his face at all; he asked some beer, but we gave him strong water and biscuit, and butter, and cheese, and pudding, and a piece of mallard, all which he liked well, and had been acquainted with such amongst the English.

He was a man free in speech, so far as he could express his mind, and of a seemly carriage.  We questioned him of many things; he was the first savage we could meet withal".

Samoset also brought the well known Squanto to the Pilgrims, a few days later.  Squanto, a captive previous living in Europe, spoke fluent English.  It would be Squanto who would ensure the survival of the small colony, teaching the English how to grow crops  such as corn in the New World.